Character Ragdoll and more

[grayace 2]

^^ Thats what i've been saying, 10 ragdoll simultanious death sequences in americas army drop frame rate to low single digits, now imagine being a gunner in a cobra gunship ripping thru infantry squads or dropping a LGB in a enemy base with 20/30 or more infantry .

I wouldnt mind having ragdolls in ngpcg2 but not at the expense of gameplay, game features, performance, etc.

There is alot that could be improved in OPF and when i think of ragdolls i think of useless eye candy, i dont really care if a corpse is partially floating in a stair, i care about good hit and damage detection, realistic vehical simulation, even destroyable buildings and structures, im not a combat photographer looking for nice ragdoll pictures...

Like HeatSeeker mentioned death animations should be made in most CPU friendly manner, its is absolutely needless to spare workload for death animations. Ragdoll and similar systems are DYNAMIC and they WILL draw power for calculation while animations are STATIC possibly they use some RAM but doesnt matter when compared to other possible choices...

and again suggestion of blown up bodies (not dismembered**) getting DISAPPEARED would be better especially for HE cannon strafing runs and CPU issues

**I WARN EVERYBODY TO READ IT CORRECTLY, CURRENT OFP GORE SETTING IS NO LESS THAN THIS, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU SHOT WITH SNIPER BLOOD SPLATERS WILDLY, SO THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN METAL DEBRIS GOES OFF FROM TANKS THOSE CLIPPED BY AT MISSILES -AND- MEAT LIKE DEBRIS DISAPPEARS IN SECONDS WHEN A SOLDIER CLIPPED BY "HE" FIRE

debris refers to "a piece of 2D graphics" not 3D so dont say it would need more CPU work...

and if you think that it could offend you, it is still possible to turn "blood" off from options

[esti_the_big 0]

I dont expect ragdolls in AA, but I'd say they're a must be integrated in ofp2, just because by then I 'd say its going to be a standard in games (actually, its already now a standard in action games and rpgs and strategie games are gonna havingit as well right now). in 2007, the ppu will be out, hopefully established well and then ragdolls must be integrated in ofp2, actually, it won't need any ppu with the power needed then. 2years are enough time to integrate a good working ragdoll system. What decides if its good or not are just some minor adjustements and parametres, 2 years are enough to make those parametres so the animations look good.

[Spy17 1]

I also hope for ragdoll (maybe in combination with animation) for better CQB.

The problem with many soldiers dying because of one big explosion could be solved with soldiers disappearing in big explosion clouds.

[esti_the_big 0]

I find disappearing soldiers after an explosion rather dumb, it kind of destroys immersion a bit for me. They should just stay where they are and not fly around, or a pre-made flying animation like in call of duty (though not so hollywoodesque) should be added to dead bodies when they're near an explosion. And pre-made death animations for when an explosion occurs. But just making them disappear appears just as silly.

[Spy17 1]

A 500lb bomb exploding next to a soldier would make him disappear.

You would not be able to distinguish his remains from other rubbel.

A disappearing body after a big explosion seems to me more realistic than intact bodys flying hundrets of meters away.

And remember it saves cpu power!

[Garcia 0]

Errrm, why do people want to replace a dead body with a chunk of blood and meat after an explosion? I don't got much experience with explosions, but afaik a human body doesn't turn into a chunk of some red mess that easily. If a LAW hits a BMP next to a soldier, the soldier will get blown away by the shockwave, and most likely get a lot of cuts due to sharpnels from the BMP and may lose some limbs, but he will most likely not be blown totally to pieces. If he was to get blown to pieces the explosion would either have to be inside him, or veeeeeeeeeeeeeeery close and quite big. I mean, there's even times when people stand 1 metre from a big mofo bomb, but doesn't even get a cut from the explosion. So adding the "body replaced by red mess" thingy would be a waste of time. And the loss of limbs is imo also waste of time. If people want to see a spectacular death and lots of blood, then they should go play another game.

About ragdoll, since the only game I can remember that I have played that had ragdoll, it wasn't very impressing. Bodies tended to fly between walls when you shot at them like a ping pong ball, so I'd prefer anims.

[kavoven 4]

A 500lb bomb exploding next to a soldier would make him disappear.

You would not be able to distinguish his remains from other rubbel.

A disappearing body after a big explosion seems to me more realistic than intact bodys flying hundrets of meters away.

And remember it saves cpu power!

Good idea

[funnyguy1 0]

A 500lb bomb exploding next to a soldier would make him disappear.

You would not be able to distinguish his remains from other rubbel.

A disappearing body after a big explosion seems to me more realistic than intact bodys flying hundrets of meters away.

And remember it saves cpu power!

Good idea

Yes, that`s good point actually, but what with heavy MGs? Bodys can`t just dissapear under mg fire...

@Heatseeker

"There is alot that could be improved in OPF and when i think of ragdolls i think of useless eye candy"

I have mixed feelings about this kind of statements...

Many of things you mentioned are already being done, or had been said that they will be done...

"good hit and damage detection, realistic vehical simulation, even destroyable buildings and structures"

Why should we focus on things that are already confirmed to be done, sooner or later? I mean, ofcourse, we should share our ideas and so on, but I think there`s really no point in getting involved so much in those things...

Don`t get me wrong, I understand that better damage detection is way more important than eye candy...but, well, maybe bis could make their own system? Better and more cpu friendly?(ragdoll)

[kavoven 4]

I think the actual MG solution is quiet good, isn't it? I don't want anything else

[Dynamax 0]

have any of you seen the affects of explosions and large caliber ammo?

i have a few videos that show what happens to the human body when its hit by a .50cal, also video with different size explosions.

a .50cal doesnt make a body dissapear. what it does is causes the body to come apart. flesh and meat separate from bone and each other only to be held together by strips of bloddy tissue.

an explosion, depending on it's size, will reduce a body to pits. one would find burned body parts scattered around the area.

you would fine maybe a partialy disintregated leg or arm, even half of the torso.

such thing have yet to be done in a game.

[codarl 1]

such thing have yet to be done in a game.

..for a reason.

It is possible, and the battlefield is a messy place. however, gore that goes "to the bone" should not be a standard, but an extreme.

If it's caused by a Satchel charge, or a very heavy explosion (or one to the body itself, Ie Heat) I think the body would dismember into seporate parts, wich each have their own ragdoll.

For in combat, I think that 4:5 people should die using an animation, and the firth one should die with ragdoll. After the body has hit the ground, however, all should become ragdoll, to prevent frozen corpses from flying trough the air.

[lwlooz 0]

First off I have to say that I am happy that new people are getting interest in Arma (Dejavu on requests and threads,aint it ).

Now then: I have to say that I neither see the point of introducing Ragdoll or dismemberment Effects in OFP.

What is the point of having a totally gory game?.If your enemy or your friendly AI chap dies,he dies.Now,you can make that totally dramatic and gory or you keep it like it is now. I never got this "Realism for Realism's sake". The current animations furfill their gameplay-effect,you notice that someone dies.

On the other hand,Ragdoll might be good for NextGen game,but I rather have Bis spend their time for ArmA on more important things

[Jinef 2]

Only add them if human factors are modelled as well.

Otherwise there is no point and the CPU can be used more wisely.

Examples of Human Factors:

Psycological Trauma in Soldiers

Combat Effectiveness of Traumatised Soldiers

Influence on player in decisions. (Sending men to do something who then die horribly = guilt.)

Overall Morale

Emotional Exhaustion

Same as Above for enemy.

The only reason I want to see people getting dismembered in games is if the strategic value of my forces or the enemy forces is also affected.

[grayace 2]

Now then: I have to say that I neither see the point of introducing Ragdoll or dismemberment Effects in OFP.

What is the point of having a totally gory game?.If your enemy or your friendly AI chap dies,he dies.Now,you can make that totally dramatic and gory or you keep it like it is now. I never got this "Realism for Realism's sake". The current animations furfill their gameplay-effect,you notice that someone dies.

IMO, that kind of death scenes could fire the "rage" in you when you commence your "armed assault" DiiiiiEEEE .... (someone said Rambo??!?) anyways, not for just realism but may be for immersion..

its obvious that some of us like to see "dramatic" deaths while some others like to see "plain, short" deaths...

Quote[/b] ]The only reason I want to see people getting dismembered in games is if the strategic value of my forces or the enemy forces is also affected.

like if a soldier gets blown then his equipment will be lost/unusable as well?..

[Sniperwolf572 758]

...such thing have yet to be done in a game.

Have you ever played F.E.A.R.?

Toss a grenade next to an enemy soldiers and watch the limbs fly.

Anyhow, from what I have seen in combat footage from Bosnia, when a hand grenade goes off, it's just pieces of shapnel heading out with a little shockwave, but the shockwave is not what kills you, shrapnel is.

Mines are a different story, they are intened to wound not to kill, I have seen at least three dozen people whos leg has been amputated because of the mine, mostly it blew their foot away, but they lost their whole leg because it needed to be amputated.

Also, I have personal experience about mortar fire, when a shell hit side of a building on whitch people were buying bread at the time of the war, it fell maybe 4-5 meters from the crowd, and noone was killed from that crowd, but a female, standing on the other side of the street next to a makeshift hospital, was killed, shapnel straight trough heart, go figure.

With explosions, you can get real lucky.

[simulacra 0]

BI should use the time to implement wounding instead, I have yet to see a game with non-dead critically or other wise wounded units.

Tanks can get damaged, soldiers can get "wounded" but unlike the tanks were you can put it out of commision without actually destroying it.

Soldiers on the other hand, gets a new shiny blooded texture but keeps on fighting albeit with lesser performance.

I know that there are times were your soldier can't get up because he's "too" wounded but it's not really logical as to WHEN this level of damage occur, and there's certainly no effect of "crap, I've got my body riddled with holes, screw this fight! I'm staying right here hoping for a swift rescue", it's more like "oh crap, I've got my body riddled with holes, but still, DIE AMERICAN/RUSSIAN/INSURGENT PIG-DOGS!! *blam-blam*"

Here's were the cravers of realismâ„¢ (myself included) should voice an opinion. IMO, a soldier getting hit through the leg with a 7.62 should be wounded and unable to fight since the psychological shock about getting hit sometimes makes people go blank.

Same as shell shocked troops that stood too close to an explosion.

And with wounded laying around medics actually do something good, even if it's nothing more than stopping the bleeding and shipping him off with a med chopper...

[max power 21]

Personally, I'm on board with the ragdoll idea, but I'm not going to kill for it. What BIS MUST do is improve the corpse behaviour when a soldier is hit by high-energy attacks. Watching a soldier fly 200 feet into the air after he's hit close with a bushmaster cannon is too much. THAT totally kills the moment for me. I liked it better in the early versions of ofp where they just fell over dead. Even 2000 lbs bombs don't do that with as much certainty as the low-calibre cannons. If you drop a 2000lbs bomb into a group of troops, more often than not, through the smoke, you can see them being knocked down like trees after a daisy-cutter. This is nice. Flying over a group of troops in a gunship, opening up with the cannons, and then nearly being hit by the corpses as you pass over is total bunk.

Oh, and, Dynamax (sic), as far as I know, .50 calibre machineguns don't 'make the body come apart.' They may make the head come apart but they pass through the body like any other high-energy, high stability, steel jacketed bullet. I've seen film of someone being shot up close with a .50 tracer and I've read anecdotes from tank crews. One anecdote said that the target 'stared back in disbelief' after being hit by a 3 round burst to the torso, and the next burst put him down.

Grenades aren't design to amputate limbs, either, and would rarely do so. Dumping a frag into a room and turning everyone into aputies is just like dodging corpses in a helicopter- stupid.

And I don't really want to turn this into a medical/ballistic thread (I've had those on other forums), but getting hit in the legs with a 7.62 soviet isn't that bad. An uncomplicated leg wound from an ak-47 would be similar in severity to a similar wound by a 9mm parabellum round. It's the 5.56 wounds that are nasty, but nothing that would physiologically take you right out. Most wounded behaviour is psychological. If a 7.62 round makes an 8mm hole in your tissues, and misses your CNS, the result is a less then 1% destruction of total body mass. The reaction to such a wound is usually a latent psychological script (such as, 'I fall down now' or a decision on the wounded soldier's part (in uncomplicated cases). I find that BIS did a good job in the wounding regard, and I like this system better than any other I've ever played.

[Victor_S. 0]

I think the Americas army ragdoll effects are done very well and look as realistic as I have seen in any game. The latest patches for it have made the ragdoll system much better. It gave weight to the right places so you dont have the ragdoll effect looking rediculous. As for AA I say that ragdoll is not needed. For the distance that you are fire at targets from you cant see them well enough for ragdoll to look good, and it is a resource hog.

[grayace 2]

What BIS MUST do is improve the corpse behaviour when a soldier is hit by high-energy attacks. Watching a soldier fly 200 feet into the air after he's hit close with a bushmaster cannon is too much. THAT totally kills the moment for me.

Agreed, same goes for the vehicles, it is NOT too hard in OFP to see a T-80 Main battle tank flies like a mis-engineered aircraft, just put several mines on a road and make a armored vehicle drive over... It is extremely HILLARIOUS !!! and you can also put some soldiers close to those mines to make some "ROCKETMAN"s...

well, solution is (for over-energy injecting situations) in a least gore way is to make personnel disappear after an explosion, and for the vehicles it should destroy vehicle completely without sending it to the air, may be a meter for soft vehicles and few centimeters for MBTs...

*I want to make a self-correction, in my previous post I said that HE fire (30mm Cannon) should make body dissappear (may be still partially correct in case of a direct impact) but I watched a clip in which some Iraqi insurgents getting pinned down by AH-64 Apache's M230 30mm Cannon with HEI-T rounds included, and *results* are different... PM me to obtain its URL

[Sniperwolf572 758]

...Grenades aren't design to amputate limbs, either, and would rarely do so. Dumping a frag into a room and turning everyone into aputies is just like dodging corpses in a helicopter- stupid....

If you are reffering to my post with this, then you misread what I typed, I sad that mines are designed wound and most of the wounded cases get their limbs amputated because of severe injuries.

Living in country like Bosnia during the war, you see alot of that.

[max power 21]

I was just talking about the point you raised about FEAR in the same general train of thought as .50's disintegrating bodies.. It was a loose argument against wanton dismemberment. Some dismemberment would be better applied in those high-energy attacks aforementioned, if realism is what you wish.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

I was actually pointing that F.E.A.R. had dismemberment (In F.E.A.R. you can rip the body in half with SPAS-12 shotgun, I don't think that's realistic but it sells).

[max power 21]

What you were saying was clear.

I think that the whole John Romero violence thing sells to a different group of consumers than the quasi-military training software crowd.

[funnyguy1 0]

BI should use the time to implement wounding instead, I have yet to see a game with non-dead critically or other wise wounded units.

a soldier getting hit through the leg with a 7.62 should be wounded and unable to fight since the psychological shock about getting hit sometimes makes people go blank.

And with wounded laying around medics actually do something good, even if it's nothing more than stopping the bleeding and shipping him off with a med chopper...

Yes, we need medics, and something that would simulate "wounding" better...

It`s rather obvious that when a game simulates shooting at ppl, it should simulate effects of being shot...

@plaintiff1

"Most wounded behaviour is psychological. If a 7.62 round makes an 8mm hole in your tissues, and misses your CNS, the result is a less then 1% destruction of total body mass. The reaction to such a wound is usually a latent psychological script"

Pretty much the same thing what`s been said by Jinef.

Totally agree..AI should react more human-like. The only problem is how to activate/enforce those reactions on player?

Summing it up, and also expressing my own opinion: ragdoll is reasonable only on condition that things like:

better medics, wounding, psychological aspects are taken into account.

[benreeper 0]

THe bodies flying thru the air after being hit by a shell is a compromise, and a needed one. Before, it was stupid that vehicles would fly after being hit but not people. The game doesn't have dismemberment so this is what it does. It allows for the player to know, visually, how a unit was destroyed.

As for the unrealistic flying distances, that's a product of it's current physics system which must calculate 100 times the objects of other games.

--Ben