I was thinking that the effects for explosions look a little… bland at the moment. They’re pretty much just oversized sparks. Now this looks fine for grenade explosions, but it’s unrealistic for explosive barrels etc. I think it would look much better if for the explosive barrels, satchel packs and rocket explosions (basically any oily sort of explosions) there was a fireball, like in the original Half-Life. Grenades and tripmines could keep the default Half-Life 2 style explosions because they spray shrapnel everywhere.
There’s just one flaw here. Satchel and RPG explosions have nothing to do with oil. Instead they use high explosives, just like grenades and trip mines. 
Well, the MK II grenades and tripmines mainly use shrapnel to do damage. I couldn’t really think of a better word for the explosions from satchel and rockets, but when they explode in real life they make fireballs.
Just had a thought, dunno how, but somehow I think gibbing would look so much better with this sort of explosion as well.
Another thing, do explosions in HL2 make flashes of light? If not then it would be good to add it in.
They do, and it looks amazing.
No, they don’t.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdbcacasmU8
In fact, the grenades and rockets and satchels in Half-Life and Half-Life 2 seemed quite a bit more powerful than conventional grenades, albeit without realistic shrapnel effects. That’s to be expected though, it’s a game.
The explosions should be violent, messy, bright, loud, and fiery, if only for the purpose of our amusement at blowing things to little giblits.
I am waiting for the day that soft body physics start making bigger appearances in games. That is when guns and explosions become truly disgusting.
nothing is disgusting about videogame gore. In fact it’s quite beautyfull to see realistic gore so you can enjoy almost real life gore without needing to kill/dig up people from the grave.
That is a Hollywood effect achieved by spraying gasoline in aerosol form into the air, then creating a spark to make a huge fireball. Unrealistic, but a whole lot more cinematic.
+1, its got nothing to do with whether or not there is literally oil in whatevers exploding. More smoke & fire please.
Gah, I can’t stand realistic gore. I can stand game gore, cheesy movie gore, but when it starts getting uber realstic/parts of the body are actually cut off with realistic blood and gore, I can’t watch. :fffuuu:
If game gore ever gets to the point when it’s completely anatomically correct and looks like real life, I’ll stop playing games with gibs. (Of course, we probably don’t have to worry about that, because if they got that realistic, the games would have characters with uncanny valley)
To quote Ramintor’s avatar: She’s just a body - Bones and Meat
I didn’t mean the grenades make fireballs, I meant rockets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNHFe5Xqn-Y
I was saying that grenades should have the old explosion effects and rockets should have a fireball.
Crazy question: you realize RPG stands for Rocket Propelled Grenade, right?
What I’ve noticed is that a lot of people that play video games assume it means Role-Playing Game.
It’s the reverse for me, I was always confused as to why Final Fantasy players seemed to think their game was a rocket launcher.
I learnt Role Playing Game first, then I saw RPG launcher and thought, it can’t be role-playing game, it must be something else. This was when I was 8 years of age.
On topic: I think the HL2 explosive effect is good enough for Black Mesa, in HL1 it was like mini 10t bomb-explosions (Atleast it wasn’t the ridiculous 10 seconds of explosion waving infront of your face like in goldeneye)
The only explosives in Half_life that would make fireballs are satchels and the MK3A2 grenades in HL2 since those are filled with TNT or C4, not small amounts of explosive for a shrapnel or directed plasma jets for taking out tanks. Not that they probably would form a fireball since the gasses from the explosion aren’t made of gasoline aerosols as Gato said.
Most of the things we have seen are Alpha remember?
I wouldn’t describe the explosion effects from HL2 as “alpha.”
I think you guys hit explosion effects on the nose. I’d say keep 'em as is.