Why do special infected have less dismemberent than common infected?

[Dvayne Reaze]

Title says it

[Notorious Jackass]

There isn't any actual reason

[Hiuman]

Good, interesting question. The fandom wiki mentioned this with quote, "Unlike the Common Infected, Special Infected do not lose body parts, even if killed with a chainsaw or a Pipe Bomb. The only exception is the Boomer, which will lose the entire upper part of their body upon death."

They say that without stating any reason. I don't know better either, but if I had to guess, I guess they decided that because they (the game developers) want us to recognize these special infected even after we have them killed. Otherwise I think it's just some arbitrary decision.

Let us know if anyone has a better explanation!

[ARandomIndividual]

this would probably show that the specials are real threats to the survivors maybe?

[.JezMM]

Most likely just a technical challenge. All the common infected have the same body shape so one gore system can be developed and applied to all of them. Since each special infected has a different body shape, they would have to do this process over again for every single one of them, and the game would have to calculate what gore to display in a separate way for each type of special infected - and they'd have to budget for the fact that cheats, servers and game modes can spawn more than the standard 4 special infected at a time, which might have exceeded reasonableness for lower-spec PCs and consoles back when the game came out.

I only have a basic knowledge of game dev, but it was probably something along those lines.

[Raterix]

Originally posted by .JezMM:

Most likely just a technical challenge. All the common infected have the same body shape so one gore system can be developed and applied to all of them. Since each special infected has a different body shape, they would have to do this process over again for every single one of them, and the game would have to calculate what gore to display in a separate way for each type of special infected - and they'd have to budget for the fact that cheats, servers and game modes can spawn more than the standard 4 special infected at a time, which might have exceeded reasonableness for lower-spec PCs and consoles back when the game came out.

I only have a basic knowledge of game dev, but it was probably something along those lines.

No, gibbing is a basic function of the Source Engine. You just had an entire rambling rant about something you're wrong about.
Valve just decided not to.

[Dvayne Reaze]

Originally posted by Hiuman:

Good, interesting question. The fandom wiki mentioned this with quote, "Unlike the Common Infected, Special Infected do not lose body parts, even if killed with a chainsaw or a Pipe Bomb. The only exception is the Boomer, which will lose the entire upper part of their body upon death."

They say that without stating any reason. I don't know better either, but if I had to guess, I guess they decided that because they (the game developers) want us to recognize these special infected even after we have them killed. Otherwise I think it's just some arbitrary decision.

Let us know if anyone has a better explanation!

ok any addon adding more gore to specials?

[Hell-met]

because SI are players.

CI are their own unique entity.

[.JezMM]

Originally posted by Raterix:

Originally posted by .JezMM:

Most likely just a technical challenge. All the common infected have the same body shape so one gore system can be developed and applied to all of them. Since each special infected has a different body shape, they would have to do this process over again for every single one of them, and the game would have to calculate what gore to display in a separate way for each type of special infected - and they'd have to budget for the fact that cheats, servers and game modes can spawn more than the standard 4 special infected at a time, which might have exceeded reasonableness for lower-spec PCs and consoles back when the game came out.

I only have a basic knowledge of game dev, but it was probably something along those lines.

No, gibbing is a basic function of the Source Engine. You just had an entire rambling rant about something you're wrong about.
Valve just decided not to.

If it's that simple, why haven't we seen any mods that add gibbing to the special infected then? Seems like one of the first things people would've done if it can just be applied to anything like you suggest. The impression I got from the developer commentary is that all the gibs required bespoke models for the innards (and I've seen those models when the system has gone wrong - zombies leaving upright floating spinal columns and ribcages etc in mid-air), so each special infected would need those made, and would have to have their models rigged so parts could be removed. My point is simply that applying the gib programming on the common infected to special infected isn't as straightforward as an afternoon's coding. Yeah it could've been done for sure, I'm just suggesting reasons /why/ Valve chose not to.

(Also calm down love, I'm happy to admit when I'm wrong, I included the word "probably" for a reason.)

[Notorious Jackass]

Originally posted by .JezMM:

Most likely just a technical challenge. All the common infected have the same body shape so one gore system can be developed and applied to all of them. Since each special infected has a different body shape, they would have to do this process over again for every single one of them, and the game would have to calculate what gore to display in a separate way for each type of special infected - and they'd have to budget for the fact that cheats, servers and game modes can spawn more than the standard 4 special infected at a time, which might have exceeded reasonableness for lower-spec PCs and consoles back when the game came out.

I only have a basic knowledge of game dev, but it was probably something along those lines.

If Valve was able to make boomer gib then I think it's also possible for them create simple dismemberment/gore for the rest of the special infected. It would be a nice touch if the witch's head were to disappear after crowning it.

[Demo]

Originally posted by Raterix:

Originally posted by .JezMM:

Most likely just a technical challenge. All the common infected have the same body shape so one gore system can be developed and applied to all of them. Since each special infected has a different body shape, they would have to do this process over again for every single one of them, and the game would have to calculate what gore to display in a separate way for each type of special infected - and they'd have to budget for the fact that cheats, servers and game modes can spawn more than the standard 4 special infected at a time, which might have exceeded reasonableness for lower-spec PCs and consoles back when the game came out.

I only have a basic knowledge of game dev, but it was probably something along those lines.

No, gibbing is a basic function of the Source Engine. You just had an entire rambling rant about something you're wrong about.
Valve just decided not to.

The L4D2 common infected use pixel culling to paint pre-determined segments of the model invisible while simultaneously parenting a newly spawned gib model to parent to each corresponding wound at the proper x y and z attachment coordiantes while also spawning a generic, all-purpose model of an ambiguous severed limb in the world.

The Special Infected are typically neither the standard shape nor size of your average common infected, just look at them. Charger has giant arm and is 8 feet tall, smoker's entire face is made out of tumors, jockey has the proportions of a cartoon character.

Because of this you wouldn't be able to easily just slap the common infected wound models onto the special infected because they wouldn't exactly match up seamlessly due to the size/shape discrepancies. So, JezMM was actually accurate with what they were saying.

As far as other source engine games dealing with gibbing it's not necessarily a "basic funtion", it's something that needs to be constructed for whatever they're working on. They typically just toggle premade bodygroups for certain limbs to be missing. That's why in L4D1 there would only be one limb missing at a time from each common, it would read where the damage was dealt, check if it was a weapon that was coded to dismember, then toggle whichever arm/leg to be missing.

As far as other source games doing gibbing, let's refer to HL2 and TF2 real quick.

Half-Life 2 - there's no dismemberment, only scripted spawning of the designated models of the upper and lower half of headcrab zombies when hit by a sawblade or whatever. Combine don't gib, rebels don't gib*.

*except in the coop mod Synergy, in which they do it TF2 style/

Team Fortress 2 - there's decapitations which are done by shrinking the player's head until it's not visible and then spawning a generic head gib of the class in the air. When players are blown up by explosions it just deletes their actual player model and spawns a pre-made set of low poly gib models in their place.

Neither of these games, nor any other source engine game (at the moment) except for possibly Contagion actually utilize L4D2's pixel culling + wound model attachment parenting system. Every other source engine game with gibbing either utilizes bodygroups on the character models themselves to toggle missing limbs, or just replaces blown up characters with a collection of pre-made gib models.

Considering L4D2 only uses their new pixel culling system for gibs instead of the old-fashioned bodygroup method, it would make sense they wouldn't feel like creating entire brand new sets of wound models to parent to the very deviated special infected models at a whole different range of coordinates on each model, for every special infected.