Friday 2010-06-17 Dev. update and Discussion Thread

[AdMan]

any 3d object can "bend", water, cloth, hair. etc are 3d objects just like any other model but other than props and major damage there aren't many parts on a aircraft that would bend to the extent that would be worth using physics on. Small dents and dings can be modeled using normal maps. Bullet holes, for example, probably contain a normal map (to lazy to look right now).

Major damage would/should of course be modeled from polys and should also be physics based

[imaca]

Originally Posted by Foo'bar

Remember the antennas of the armored vehicles Oleg has shown us recently. They bend actually.

Yep, but thats actually a reasonably simple calculation. It's not the same thing as actually calculating what happens to metal part which has some force applied to it until it is permanently deformed. This is done in engineering using FEA (finite element analysis). Even a relatively simple part with a single force applied cannot be done in real time.
A propeller turning and having repeated dynamic forces applied to it as it turns and hits the ground is something I would imagine taking hours if not days to calculate with any realism.

Originally Posted by philip.ed

Doesn't RoF incorporate some bending features....?

There is no way the bending is calculated in real time.
I would guess there are a number of pre-defined deformed models which are selected based on the speed and angle of collision.