I'm planning out my Zombie Survival Horror FPSRPG. There are a bazillion Zombie games, so I asked myself what really makes a good one? I've concluded that its fun to tear them apart. Every good Zombie shooter I've played lets you blast zombies to bits: House of the Dead, Left 4 Dead, etc. So I'm researching for methods used to achieve this effect such as the GHOUL Engine.

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My goal is devise a zombie destruction system that lets you target and damage certain body parts, with specific consequence. I'm also considering using more substantial hand-combat destruction like in Manhunt. Even the environment should be destructible. I'm interested in any and all ideas to dismember, decapitate, burn, freeze, shred, slice and dice Zombies. Please share.

I'll chime in and say that I found Dead Space's take on this to be refreshing, although a bit artificial.

In case you haven't played it, basically, trying to kill anything without cutting its limbs off used up way more ammo. Cutting limbs off would remove natural weapons like claws or bone barb launchers, and if you removed enough limbs, the zombie dies.

My only complaint about it was that it felt artificial in that I could cut off both legs of one enemy, and he'd drag himself over to me to keep attacking. The next one would die after one leg was cut off. I always pictured it as you had to neutralize the zombie before it would stop attacking (i.e. remove all means of it getting to you and/or attacking).

Perhaps make it so that the only way to kill your zombies is to remove all their arms and legs? That would be pretty tedious, so perhaps add in random limb dismemberment as well when they zombie gets shot at all (doubly so for explosives). Just imagine you did enough damage for it to start falling apart.

Telgin, thanks for chiming in. I did a little reading on Dead Space's "strategic dismemberment", and it does follow along the same lines of being able to target and damage certain body parts, with specific consequence. The unique twist is Necromorphs adopting new stances and tactics, even sprouting new limbs or giving birth to new enemies after damage.

After reviewing several Mortal Kombat 9's X-Ray Attack vids, I've come up with an idea that could possibly use a Fracture system on creatures that consist of multiple mesh layers {exterior/muscle, bone, and organs} to achieve randomized GHOUL-like fragmentation for each layer. I call the process Frag-memberment, hehe.

I would prefer to Fracture the mesh layers in real-time on demand only effecting the area of impact. So to pull it off I would have to use every graphical optimization trick (geometry occlusion, geometry swapping/LOD, normal maps, shaders) in the book. I also have to take in consideration for modular/layer entity construction, animation, and physics (rag-dolls).

I can easily visualize using CSG operations with more complex shapes to achieve Frag-memberment. CSG Boolean Union operation could be used to add shapes to mesh layers. This could be useful for Tumors, protruding shards, etc.

@UP

Look into Dead Island (Coming out this year). It claims to have a dynamic damage system, where the player is shown damage done on the zombie depending on a bazyllion things like angle, power etc. Or so they claim. I can't say it impressed me much (As a non-programist I can't appreciate the number or lines behind such a feat) but maybe it's something that you would like to get into.

Linky - http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2010/gdc2010_vlachos_l4d2wounds.pdf

@ Zetharieal, Dynamic damage is what I'm looking to achieve. My game features sci-fi weapons so applying freezing, dissolving, burning damage to specific areas is also desired. Per the Dead Island Wiki "The zombies have fully-modelled layers of meat and muscle rendered onto their bodies, meaning they have a multi-layered damage system with real-time injuries." which is exactly what I describe with Frag-memberment. However, in my game some Zombie monsters are non-humanoid, so I'm looking towards procedural generation of multiple mesh layers {exterior/muscle, bone, and organs} , perhaps even monster assembly all together.

@Hodgman, Thank you for the link. I was very interested in Valve's L4D/L4D2 approach. However, after reviewing their technique in more detail, I would prefer more options in the Zombie destruction, something closer to the GHOUL System.

It doesn't have to be only about destruction. I'm also looking at construction methods for the undead. After reviewing this Zombie Chopper ([color="#FF0000"]WARNING: Graphically Disgusting) I've come up with an idea to construct a variety of non-humanoid undead Monstrosities from severed body parts of humans, animals, plants, machines. Lets call them Golems for short. Golems could mimic the shapes of Dragons, Giants, Insects, and other Monsters. They could also have powerful weapons and skills other than bite.

I would prefer pulling off the construction in real-time (in a animated manner) so players can see the parts assemble into monsters. I can visualize some sorta Zombie Resource Supply System taking shape here: Healthy Human --> Zombie --> Zombie Parts --> Golem --> Loot. The Golem System could supply game with plenty of strange monsters to destroy, besides just Zombies.