Boring Ragdoll System (1.24)

[NeMeSiS 11]

but dropping almost straight to ground is exactly what they should do when shot.

Only if it is realistic that they die instantly, otherwise a bit of a falling animation that transitions onto ragdolls makes more sense.

Luckily we usually dont spend our time shooting guys in the default idle animation, so it looks a bit more natural during regular gameplay. :)

[Santi871 10]

The ragdolls are completely realistic right now. When you take a shot, you instantly fall onto the ground without moving backwards at all. The only problem is that there is no variety and they are repetitive, but I'm sure that can be fixed.

[Bouben 3]

The ragdolls are completely realistic right now. When you take a shot, you instantly fall onto the ground without moving backwards at all. The only problem is that there is no variety and they are repetitive, but I'm sure that can be fixed.

When you take a shot, you will not instantly fall onto the ground unless killed immediately (happens only rarely) and even then it looks completely different than in the game right now.

Also, in real life, human bodies got bones and other stuff than prevents them from deforming into "piles".

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The absolutely best implementation of ragdoll and dying animations is in GTA IV. Nothing came close to it yet (or I haven't seen anything better).

Edited July 22, 2014 by Bouben

[NordKindchen 12]

The way all big games do it is this: They have a dying animation and if the dead player released to a force while dying (explosion) or after he finishes his dying animation (dying on a stairwell) he then proceeds to ragdoll.

What we have now is: Ragdoll.

And that doesnt make for very satisfying dying effects...

Red Orchestra 2 was mentioned earlier. Actually RO 2 has as I stated above: a dying animation and after that a ragdoll. Its what Arma should have had.

But jeah....whatever

[SouthernSmoke 10]

So a previous update introduced ragdolls that properly forced a dead body back from explosions? Such as when stepping on a mine the body would actually leave their feet and get a little air. I noticed when I uninstalled a ragdoll mod that bodies would react to a nearby explosion in a realistic fashion when before they would just slump over and fall where they stood never leaving their feet even when a missile impacted right beside them. I thought it was pretty good but I assumed it was "tpw fall" producing the effect but it was actually the basic Arma 3 ragdolls that were tweaked with an update? 1.24 has reverted back to the "just fall over no matter what" system.

EDIT: In another thread someone confirmed that yes, it was an update that gave us those awesome explosion ragdolls and 1.24 screwed those up as it did with so much else. "Improved ragdoll physics" (by dDefinder) is pretty good except for some issues mainly when shooting kneeling enemies they tend to "jump" up in the air awkwardly. "Ragdoll'd" (by Zooloo75) I simply cannot get to work for some unknown reason! Then you have "BC Physics" (Opticalsnare) just for a laugh.

Edited July 25, 2014 by SouthernSmoke

[Gutsnav 13]

AGM does a good job with this. The bullets actually make the ragdoll move when shot. Like if a guy gets hit in the side he will fall over / get thrown in the opposite direction.

[xendance 3]

AGM does a good job with this. The bullets actually make the ragdoll move when shot. Like if a guy gets hit in the side he will fall over / get thrown in the opposite direction.

But that doesn't happen in real life, does it?

[Bouben 3]

But that doesn't happen in real life, does it?

Yes it happens (not all the time I suppose), if the target is not immediately killed. It depends on things as for example if the bone was hit etc. It is also a matter of reflexes of a person being hit.

[-Coulum- 35]

It is also a matter of reflexes of a person being hit.

This. The bullet itself is not much of a force to knock you back. Momentum of recoil isn't any ddifferent than that of the projectile. Its not going to knock you on your ass. However your reaction to the hit might do crazy stuff. Its like when you electrocute yourself (assuming you have had the pleasure of doing so), most times you will jump back. I box recreationally and when I get hit in the ring it usually doesn't physically push my body in any direction. Once I got sucker punched from behind while just walking and I sprung forward and dropped like a rock. Its not about the force of the bullet, its about how one reacts to it. That's why I wish that there would be a random bit of push on the ragdoll in a random direction to make it less boring and have more realistic variety. But it doesn't have to be a push from the bullet itself. Just random push to represent the guys reaction to getting hit. Having a quick "startup death animation" as well would be great too. Right now its seems like the moment the guy is hit he instantly dies which is kind of unimerssive. Too clean.

[Bouben 3]

This. The bullet itself is not much of a force to knock you back. Momentum of recoil isn't any ddifferent than that of the projectile. Its not going to knock you on your ass. However your reaction to the hit might do crazy stuff. Its like when you electrocute yourself (assuming you have had the pleasure of doing so), most times you will jump back. I box recreationally and when I get hit in the ring it usually doesn't physically push my body in any direction. Once I got sucker punched from behind while just walking and I sprung forward and dropped like a rock. Its not about the force of the bullet, its about how one reacts to it. That's why I wish that there would be a random bit of push on the ragdoll in a random direction to make it less boring and have more realistic variety. But it doesn't have to be a push from the bullet itself. Just random push to represent the guys reaction to getting hit. Having a quick "startup death animation" as well would be great too. Right now its seems like the moment the guy is hit he instantly dies which is kind of unimerssive. Too clean.

Too clean and deformed too. I would not have such a problem with current ragdoll system if the bodies weren't so stupidly curved after falling on ground.

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

What I use for Ragdoll adjustment http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=24560

and am very happy with the results.

[Bouben 3]

What I use for Ragdoll adjustment http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=24560

and am very happy with the results.

Yes, it is cool but should be in vanilla without mods.

[bad benson 1733]

while i agree that it might not be realistic to have the bullet literally push you back i think it's the best way to get a satifying effect. i don't really care why people drop exactly since it will never be accurately simulated anyways. it's more about visuals. and the footage of people being shot that i saw usually makes them fall back into the direction the bullet is flying.

yes people don't literally fly but i think while the spasm theory is valid, it is more likely to fall back from a bullet since there is a force not a big one but i don't see why you would for example fall into a knife you just got stabbed with unless you instantly die. call it reflex, shock reaction or whatever.

i think bullet force is the way to go to create satisfying representative effect. it's like getting stabbed with a very thin spear if you take the case of the bullet just passing through. i think the body feels where it's getting hit from and instinctively moves away from that direction.

another thing that i'd love to see is having the momentum of running taken into account. or any animation in general. it would be great to have a smooth blend into the ragdoll in general. that alone would make it much more believeable.

also the twitch, if it can't be tweaked properly, might aswell go since it looks shit. i'd rather have some prefabricated hit gestures that actually look good than this procedural bad looking approach.

Edited August 12, 2014 by Bad Benson

[mamasan8 11]

while i agree that it might not be realistic to have the bullet literally push you back i think it's the best way to get a satifying effect. i don't really care why people drop exactly since it will never be accurately simulated anyways. it's more about visuals. and the footage of people being shot that i saw usually makes them fall back into the direction the bullet is flying.

yes people don't literally fly but i think while the spasm theory is valid, it is more likely to fall back from a bullet since there is a force not a big one but i don't see why you would for example fall into a knife you just got stabbed with unless you instantly die. call it reflex, shock reaction or whatever.

i think bullet force is the way to go to create satisfying representative effect. it's like getting stabbed with a very thin spear if you take the case of the bullet just passing through. i think the body feels where it's getting hit from and instinctively moves away from that direction.

another thing that i'd love to see is having the momentum of running taken into account. or any animation in general. it would be great to have a smooth blend into the ragdoll in general. that alone would make it much more believeable.

also the twitch, if it can't be tweaked properly, might aswell go since it looks shit. i'd rather have some prefabricated hit gestures that actually look good than this procedural bad looking approach.

Imagine a soldier running forward, gets hit by a bullet, stumbles at hispeed for 2-3 steps then falls over and slides half a metre. That would be awesome.

Instead of the 'dead tree'-animation ingame.

[Grumpy Old Man 3545]

Imagine a soldier running forward, gets hit by a bullet, stumbles at hispeed for 2-3 steps then falls over and slides half a metre. That would be awesome.

Instead of the 'dead tree'-animation ingame.

You'd need to change the games interpretation of "dead" to make it work like that. Unlikely to happen.

If you're "dead" (in the way it currently is being interpreted by the game) you can't stumble for a few steps.

In general I think that the ragdolls are fine as they are, unless you're shooting soldiers in idle animation, I've never seen a soldier doing the same ragdoll when being killed during an engagement/while running/walking.

Sometimes it's even eerily authentic, killing a soldier that's been prone on a roof made his arm hang down the side of the building, his weapon falling all the way to the ground.

[squirrel0311 16]

This is something I have been wondering about too.

How much processing power does it take to have the ragdoll effects vs just a simple animation?

Would it be too demanding to have a variety of animations for certain ranges of calibers depending on where you were hit and from what direction? (E.G. 9mm-.45, 5.56mm-7.62mm, .408-.50 cal, 20mm-40mm, HE rockets-cannons…. Etc.)

That motion capture studio they have looks big enough to do wounded animations while running too. Although it may be a bit gruesome, if they took the time to study how the body reacts when being shot from different directions and while in different stances via real videos I’m sure they could do a lot better than what we have now. Of course this would definitely be a time consuming task and everything would need to be thoroughly thought out, documented, and practiced beforehand.

Instead of the odd flailing limbs twitch that we have now, what if we had animations that for a very short period of time restricted movement much like the shock of being struck does in real life for certain wounds?

These are just crude examples but imagine…

Standing Still:

Headshots - (Top of the head to the nose) – The head would snap in the direction of travel from the bullet and the solider would drop instantly.

Mouth/Upper chest – (Depending on caliber/severity) The soldier would flinch, maybe bringing his hands up to the wound as he staggered and leaned (forward usually) before falling.

Arms/hands – The soldier would flinch by pulling his arm in close to his chest as he hunched forward and rocked back and forth a bit… (And maybe other stuff… Wiggling his arm? Cradling it? Jumping up and down?)

Mid Chest/ Abdomen – The soldiers would pull his shoulders up and stagger back or to the sides (No more than 2 steps usually) as he hunched over towards the pain, stumble and or fall then scramble to get up. (This would be dependent on caliber, direction but usually even with body armor people fall when they’re not expecting to be shot. Stance is also a factor for just about all these.)

Hips to Knees - The soldier might flail his non firing hand but he would probably drop to one or both knees and catch himself before going all the way down or just fall flat… From there he would scramble to his feet and limp away where ever the player directs him to.

Upper shin to Ankle – (Depending on severity) The soldier would more than likely fall, maybe roll on his side and grab his leg before scrambling to his feet or maybe even staying prone…

Feet? – The soldier would more than likely fall but I think it might be cool to see him jerk his leg up, hop for a bit then fall… Scramble limp… repeat.

Moving:

As others have said, imagine watching a player running across a street and being shot in the back right side… His torso might flinch slightly in the direction of the pain as he takes a few more steps before his legs give out…

Or Imagine someone sprinting and taking a head shot or upper chest shot… Running and all of the sudden dropping like someone tossing a sack of potatoes… maybe add a bit of dust flying up or depending on if they were on a slope… Maybe the ragdoll effect could take over and cause them to flip/roll over from the momentum of their gear.

(The headshots, neck shots, and death by explosions would look much better if there was gore. (E.G. Pink mist, chunks of skull, torn limbs.)

If another medical system was introduce say something like DAYZ where you bleed out, it might be cool to have wounded that writhe depending on if they received a non near instantly fatal wound. (E.G. Slowly rolling from side to side, bending their knees, putting their hands on their face, rocking, sitting up to check themselves before flopping back.)

Even with these examples I say there should be at least 6 possible animations for each area of the body also depending on whether they're wearing armor or not. Not sure if that's possible but it would be neat.... Also falling from ladders and stuff too.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Squirrel0311

[smookie 11]

Would it be too demanding to have a variety of animations for certain ranges of calibers depending on where you were hit and from what direction?

W/o using ragdoll? I say it'd be pretty damn demanding :) Variety of animations for certain ranges of calibers, depending on the hit, depending on the direction, depending on the stance, depending on the weapon held etc....

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

Think he means that the body will respond based on the type of caliber of impact based on the range, range im guessing would mean the velocity of the bullet at that time of impact.

So a large caliber at a long range will do less damage then the same caliber at a closer range and the response from the impact would make the body respond accordingly, but dont it do that already?

To me im just tired of seeing the fall backwards with the knees bent it so repetitive, and seems fake.