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Ragdoll Pack On The Way

Name:	Chris Calef
Date Posted:	Feb 24, 2005
Rating:	Not Rated
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Okay boys and girls,

I'm back with another .plan! I swore I wasn't posting anything again till it was ready to ship, but then I figured what the hell, Josh has posted about a dozen T2D-related plans since the last time I said anything, guess I might as well let y'all know what's happening!

The short story: the ragdoll animation packs are VERY CLOSE, and they work great with the RTS Pack too! That's what took the last couple of weeks -- had to roll my own little physics system in RTS, not to mention some time setting up explosions etc. just so the movies wouldn't look dumb, and just generally finding my way around the RTS pack.

But it works! I say "packs", now, because there are going to be two of them, one pack for radius damage (explosions) and one for direct damage (direct hits). For the questions about when and how much, the answers are a) as soon as they are done, which will be very soon, and b) cheap, probably $25 each or $40 for the pair, but I'm not committing on prices until they're actually for sale.

For MPG movies of this stuff in action, go here.

Recent Blog Posts

List:	05/14/08 - Fun with BVH Files, in Torque. 03/12/08 - Hello, Goodbye, Israel, and LSystems 04/30/07 - The Grand Canyon is really, really, really big. 12/07/05 - Torque Build Environment (TBE) Changes Course 09/13/05 - Ragdoll Pack Gets Multiple Character Support 04/08/05 - Ragdoll Pack Is SHIPPED!! 02/24/05 - Ragdoll Pack On The Way 01/29/05 - Ragdoll Pack Preview

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Joseph Helm (Feb 24, 2005 at 01:53 GMT)

Wow!! that looks awesome... nice one Chris!
Edited on Apr 22, 2005 03:46 GMT

Owen Ortmayer (Feb 24, 2005 at 02:36 GMT)

SWEET

Stephen Zepp (Feb 24, 2005 at 02:41 GMT)

Muahaha....now combine that with terrain deformation and some really nice explosions, and now we talkin!!

Looks awesome man, seriously!

Chris Calef (Feb 24, 2005 at 02:59 GMT)

@stephen: yeah, somebody needs to work out a way to have localized high-res terrain though! (for craters smaller than a city block). I've tossed around all kinds of crazy ideas, but haven't had a lot of good ones. (replace affected blocks of terrain with interior objects while dropping the real terrain out of view? see what we can do with 3d-looking 2d decals?) Most real-life bomb craters I've seen in photos are a lot smaller than what I can get out of the terrain deformation kit, as useful as it is for other stuff, just because of the inherent grid size limit.

Re: the explosions, yeah they were a sunday afternoon hack, but it was a fun distraction from the transform matrices! :-) still need to get emitters etc. working, I never even got them set up right to call processTick etc. Right now my RTS explosions just release whatever particles they have the first instant then they're done. But whatever, it's a tangential issue at this point.

Thanks for the encouragement!!

Josh Williams (Feb 24, 2005 at 03:05 GMT)

This thing is so cool. :)

Max Thomas (Feb 24, 2005 at 03:46 GMT)

Hey man, now don't go abusing your power too much, I mean, think, what did those poor orcs ever do to you? I mean, massed killing!?! Isn't that just going a little too far?

Lol, I couldn't help it. Well, it truly looks amazing, I've given up on my rag doll studies and tests, too much time, can get working on other things.

Digging 40 bucks out of my wallet now and putting it on a peice of paper that says "Do Not Toutch! untill ragdoll pack is out that is..."

Max :)

Chris Calef (Feb 24, 2005 at 04:37 GMT)

hey max
rofl, yeah i know, it feels awful to go into mass orc-icide like this. I was even considering putting in a note about how all the orcs are really just actors, and show pictures of their orc families and babies, just to make everybody feel better.

Adam deGrandis (Feb 24, 2005 at 04:43 GMT)

Very awesome, Chris. :)

Ben -Djaggernaut- Chavigner (Feb 24, 2005 at 10:09 GMT)

Totally awesome! o.O

Michael Cozzolino (Feb 24, 2005 at 13:30 GMT)

Very Awesome!

Quote:
An intermediate tool that will be coming out later, probably for a higher price, is a modified ODE environment that, as Pat discussed, lets you create your own dsqs by modifying the skeleton and the applied forces through config files. This will let you refine the figure to match your own player model with more precision. ODE is in C/C++, it should work on the Mac as well, but I'll answer that for sure when I get closer.

Any idea on when this will be released or is it still to0 early too even contemplate.
Edited on Feb 24, 2005 13:30 GMT

Matthew Langley (Feb 24, 2005 at 16:03 GMT)

@Chris: possibly real-time in-engine dif generation.

create algorithms to get the closest area to terrain blocks and set empty as you begin dif generation there then generate it down in whatever type of explosion there is...

maybe create a sub set of rules that will light these real-time as well.

lol maybe a bit out there but think it could be done.
Edited on Feb 24, 2005 16:04 GMT

Chris Calef (Feb 24, 2005 at 17:05 GMT)

@Michael: not too early to even contemplate, but not right around the corner. (if you saw how messy my code is and how unstable ODE can be you'd understand!) give me 3-6 months maybe. Maybe I'll surprise ya. Maybe not.

@Matthew: yeah, that's kinda what I was thinking actually. Possibly save time with a set of preconfigured difs that are "close enough"... Not a priority today, though, anybody else feel like going that way? :-)

Michael Cozzolino (Feb 24, 2005 at 17:43 GMT)

Thanks for the info Chris. I won't be needing that for atleast that long.

This is the app you are using to create the .dsq's for the animation packs you discuss in this plan, correct?

Rod Parong (Feb 24, 2005 at 18:34 GMT)

@Chris:
This might be helpful to help speed up tool support:

http://www.physicstools.org/forum1/34.html

Thomas Glennow (Feb 25, 2005 at 00:59 GMT)

A bit off-topic, but what kind of framerate are you getting with all those orcs in view?

Max Thomas (Feb 25, 2005 at 01:03 GMT)

Yes, we wanna know framerate, I was too busy worrying about the orc's well beeing.

Max ;)

Chris Calef (Feb 25, 2005 at 02:54 GMT)

Hi again

Re: framerate -- 12 fps with 120 orcs, keep in mind this is on a pretty used-up laptop with a 440 Go and 1.8 GHz. With full particles flying and practically every orc airborne, it comes down to 10 or 11. Other systems will perform better, obviously.

Billy L (Feb 25, 2005 at 04:28 GMT)

Hmm RagDolls i love that.
Great work !
Is this physics for a fps game to , like a minor Havok ?
Edited on Feb 25, 2005 04:30 GMT

Chris Calef (Feb 25, 2005 at 05:01 GMT)

@Billy: thanks, rgr that on fps, it works great there, too.

Billy L (Feb 25, 2005 at 06:37 GMT)

Really Great !
I love to have some kind of Ragdoll physics in my game.
Dont need a fully working Havok physics engine.
Any change to see any fps demo or movie ?
While im waiting for the release :)

Chris Calef (Feb 25, 2005 at 07:35 GMT)

Don't know if you saw my earlier plans or not.. check out here for movies in torqueDemo FPS environment.

Billy L (Feb 25, 2005 at 17:28 GMT)

Sorry i missed that plan :(
Looks great.

Ian Smithers (Feb 25, 2005 at 22:11 GMT)

Wow. I have only just seen this, and it looks super cool.

Good work, really impressive. :D

Ian

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