Walking through a door is pretty simple on a physical set, but in terms of game development, it’s a big struggle. Kurt Margenau, the co-star director on The Last of Us Part 2, and upcoming indie game DeathTrashStephan Hövelbrinks discussed the issue on Twitter, and it seems that when a game developer opens a door, it gives everyone in the team a big headache.
The conversation started when Hövelbrinks tweeted a screenshot of a Discord message who read, in part: “Doors are complicated to have in games and have all sorts of possible flaws. Mostly because they are a dynamic funnel and get in the way, potentially closed, potentially destructible, but generally because they potentially sit between any game interaction or character to character situation from here to there. ”
In short, if you want to go from point A to point B, it’s easy enough, but if you throw in a door, it adds all sorts of variables in development. Nor is it just an indie game development problem; Hövelbrinks notes that the Assassin’s Creed franchise is short on doors.
This inspired Margenau to start on Twitter, where he wrote: “Do not know what everyone is talking about. We added doors in a fight TLOU2, took like a day. I just need to have good talent … LOL JK THIS WAS THE THING THAT HAS THE LONGEST TO BE RIGHT WHAT WE THINK[…]”
The subsequent Twitter thread is a fascinating look at something that very few players have probably thought of. “We knew that doors in a sneaky scenario would add some authorship to the space and provide more opportunities to escape situations,” Margenau wrote, noting that through the face of an enemy block and allow the player to drop enemies.
We knew that doors in a sneaky scenario would add some authorship to the space and provide more opportunities to escape situations. They block LOOSE and slow down enemies. This was in line with the desire for the player to recover the stealth more frequently.
– Kurt Margenau (@kurtmargenau) March 9, 2021
The team had to figure out how it would work animatedly. Margenau notes that players must open and close the doors, and they can do so as they run away from enemies, jump to a goal, or quietly sneak through an unfamiliar area. Naughty Dog has finally come up with a new physics object that can be both be pushed by the player, but also pushed back.
“In combat tension, the doors will slowly close automatically,” Margenau explains. ‘This is the player who benefits the most, as the door of the player’s door slows down very little, we do not even take control away, but it blocks AI more effectively. In tension that is not against the fights, the doors remain open so you can see where you have investigated without closing again. ”
In tension that is not against the fighting, the doors remain open so you can see where you investigated without locking again. Oh, and they are based on physics, so they fall behind you when they are violently opened, ie jump through them.
– Kurt Margenau (@kurtmargenau) March 9, 2021
Neil Uchitel, sound engineer at Naughty Dog, saved with its own input. “Making doors sound good is also a big challenge: to take into account: dynamic portal formation, mixing of physical and animation, tension and animation conditions, different sounds per mesh type, and make it sound good in each case . ”
The last of us Part 2 is technically impressive, with many striking details such as realistic rope physics. But while players sit up and pay attention to the realistic twisting and sinking ropes, we may have taken doors for granted. Today’s tweets were a reminder that it’s actually a big pain to implement, whether a studio is big or small.