PhysX Discussion (dev branch)

[Kerc Kasha 102]

It seems weapons dropped by dead enemies have gone haywire with the recent few dev versions. It's gotten to the point where they start levitating bouncing around etc

[oldy41 61]

With the recent patches a lot of furniture has been distributed over the islands.

Will we ever see PhysX enabled for that?

(I remember when I played Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 1 for the first time: I was so absorbed by the possibility to lay waste to every flower pot and what not aorund. Of course those maps were much smaller, but currently it is immersion breaking how these items react to grenades.)

[dunk 10]

When was the last time you used a tank? Tank physx has improved since 2 days or so now. Much better climbing and offroading in general.

I created this video specifically as a reply. :bounce3:

Took forever to upload (4gigs) then youtube botched the processing twice. Ultimately it is uploaded so have a look and read the description, and then tell me what you think. It is a very long video so I do not expect you to watch it all but at least give the first and last couple of minutes a try before skipping to 11:14-13:30, OKAY? :cool:

The Description:

(Will add annotations later)

Video showcasing the general strengths, quirks, shortcomings, and oddities of PHYSX engine in ARMA3 (my nitpicks). This is my first attempt at such a thing, with my motivation being a genuine desire to see what was usually one of the weakest points of the OFP/ARMA series polished to a shine!!!

Music is the Retrofuture Trilogy by Kevin Macleod.

Points of Interest in no order:

NOTE: Some of these were explained to me by people who know more about the engine/physx than me and are the proper resource for making inquiries.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?163352-Refined-Vehicles

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?160385-Tracked-APC-Physics

*The now discontinued Refined Vehicle Physics mod was not used.

*There is a noticeable lack of compression bounce/recoil release when the suspension is overtaxed. In general the suspension feels oddly stiff and saggy at the same time with little snappiness to it at all.

*Suspension will sometimes lockup when falling from a decent height.

*Suspension is sometimes not calculated at all under repeatable circumstances.

*Tank tracks are merely cosmetic as there are no track physics which includes collision and traction.

*Tanks are turned, not by their wheels but by an external force which forces the use of anti-rollbars for stability(as I have been told).

*Antiroll bars which makes it comically difficult to flip vehicles and causes all sorts of unusual effects.

*This is what a tank looks like when it ramps:

*Suspension cannot be damaged.

*It is incredibly hard if not impossible to hurt yourself inside of an intact tank, even when flying at thousands of KPH into obstacles.

*Vehicles explode after falling a set distance.

*Aside from wheels, no proper fall damage outside of simply exploding.

*You cannot damage suspension.

*Tanks appear to have poor inertia.

*Engine sounds are tied to velocity and not engine RPM or pedal depression.

*A lackluster sense of acceleration.

*Rolling the ATV has very little consequences and does not ragdoll you (as of my latest tests).

*Tanks are impeded by terrain that trucks zoom over which should not be the case.

Lastly, a little bit more for your viewing pleasure:

If you have any further points to add, corrections you want to state, or simply want to explain how the physics really should be (when and how vehicles bounce or explode) then do not be afraid to do so but I cannot reply as I did not attach google+ to this account. Furthermore I am a little bit of a nazi when it comes to being rude/insulting/passive aggressive.

P.S. I did not include that much climbing but I does indeed seem a bit better but only noticeably to me, everything else still feels that same as the BETA, as in no new physics components have been added to the vehicle simulations.

[Redphoenix 1540]

*Suspension will sometimes lockup when falling from a decent height.

*Suspension is sometimes not calculated at all under repeatable circumstances.

That's not generally a bad thing. In your cases you take extreme situations which would never appear in real life. As if a tank is driving over a cliff... Just saying.

But nevertheless - The suspension is an already good example of PhysX. You can really define whether a sports car is a sports car or a family saloon car a saloon car.

*Tank tracks are merely cosmetic as there are no track physics which includes collision and traction.

Which is a bad thing, yes. I really hope that when they have some time, they revise this system.

*Antiroll bars which makes it comically difficult to flip vehicles and causes all sorts of unusual effects.

That's a double-edged sword: In certain situations you just need ARBs since they give you more stability on road conditions, as nearly every vehicles uses them to achieve higher speed in corners. You can flip vehicles even if use ARBs, you only need the correct amount of force, or speed if you drive into a corner, to flip the vehicle.

That it unflips itself, is something coded into the game-engine, I believe....

*Tanks appear to have poor inertia.

*Engine sounds are tied to velocity and not engine RPM or pedal depression.

*A lackluster sense of acceleration.

From what I know before I gave up modding, the acceleration of tanks was being worked on, and I don't know if it already has been fixed within the game-code, but I know that it was pre-fixed within the configs.

It is very difficult to adjust this, since you cannot simply enter torque and HP, and you're done. cfgWheels is an important piece of the whole tankX cake.....

Tank engine sounds are tied to RPM, not to speed.

[dunk 10]

That's not generally a bad thing. In your cases you take extreme situations which would never appear in real life. As if a tank is driving over a cliff... Just saying.

But nevertheless - The suspension is an already good example of PhysX. You can really define whether a sports car is a sports car or a family saloon car a saloon car.

Even so the suspension still feels... incomplete/weak during mundane use. Like specific components native to suspension behaviour are missing. Furthermore, I eyeballed the height (no doubt completely off) of where vehicles are airdropped so... not... entirely unrealistic... maybe. Anyways, just because it is not normal does not mean that such components should not be simulated. To take it to a logical extreme, anything that is an deviation of normal military operation or action could be impossible to enact through hard-coded engine and game mechanics despite the fact that there are always unseen obstacles that require unconventional solutions to solve. Where I am going with this is that by limiting the scope of a simulation through personal discredit of perceived aberrations of the norm means that you create artificial obstacles in an otherwise imperfect representation of real life that further impede its realization.

HOLY Crap, now I am losing myself. Argh, massive brainfart, let me try this again. By choosing through action or inaction to limit the scope of the simulation you limit the potential of the end-user to explore that space or inadvertently create uncanny artifacts when said user deviates from using your product as intended but well within the available toolset provided and gets incomplete or non existent results. At that point it is both jarring and ultimately disappointing. For example: You would not normally drive off a cliff but the environment is mountainy and it could easily happen under normal gameplay but if you do, one would expect the result to emulate life to a certain degree, at least to the point that it lives up to the rest of the game's quality and that of it's peers. Despite its blatantly arcadey nature, Just Cause 2 has more individual components of vehicle physics simulated than ARMA 3. The fact of the matter is that the game is not real life and thus we do not behave within the virtual world as thus and as thus we are more likely to take everything to extremes and when the game cannot keep up with us it comes off as incomplete and/or incompetent.

That's a double-edged sword: In certain situations you just need ARBs since they give you more stability on road conditions, as nearly every vehicles uses them to achieve higher speed in corners. You can flip vehicles even if use ARBs, you only need the correct amount of force, or speed if you drive into a corner, to flip the vehicle.

That it unflips itself, is something coded into the game-engine, I believe....

The problem is that throughout the entire video their are scattered examples of me turning at EXTREME angles and still finding invisible hands violently trying to flip me back onto my wheels. Check out the 3:00, 8:00, 12:00, 12:18, mark in the video for some very cooky examples. Ultimately it seems in every way to be a bandaid for underlying issues with the game engine or implementation of the physx engine.

Tank engine sounds are tied to RPM, not to speed.

Yeah, I should make the distinction because as near as I can tell it is still tied to velocity when it comes to cars, I will have to recheck that.

In conclusion. The physics are uncanny.

[Redphoenix 1540]

Even so the suspension still feels... incomplete/weak during mundane use. Like specific ...[...]... The fact of the matter is that the game is not real life and thus we do not behave within the virtual world as thus and as thus we are more likely to take everything to extremes and when the game cannot keep up with us it comes off as incomplete and/or incompetent.

Sorry, but what is your point?

Yeah, I should make the distinction because as near as I can tell it is still tied to velocity when it comes to cars, I will have to recheck that.

No, every engine sound you hear is tied to RPM.

[dunk 10]

Sorry, but what is your point?

Sorry'bout that, I could not find a proper way to articulate myself. The first part is a rebuke against my interpretation (if my interpretation is wrong then let me know) of your statement that seemed to imply that the engine behaving oddly under extremes was not really a concern given how it was not a normal way of playing the game in lieu of the fact that we know it is a game and will not emulate how we would behave in real life and when the game cannot keep up with our general use to outright shenanigans with it it becomes jarring, and to varying degrees, disappointing/unpleasant.

The second part is pointing out how despite the obvious improvements in the game's physics it has fallen into an uncanny valley. Not realistic enough to hammer out the flaws that become more noticeable the more realistic the physics become but at the same time not unrealistic or arcadey enough that said flaws do stand out given the already unrealistic nature of it. If you watch the video it touches upon this, just apply it to physics instead of people/graphics. The reason I find the physics in Arma 3 jarring is for similar reasons why people cannot enjoy Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within or Polar Express.

No, every engine sound you hear is tied to RPM.

Heh, well what do you know, you are completely right. I remember during the BETA when I tried to test this after a thread was made about it and found that just by launching a tank accross the map it would more often than not sound like it was revving at full speed yet remain completely silent when spinning its treads but at the same time just moments ago I found a few examples when toying around with the editor today yielded odd results where various vehicles pushing against obstacles or climbing hills would randomly change the sound of the engine with very little change in input from me. Just one quick example had me spinning the Slammer's treads when pushed against a wall and when I let go of all of the keys the engine would rev at maximum volume for a few seconds. It appears to be mostly mild glitches at this point.

Thanx for pointing this out, I will modify the video description.

Edited March 17, 2014 by Dunk

[blackjacktom 10]

That's a double-edged sword: In certain situations you just need ARBs since they give you more stability on road conditions, as nearly every vehicles uses them to achieve higher speed in corners. You can flip vehicles even if use ARBs, you only need the correct amount of force, or speed if you drive into a corner, to flip the vehicle.

That it unflips itself, is something coded into the game-engine, I believe....

You can clearly see that vehicles get to a point where they will obviously tip over and then a force is applied and the right themselves. I could not get a Zamak fuel to roll, even turning fully at going 100km/h down a hill.

I just want to roll some vehicles.

[RushHour 11]

SUV rolls way to easily. Like the CoG is above the roof of the car.

[Redphoenix 1540]

You can clearly see that vehicles get to a point where they will obviously tip over and then a force is applied and the right themselves. I could not get a Zamak fuel to roll, even turning fully at going 100km/h down a hill.

I just want to roll some vehicles.

I know, and I would like to have that not happening. But hey, it's BIS game.....

[DancZer 65]

Dunk: +1

They added lot of things into the Arma 3 engine. PhysX, DX-11, underwater and more complex animations which maybe consumed more resources than they thought before. But now it's there. I hope that BIS in the future will have time to refact the current systems instead of adding new(just like they did it with the animations, animals). They can easily climb over the uncanny valley if they want to.

[Redphoenix 1540]

The recent changes to the Offroad are horrid.

Example: If starting to drive using Q the car slightly turns left and is moving with 3kph at best. If you are driving and you press Q to drive slowly, the car brakes heavily and you will just drive on with 7kph....

[kuIoodporny 45]

The recent changes to the Offroad are horrid.

Example: If starting to drive using Q the car slightly turns left and is moving with 3kph at best. If you are driving and you press Q to drive slowly, the car brakes heavily and you will just drive on with 7kph....

There are improvements in progress on it.

[Redphoenix 1540]

There are improvements in progress on it.

I strongly hope so :(

[f2k sel 164]

I'm not really sure what is classed as a Physx object.

In the last patch it says "PhysX entities don't collide with invisible objects"

yet vehicles are still colliding with hidden objects.

[Bouben 3]

Is it just me or the body weight has been secretly tweaked? Killed soldiers are falling down in a more believable fasion. That is good.

[zorrobyte 30]

Just wanted to dump these in here:

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=18451

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=18566

Physx continues to run on objects that are enablesimulation false;hideobject true killing FPS

Would be nice to be able to switch simulation during mission runtime (this simulation "car","carx").

Then one could have far away vehicles use old A2 simulation "car", while Physx "carx" can be used for objects close to camanbase for example.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

There are improvements in progress on it.

I've also noticed this. The Offroads max i think was 160. I was driving on the main highway the other day with the gas all the way down hitting only 76... I wasn't too thrilled about this, because i was holding E. Also, it seemed to be breaking constantly without me imputing brakes. The hatchbacks also had something going on with it, but i'm not entirly too sure.

Civilian vehicles in general, i believe they should have their Max speeds at what they can achieve for the purpose of letting players know that cars can go fast, but going fast (just like in real life), you risk your chance of survival if something is to happen at those speeds.

[x3kj 1247]

Please vote on this, so BIS recognizes the need for modders to get access to a physx diagnosis tool for vehicles

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=18672

[Bee8190 10]

Please vote on this, so BIS recognizes the need for modders to get access to a physx diagnosis tool for vehicles

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=18672

I'd love to vote on that but ever since they've reset the forum credentials I can't get into it :(

Best of luck with this we really need the physx to step up significantly

[bigpickle 0]

When placing empty vehicles onto the map in the editor, the vehicles will slowly tilt left and right like they are floating on an ocean.

[Bee8190 10]

12-05-2014

No new EXE

Size: ~199 MB

DATA

Armor torque curves extrapolated to avoid switching to lower gears when driving fast

Great update and seem to work much better now and I'd like to see this applied to all wheeled vehicles too.

However, when loads of peak torque is required at the lowest gear, vehicles can struggle still and there are few other odd issues that you might already be aware of -

As per the video, notice how the tracks are spinning under full engine power but sadly with no sound at all; 0:00 to 0:03 ( jsrs sound mod used but its the same in vanilla )

( which is good as the tracks should spin at such steep incline and not allow the vehicle to climb, however the ground contact with tracks remains too strong )

Another issue is turning the wheeled vehicles. On flat surface when the vehicle is fully stopped in works well but as soon as the vehicle is moving just slightly it has issues turning smoothly and is

most noticeable on inclines while holding the turn ( A or D ) keys, which results in cutting the engine input and very odd turning behaviour; starting at 0:19 to 0:38

I also think that driving without the shift key pressed doesn't make sense anymore since IMO all vehicles from tracked to wheeled feel more natural with shift key constantly pressed down. Instead perhaps shift could be used to hold engines RPM at maximum but without the gears in interfering?

15-05-2014

EXE rev. 124318

Size: ~38 MB

DATA

Gravel roads provide less grip for wheels and cause lower speed

By my observation I have not noticed any significant changes and are very minor in handling and speeds appear to be the same when I've tested on side roads but while there's no reason to noticeably slow vehicles on gravel roads IMO, the wheels still appear to have too much grip on every surface and the telling tail is that it takes nearly no effort to flip the civilian offroad on it roof. ( reach speeds of about 100Km hr and suddenly change direction by holding the turn left or right key ) The vehicle doesn't display any skidding around and goes to flip directly on its roof.

Edited May 17, 2014 by Bee8190

[sgtsev3n 12]

For me, it seems that units do not have real ragdolls but ragdoll animations.

everytime you kill someone, they have about 2-3 different falling animation and when the bodies lie on the ground, it looks like there are 2-3 different animations for it too. for example watch this video and look how the bodies sink to the ground:

It looks the same by every body.

these are no real ragdolls. these are ragdoll animations. i can downliad such ragdoll animations for gta san andreas or bf1942.

[CaptainObvious 95]

For me, it seems that units do not have real ragdolls but ragdoll animations.

everytime you kill someone, they have about 2-3 different falling animation and when the bodies lie on the ground, it looks like there are 2-3 different animations for it too. for example watch this video and look how the bodies sink to the ground:

It looks the same by every body.

these are no real ragdolls. these are ragdoll animations. i can downliad such ragdoll animations for gta san andreas or bf1942.

That video was Alpha, we have ragdolls now.

[sgtsev3n 12]

That video was Alpha, we have ragdolls now.

this video was only a example and it does not have anything to do with alpha beta etc

here, this video is from yesterday:

go to 8:30 min and watch when he shoot both civilians how they fell and how they lie on the ground = same animations same position!

or this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYiK9MggQYM

go to 8:50 and look at the 3 bodies that lie on the ground, what you see ? again same position same lie animation!

again: arma 3 has only part of ragdolls in game, but the dead animation are ragdoll animations and no real ragdolls/physics. physx/ragdolls are not fully implented in game.

i can download those ragdoll animations for gta san andreas or battlefield 1942 and for san andreas there is even a mod out which gives REAL ragdolls for civilians/players.

please add FULL physx/ragdoll support in arma. if you want to see how full ragdoll/physics looks in a game then play crysis or gta IV