Durham University use Source Engine for Fire Drills

[Blink]

Came across this interesting post whilst cruising around the BBC News site, reporting that some researchers used Half-Life 2 to mock up their uni and create a fire drill scenario:

Researchers at Durham University have modified a video game and turned it into a fire drill simulator.
The team used The Source Engine, the 3D game engine used to drive Half-Life 2, and created a virtual model of one of the university's departments. Developers plan to use it to examine people's behaviour in a fire and to train people in good fire practice.

You can check out the full article and watch a short video over at the BBC.

[KILLA-COW]

Shitty mapping.

[Noodles]

They've asked me for a portfolio, maybe I'll offer my services

[The Wanderer]

That fire was intentionally lit... 3rd floor stairs there is a fire, 2nd floor stairs there aint and 1st floor stairs again a fire? I'm not buying it.

Also open console and type "sv_cheats 1; noclip", insta win

[zombie@computer]

thats about as usefull as training for your drivers licence in carmageddon...

[Habboi]

Hm gives me an idea for a mod. I shall call it "FIRE DRILL" as you literally get a fire drill weapon to kill zombies with.

[The Wanderer]

However, while the simulation worked for most people, those who played a lot of video games did rather unusual things.

"If a door was on fire, they [gamers] would try and run through it, rather than look for a different exit," said Dr Smith

Gamers response: "What's the big deal, I'll respawn anyhow"

[kraid]

They should give you at least a fire extinguisher as a "weapon" angainst the fire, and right now it's very selfish, you just save yourself. There should be other ppl to rescue as well.
How about rooms with strong smoke in it, where you have to crouch to get through.
A more realistic Fire experience would also help a lot, and the places where the fire will be should be different each time you start the "game".
And ofc. the longer you take to make your way, the more fire will spread. At the end the Whole Ways out of the building will be blocked by fire so you have to get to the windows and watch out for the Fire Brigade to rescue you.
There should also be possibilities like using the elevator (everybody knows don't do that in the case of an emergency) it eventually get's stuck and you have to try to get out again before it's to late.

[Spliter]

I bet that if they tested it with normal students half of them would jump into the fire just for kicks XD

[Jman]

This is a neat idea, it just needs random spawning for the fire, spreading, and smoke spreading that you can actually choke on.

[Dionysos]

Youd have to actually reward the players for surviving though, somehow. And yeah, needs a lot of improvement Wonder if they simulated the physics/chemistry lab with all the flamables.

[1447]

It's a good idea, but in its current state, it's completely useless. This prepares me for a fire the same way Left 4 Dead prepares me for the zombie apocalypse (IE not at all). The player is not required to do anything else than run around and find a way around the flames. If he stands still for 5 hours, the flames would still be in the same place, and the player wouldn't have lost a single HP.

But then again, if someone makes an engine with a realistic fire and smoke spreading system, including environments that can in fact burn up... Well, they ain't gonna use it for a fire drill, that's for sure.

[Majestic XII]

Pff, that's nothing!

We got a smoke diver simulator based on the Source engine on our Uni. You play it in a 360 degree "cave" (aka, monitors all around you) with a hose to aim with and boots you need to "walk" with irl to move forward in the game. I couldn't find any good information about it in english, but this will have to do... it has a picture in it http://www.metro.se/se/article/2007/04/ ... /index.xml

[srredfire]

Pff, that's nothing!

We got a smoke diver simulator based on the Source engine on our Uni. You play it in a 360 degree "cave" (aka, monitors all around you) with a hose to aim with and boots you need to "walk" with irl to move forward in the game. I couldn't find any good information about it in english, but this will have to do... it has a picture in it http://www.metro.se/se/article/2007/04/ ... /index.xml

What in the fuck?

That's so random.

[Generalvivi]

That's awesome.....