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Rag-doll Physics?


Drivian Taluus

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Has anyone of you seen that HL2 movie from the pressconference on the E3?? OMG, he picks up a body with that gravity gun and then whipes an entire table with crates, barrels etc into an airpool using the the body... It looks sooooo great!

 

JA won't have those physics, but it certainly will be better than JO I hope, especialy for stormtroopers :D I hope the physics can also be applied to the saber!

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The problem is that there is a limit to the combined amount of top-level graphics (bump-maps, vertex lighting, and so on), AI, general physics, as well as whatever ragdoll effects are needed. Doom3 will not have waves of monsters, more like one or two at a time. I suspect HL2 will need to make some similar compromises. There are people here looking for everything (not that I blame them) - next gen graphics, ultimate physics and AI, as well as waves of enemies and everything 'movie-like'.

 

Raven did talk about the 'ragdoll skeletal system', but I'm not sure how that translates into ragdoll physics, and changes to death and hits.

 

Mike

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Raven Shield's ragdoll physics did have some problems -- like the guy bent over backwards, or an enemy's legs would be doing "the splits" as his body stood up straight, even while dead, or a dead enemy would lay in his back with one leg sticking straight up in the air.

All that has been addressed with a patch. :)

 

Now, the simulation Drivian Taluus showed us is of the Havok2 physics system which is being used in Deus Ex 2 and in Max Payne 2.

 

JA's won't be quite that sophisticated, but at the very least we won't have enemies whose bodies are stuck halfway through a wall anymore. That, more than anything else, always destroyed the immersion factor for me, and made me realize, "It's just a game!"

 

But no more! :D

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The weird thing with the simulation is that the body is a little to rigid. It'll try and return to it's original pose, even in bizarre positions. However, even if there are crude RDP in JA, at least we'll have more varied death anims. But how will it work with dismemberment?

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I don't see dismemberment posing any problems. Even on the skeleton simulation, you could remove his limbs! :D We also know that JA will have many more dismemberment locations.

 

Besides, in JK2, your saber would dismember a guy, and then he would begin the death animation.

So I'm guessing the ragdoll might somehow affect the removed limbs as well.

Imagine, if you will:

You run up to a hapless stormtrooper and shear his arm off at the elbow. His forearm flies off, flipping in the air, bouncing and rolling as it impacts, never doing the same thing twice. The stormtrooper might scream and probably pass out, doing a nice, unique ragdoll death.

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Rag-doll phyisics can sometimes make-or-break a game. I know i definetly would'nt have enjoyed Postal 2 without the implementation, but it also made Raven Shield less enjoyable to play because they went wild with the physics. Its all how the programmers tend to deal with it.

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Originally posted by KBell

Rag-doll phyisics can sometimes make-or-break a game.

 

{ok ... I guess this is a bit of a rant ... no offense intended ...}

 

Ragdoll physics 'Make or break'? Are you serious? Do you mean that a crap game, so long as it had a decent Rag-doll physics implementation would be good, and a 'world class' game, without Rag-doll physics would be lousy? That, in my understanding, is what 'make or break' means.

 

To me, make or break things for JA would be - no lightsaber, no force powers, set in the BattleStar Galactica universe, or whatever ...

 

And Postal 2? How many times did you end up with bodies self-supported doubled over backwards in impossible positions? I saw it plenty. And let's face it, Postal 2 was more about sticking a shotgun up a cat's a** for a silencer and watching people barf as you pi**ed in their mouths than about them realistically dropping to their deaths as they burned to death from the gas can and match (or in the 'enhanced' game after you finish once and get to pi** napalm).

 

{I'm done now ...}

 

Personally, I see rag doll as one of those 'touches' that helps with immersion and 'feel'. Like being able to use your saber as a sort of 'glow-lamp' in JK1, like the dancing shadows from the wall torches in RtCW, and so on. Provides added depth to the game, but not make or break.

 

Sorry if I got testy ...

 

Mike

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There's no doubt in my mind JA will have the body deformations that SoF2 has. In SoF2, if a guy dies, his leg could get caught on a railing, instead of clipping through it. Then you could blow his leg off and watch his limp body fall. I'll be happy if JA has at least this, but full ragdoll physics will not suprise me.

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Originally posted by Emon

There's no doubt in my mind JA will have the body deformations that SoF2 has. In SoF2, if a guy dies, his leg could get caught on a railing, instead of clipping through it. Then you could blow his leg off and watch his limp body fall. I'll be happy if JA has at least this, but full ragdoll physics will not suprise me.

They have also said that they have much better 'positional knowledge' so they can avoid clipping issues from JKII and even SoFII (I know, how many times have we heard that before about a Q3 game :rolleyes: but [edit: the positioning, clipping and death/dismemnerment accuracy in] JA will be better than SoFII which was better than JKII which was ...).
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Actually JK2 was better than SOF2 imo.

Even in most magazines it was ranked higher than SOF2 :p... unless you're talking about rago-doll stuff :p

 

I Hope Raven are going to implement some proper rag-doll physics, someone should ask ni the next question thingy (HINT HINT)

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Originally posted by Agen_Terminator

Actually JK2 was better than SOF2 imo.

Even in most magazines it was ranked higher than SOF2 :p... unless you're talking about rago-doll stuff :p

 

I Hope Raven are going to implement some proper rag-doll physics, someone should ask ni the next question thingy (HINT HINT)

 

Yes - I failed to provide proper context. JKII was definitely better than SoFII. Granted I like SoFII quite a bit, despite my 'mini-review' from last May saying the level design was so linear it looked like it was done on an Etch-a-Sketch :)

 

I was talking about 'positional knowledge', the ability of the system to know where it is and where things should be placed. Raven said they had problems with that in JKII (they used the crystal on Mon Mothma's desk as the example), and have come a long way since.

 

Perhaps we should put up a new thread for questions for Raven ... and hope it can stay questions only.

 

Mike

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Aah, no problem then :) Just gettin' a bit freakin' when you said SOF2 was better :p, maybe in the level design and nice touches but fun- No :D

 

A question thread was made for jk2 i'm pretty sure and took about 3 pages before ChangKhan (Great guy) started answering 'some' questions. It's a great idea as long as people don't go stupid over it.

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