RagDoll

[dmarkwick 261]

This currently happens when you get hit by a relatively slow vehicle, but not killed. You ragdoll for a bit then can get back up and scurry to safety. It supposedly happens when you eject from a moving vehicle, or is at least planned to be implemented.

I actually saw this last night, I ejected from a moving ground vehicle and ragdolled for a few seconds before returning to an animated prone position. I couldn't repeat it though so there's some problems with it still :)

[calin_banc 19]

Proper animations would have been if they've used Euphoria. Rag dolls are good for instant death scenarios, where Mythbusters showed that a body would just drop dead and that's about it - http://mythbustersresults.com/episode38

After watching

short clip you could say that truly, much wouldn't happen if the character would instantly die. He gets shot and although the bullet energy is fully put into his vest//helmet/body/head, it doesn't knock him down violently. The body would drop and be affected by gravity and perhaps the inclination of the terrain, obstacles, his equipment and so on, but perhaps nothing much more than that.

[Maxzy 12]

Although it's very funny when in game you shoot someone and he flies away like you shot him not from your 7.62 rifle but from a buccaneer's cannon, I don't want to see such stuff in ArmA. Of course it would be splendid if they use Euphoria, it would be splendid if they use thousands of thousands of other great stuff that there is, but I like ArmA's ragdoll as it is - it's lean and mean and that's why it's great.

[Frankdatank1218 39]

Ultimately something like the Euphoria engine ragdolls (GTA 4, Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne 3...) would be nice, what you would call "animated ragdolls". Shooting down a soldier would have him fall over, maybe try to cushion the fall by extening his arms out, then clutching the wound, all the while without being in a static, canned animation but in an AI controlled, physically interactive ragdoll state.

[xx_fr0st-w0lf_xx 10]

I like it over the animation but nothing would be better then a mix between the two.

[chrisb 196]

I had a little skirmish type mission, shot an enemy unit and he fell (ragdoll) and rolled slowly for a metre or so down the hill he was stood on, looked really good.

On the whole then, I’m liking ragdoll in Arma 3, could it be improved, yes, but there again its not at the top of the list, for me anyway.:).

[PitViper 0]

1 part of ragdoll which I feel they must eliminate is the ragdoll effect when someone is shot out of a helicopter at a decent height. The ragdoll looks horrible. They should add a check to see how high off the ground the corpse is and use a real "falling" animation if its over 12-15 feet.

[mr_centipede 31]

I dont know if the new dev build change something in the ragdoll, or it was just 'one of the moments' kind of thing. Last night I saw an AI got killed, and instead ragdolling like usual, he kinda fell into slump slowly.... You know kinda in the movie where the bad guy was surprised that he was shot... staggering on his feet, then drop to his knee then slump forward... Kinda surprising to see that... maybe they blend it with animation, instead of pure ragdoll?

[Fuse 1]

Pure ragdoll almost never looks good unless the game's aesthetic is a bit over-the-top. It looks good when a sniper gets a head shot, but any other time and I would prefer everyone going down with one animation over corpses flopping around like a marionette with the strings cut.

Honestly, I'm not sure why ragdoll is in Arma other than I'm betting it comes with PhysX. It really doesn't take many death animations to make a game like Arma look just fine. Ragdoll seems pretty unnecessary as the only thing explosions would send flying are body parts and Arma doesn't feature gibs. (With the stories I've heard from my friend who manned a Mk-19, I don't really want to see realistic dismemberment in Arma.)

I'm betting they're using a pretty stock set up for PhysX ragdolls right now. I expect and sincerely hope they plan to improve the way ragdolls move and add short animations to initiate them. I think we're seeing quite a few PhysX features that are pretty much stock right now.

[swiftn7 1]

1 part of ragdoll which I feel they must eliminate is the ragdoll effect when someone is shot out of a helicopter at a decent height. The ragdoll looks horrible. They should add a check to see how high off the ground the corpse is and use a real "falling" animation if its over 12-15 feet.

I was always wondering how to shoot somebody out of a helo (except the guys sitting outwards on a Mi-6...). Is there somekind of magical ammo, opening vehicle doors and punching the people out? Most unrealistic behavior ever!

[-=seany=- 5]

Honestly, I'm not sure why ragdoll is in Arma other than I'm betting it comes with PhysX. It really doesn't take many death animations to make a game like Arma look just fine. Ragdoll seems pretty unnecessary as the only thing explosions would send flying are body parts and Arma doesn't feature gibs. (With the stories I've heard from my friend who manned a Mk-19, I don't really want to see realistic dismemberment in Arma.).

I think it greatly helps with the immersion. There where many cringe worthy times in previous Arma's where you would shoot a AI while they where performing an action and the action would have to play out before they "died" eg. medics healing them selves before they die, soldiers with binoculars having to put them away before they can die, AT soldiers having to switch weapons before they die etc. All these things are far better now with rag doll. Also with anim deaths, it didn't take long to start to recognize the various death animations. The randomness of ragdoll really helps here.

I have always been pro ragdoll and from what I have seen they have been very conservative with it's implementation so far. But it is making a big difference for me with combat immersion.

I wonder how much access modders will have to the Ragdoll technology? I would like to see dismemberment etc. I would also like to see what it is like to have the bodies continue to behave with RD physics after they have died. So a satchel charge next to some dead bodies launches the ragdolls through the air with comedic fashion :D. Of course I realize this would be too extreme for the default game, but I hope modders can play with this stuff and it's not "hardcoded" or some thing.

Edited March 20, 2013 by -=seany=-

[max power 21]

I think it greatly helps with the immersion. There where many cringe worthy times in previous Arma's where you would shoot a AI while they where performing an action and the action would have to play out before they "died" eg. medics healing them selves before they die, soldiers with binoculars having to put them away before they can die, AT soldiers having to switch weapons before they die etc. All these things are far better now with rag doll.

I don't believe the solution to those problems is necessarily the ragdoll system.

Also with anim deaths, it didn't take long to start to recognize the various death animations. The randomness of ragdoll really helps here.

That's true, but the way it's implemented makes me feel more like I'm cutting a marionette's strings than shooting at people. I shoot some guy in the hip and he turns into a sack of bones and gelatin.

I have always been pro ragdoll and from what I have seen they have been very conservative with it's implementation so far. But it is making a big difference for me with combat immersion.

I'm not con-ragdoll but the current implementation has the exact opposite effect on me.

I wonder how much access modders will have to the Ragdoll technology? I would like to see dismemberment etc. I would also like to see what it is like to have the bodies continue to behave with RD physics after they have died. So a satchel charge next to some dead bodies launches the ragdolls through the air with comedic fashion :D. Of course I realize this would be too extreme for the default game, but I hope modders can play with this stuff and it's not "hardcoded" or some thing.

Dismemberment has nothing to do with ragdoll technology. I doubt it's any more possible than it was in the Arma 2 days, and I'm sure you're familiar with the thousands of dismemberment mods for Arma 2 ;) I doubt that people are able to make random ragdolls, like arms or what have you, but it would be an interesting experiment.

[aoshi 1]

i hate this ragdols, don't fell right (not that i shot someone before ) but is just too wierd

[dunedain 48]

I think too the ragdoll implementation is still pretty poor in the alpha so far. I played the Darkest Hour mod for Red Ochestra Osfront no more than a couple of days ago and the ragdoll in that game feels so much better than anything else I've seen playing past years. It's been more than 6 years now Osfront had its commercial release. Right now the ragdoll in the alpha reminds me a lot of Raven Shield...

But well it's still is the beginning. The feature is here, they just need to tweak the hell out of it. Same goes with vehicles, they really lack weight...

Edited March 20, 2013 by dunedain

[exxdudexx 10]

Forexample like any other shooting game. No you shoot and the enamy just stayes for a few moments then kinda goes to sleep :)

A ragodoll would be perfect. Shoot and the enamy would react to the bullet. Currently if not only hard to see if you shot and killed, but kinda clumsy feeling and looking.

Maybe a dev can comment on this.

Edited May 28, 2013 by exxDUDExx

[bigpickle 0]

When you wound an enemy the engine presents ragdoll for a second and then reverts back to what ever they were doing before. It looks well dodgy, and tbh crap.

The ArmA community is very forgiving and tolerant of many problems that make arma games very eccentric almost, so for most of us we'd work with it and look past the fail points to enjoy the game, but if BIS want this game to attract more main stream players the advert given out by the current rag doll is very poor, main stream player will not think the same way, the rag doll effect has been in main stream gaming for over 6 years now and is refined in most cases very nicely. So imagine a GTA IV player trying the alpha and his/her impression on rag doll.

Thus said this is alpha, and i would hope the rag doll is very unfinished. I have seen injured and wounded animations in the viewer so they are there I'm guessing not integrated yet.

My hope is the BIS see the urgency to make sure these types of corrections are implemented for the Beta and for the E3 Demo as that's were its gonna count for attracting MS players, considering the Alpha is the proving ground for such trails, it seems late for major public testing so close the beta phase.

Another possible future issue mentioned to me by a friend that i never really thought about unit lately was how characters move etc Currently characters look very futuristic and by that I mean they all look uber professional with their walks stances weapons hold etc in other words they look forced and not at all natural which means that mods that have a setting in the past will no longer be usable in A3 unless we have sets of animations to use that look more akin to real people.

[OneZeoN 10]

The less mainstream players the better imo

Don't want COD and BF players swamping the game.

All up for BIS making things like rag doll better....but not to attract mainstream players

[bigpickle 0]

I agree too mate, but its the future for BIS's survival, we were all once COD/BF type players until we were bitten by the OPF or Arma bug.

[dmarkwick 261]

IMO the ragdoll implementation is quite good. Units fall without bouncing or sliding, and retain what momentum they had before being killed (forward running units fall forward appropriately).

Also, the way some units crumple to the ground gives some confusion as to whether that unit is actually dead, or has gone prone. I notice this mostly when shooting units who are within buildings, sometimes they look like they simply got down rather than went down, which gives some realistic amount of uncertainty. Previously in ArmA2 it was possible to positively identify a dead unit immediately by the limited amount of death animations available (at least until SLX came along with the possibility of "waking" some dead units into a wounded state ;)).

I do occasionally see some amount of spazzing out when a unit dies next to a railing though, and occasional bodies clipped & hanging in some structure. But, that doesn't bother me too much considering what we gained.

[Azzur33 1]

I guess BIS is still refining the wounding (and dying) system and effects, now it doesn't feel "right" yet.

I would like to see some kind of heavier shock-effect when you are more severely wounded, like ragdoll-drop to the ground and dropping your weapon maybe, short unconciousness and effects depending where you are hit, like unability to stand, walk, weapon sway and so on. I've been wounded badly many times (of course) in Alpha, and the only effects I "feel" is the reddish blurred vision thing, and not been able to sprint. But it doesn't get worse and I'm no dying untreated.

Ragdoll looks quite ok at the moment, but it would be so cool if it didn't Always mean a kill, and "dropped" enemy could still possibly defend himself, for a while at least and maybe not so well, but still. It's a bit frustrating to shoot an enemy once, having no effect at all, just a little twitch, him being in full condition to shoot back immediately ... and then shooting him in a toe, and he drops dead.

Edited May 28, 2013 by Azzur33

[Flanker15 0]

They've got physx right? That does ragdoll to animation blending quite well so they could use their library of death animations and blend in the ragdoll and have instant ragdoll for head shots.

Also the first post is right about little mass or rigidity at the moment with guys behaving like jelly and clipping through themselves.

[Smurf 12]

One of the last Dev patches seems to have improved it a little but overall I don`t like it that much either. Usually dead enemies appear only to "shutdown" and you don`t get the feel of a hit, the "weight" of it, dunno.... More like jello instead of a human body.

[EDcase 87]

Of course people will turn to rag dolls when killed instantly (headshot)

Even if wounded they will normally crumple and then react once on the ground.

People don't get thrown by bullet impacts. Thats just Hollywood stunts.

The ARMA system is generally quite good as DMarwick pointed out. Collision detection could be better for railings, fences etc and it would be great if they reduced friction so that they would slide to the ground rather than hang in a wall but that would increase computation so this seems like a good balance.

It would help a lot if the hands were in more natural poses rather than flat.

[Smurf 12]

Of course people will turn to rag dolls when killed instantly (headshot)

Even if wounded they will normally crumple and then react once on the ground.

People don't get thrown by bullet impacts. Thats just Hollywood stunts.

It's not that... The problem is that all kills look like headshots, instakills.

Edit: To ilustrate, arms just fall, knees stay on this weird position:

Near to a granade. Kind of gory, but looks weird as hell, the lack of blood contribute to the effect. And he is in the same spot, granades shouldn't give it a little push? (not flying to the air...:rolleyes:)

Far granade, this one is kind of nice. The other 2 closer the the explosion, not so much:

Edited May 28, 2013 by Smurf

[froggyluv 2135]

First off just loving that we HAVE ragdoll finally!

I do agree that too often than not I see soldiers die in that "lawn chair" way of the torso laying straight back between splayed knees as if being folded up. I have no idea how strong joint force comes into play once someone is killed but it just seems unnatural and a little cartoonish.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I do hope for bigger effects from very large explosions as they actually seem a bit tame.