Ragdoll Physics

#1 I have seen a ragdoll simulated in ODE, check the mailing list... There is also this game that uses ODE and has a ragdoll simulation.

#2 Getting ODE and Torque working together is a bit hairy. If you're familiar with the engine, it can be done.

I did one using simple particel physics that worked pretty well. Sadly, it had no joint constraints :)

I'm working on another using ODE, but I have no ETA on when it'll get done. A matter of priorities and school...

#3 Half-Life 2 and Max Payne 2 uses a rag-doll system... Maybe Valve could at least give you some help on the way?

#4 Lol.. I think Valve might be a little busy with HL2 ;)

But yeah, its possible, but Id recommend learning as much about Torque as you can first.

#5 Torque and Ragdoll physics? mhmmmm... sounds great! :) does someone know a good site about ragdoll physics?

#6 Tell me if you find one, I couldn't... :)

#7 Ragdoll, livin' in a movie
Hot tramp, daddies little cuite
You're so fine, I never see ya leavin by the back door
...

Well that's my kind of ragdoll physics anyway :(

#8 Try this page:

http://www.moor47.fsnet.co.uk/gamephysics.htm

It's not basically ragdoll physics the site's about; it's game physics. But since ragdoll physics actually is a part of game physics, you probably can learn how to make this kind of physics engine here.

#9 Good article here on Gamasutra...

www.gamasutra.com/resource_guide/20030121/jacobson_01.shtml

#10 www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~baraff/papers/index.html
[urlhttp://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~baraff/sigcourse/index.html[/url]

#11 Ragdoll physics can be a good thing, but it doesn't have to. Being able to throw everything and anything around could take the fun away from the actual gameplay and lead it to messing with the laws of physics. Which can be fun. But the gameplay should come first.

#12 Ragdoll physics can also be faked via animations. Though of course there are short comings.

#13 I'm sorry Martin, but you can't just dictate to players how they enjoy your game. The important thing is that they enjoy your game anyway they want to, whether by shooting dead bodies accross the floor or by progressing through the levels the way it was intended to. It's about having fun and anything you add to the game to make it more fun is a good thing, unless of course you don't want the player to have fun.

#14 I think Martin is referring to games like Trespasser: The Lost World. It was another Jurassic Park game that went straight down the tubes. Really, it was nothing more than a physics simulation with dinosaurs.

#15 Perhaps a simpler approach than trying to implement ODE...

The Rigid class applies forces and torque to the player/shape body as a whole unit which is "stiff doll" physics as apposed to "rag doll".

Therefore to get "rag doll" , surely if you assign a weight/mass to each limb/bone and let the Rigid class do it's work on each one individually, then limbs will attempt to realistically react to gravity and impact forces, which is a step closer to what you want. The final step would be to keep the nodes joined via an Ik system.

I'm sure it's not as nice as ODE but it might be visually good enough for most people.

#16 .

#17 This thread is 6 months old.. Seeing as it was a student project and the term is over, I doubt you will get much of a response from the author

#18 @Chris, my response was not aimed at the author but rather at the thread subject so the date don't matter much.

So why post it? Many people search through forums in order to gather usefull info and the solution I proposed is a workable option.