Character Ragdoll and more

[grayace 2]

My bad, i was the one who brought the LAW>BMP explosion kills soldiers combination in this discussion regarding ragdolls .

I interpreted you coment of dry has related to it not being ragdolled.

I like reasonable gore but not mutilations, i find the gore level in OPF very acceptable and with more detailed soldier models being used the current amount of gore seems fine to me, maybe because i have my concerns or priorities focused on other features and improvements .

Completely agreed!

I play OFP like living in it, its WAAAAYYYY beyond than any other game but still there are somepoints that needs brushing, death scenes are less than .0001 percent for me but as this is the thread topic I explained my thoughts ...

I would like to see a place where you can take your backpack and start a virtual combat based journey, or take command and responsibility of a mechanized unit through the ongoing battle, and I want all of these based on a dynamic world and on important details which can effect strategy, tactics and ultimately personal ability to fight the enemy... I just wanted to make it clear for everybody, Im not just another FragFreak which my posts can make others confused and think so...

My bad, i was the one who brought the LAW>BMP explosion kills soldiers combination in this discussion regarding ragdolls .

I interpreted you coment of dry has related to it not being ragdolled.

I like reasonable gore but not mutilations, i find the gore level in OPF very acceptable and with more detailed soldier models being used the current amount of gore seems fine to me, maybe because i have my concerns or priorities focused on other features and improvements .

and it was also my bad, I put a note for explaining it that its not about visual decoration

[Heatseeker 0]

Well, Arma supposedly is a Flashpoint upgrade or should i say an upgraded flashpoint so i am carefull with my expectations . Your ideas posted above seem more towards ngpcg2 but we never know how much Arma might surprise us .

[grayace 2]

I know, anyways Im fine with OFP graphics/effects with addons and MODs (ECP) all I seek is standartization of units like ECP did somewhat, and Im confident that ArmA will provide what Im asking for... after this I can ask two more things first is, decent physics engine like JointOps, please check my post at forum topic about "Walking in vehicles" (last one) which could provide immense features for everybody and second is, DyNaMiC CaMpAiGn... it is everything!

[sluggCDN 0]

going back to ragdoll . I also remembered ArmedA will have far more detailed urban environment - that means a lot of fighting in staircases or other uneven multilevel surfaces. In OFP as it stands right now at the end of any death animation a body assumes a static "frozen" position usually flat on a ground. With OFP Resistance introduction of more detailed  multilevel buildings u could usually see corpse basically hovering in the air, parallel to the ground after death simply because its foot would be stuck on a ledge or a top step of a staircase. it would eventually be slowly "sinking" down tho; but things like that would really detract from the sense of emersion. So again whatever they do just static death animation may not be an ideal solution. ragdoll is the closest to the "realistic" thing they ever got.

I totally agree - falling-thru-walls bodies don't work well, and that is an frequent occurance in OFP so far. oh, well...

[funnyguy1 0]

So again whatever they do just static death animation may not be an ideal solution. ragdoll is the closest to the "realistic" thing they ever got.

Ragdoll can be realistic only in situations you described (urban fighting), after all, death anims shouldn`t depend on the sorroundings...

My idea is to combine ragdoll with death anims...

But I really don`t know how to do this..

death anims (as it is now) - good

only ragdoll - not so good

death anims + some kind of ragdoll - the best idea imho

[Scrub 0]

Hi Funnyguy, I like your idea.. On Inverse Kinematic joints (IK), there's usually limits of rotation, tension toward a neutral position, and dampening of outside forces.  Are you speaking about weakly imposing pre-defined forces - the IK attempts to follow the animation to a variable limit (strength) - and after the animation you want is displayed, say: trying to grab his chest after being shot there, 'ragdoll' takes over completely?  Something like that? That's probably CPU intensive, but if the streaming terrain makes ArmA act like it's a 'slot' type shooter, we might be in for a nice surprise.

Edit: Hmmm, Just thinking that if there is a variable 'strength' that the model attempts to do the animations with, and that value changes due to damage, we'd have dynamic damage/death animations.

Cheers.

[hoot 0]

its not about "attraction" its about "displaying" fella, and if you PEOPLE are this much against gore and offensive visuals WHY are you carrying a M-16 or frag grenades??? get stun and tazer guns and THEN I would like to see you on battlefield as much as you like to see me in Iraq...

...why do you want something to be displayed, if it not even attracts you?! whatever, i recommend you better stay with soldier of fortune, because i doubt that BIS would or will implement such things. ragdoll or any other kinematics - fine and yeah, cool to have.

but it's not that clever to make mutilation and death a good looking effect, it often results in emotional blunting. ofp is a game for adults, not for kids that freakin' out by watching bodily parts flying around, accompanied by fountains of blood! if you would have seen the real world, then you would potentially argue the same way i did. if you already had your war and you are still looking for more blood, then you are definetely just bloody-minded. and hell, such a fact gives fodder to all those, who telling the whole long day, that gaming kills!

so Balschoiw got the point - you don't

it told you my point of view twice, now it's ended its a free world (at least some parts of it are) to have your very own opinion but i believe that the implementation of too much goreeffects makes the game just more attractive to a kind of audience i don't like to play with!

...happy new year

[Gollum1 0]

All I know is that something should be done about flying corpses, either blow them apart or add some ragdoll. Either one would be really fun.

[ziiip 1]

Yeah, there should be flying legs, flying torso, flying arms and huge bloood cloud too, like in F.E.A.R.

[brataccas 0]

All I know is that something should be done about flying corpses, either blow them apart or add some ragdoll. Either one would be really fun.

nooo long live the flying corpses!

Click me! !

and me!

[funnyguy1 0]

Yeah, there should be flying legs, flying torso, flying arms and huge bloood cloud too, like in F.E.A.R.  

Yeah, It perfectly fits to what`s Hoot wrote, doesn`t it?

Thanks to you I have mixed feelings about the war realism, suggested by me in ngpcg forums...

edit:

@Scrub: well, I didn`t get 100% what you had in mind, but It`s quite possible we`re thinking about the same thing m8

[gonk 0]

Rag doll effects would be cool. But dismemberment.. Might affect rating in some countries.

[armandobronca 0]

@ Dec. 29 2005,13:50)]

actually, I absolutely loved death animations of the original OFP - in general they are still the best u can find out there. But the ragdoll would have to be implemented if they plan to have flying corpses. right now in OFP the corpses launched in the air by explosion fly like a piece of plywood and keep on bouncing the most rediculous way upon landing. plus now in OFP dead bodies usually kinda get uplifted by a grenade explosion next to them - it looks like the body just get instantly frozen and move as one piece. So overall the ragdol should be added if dead bodies will be airborne so that they actually flip in the air and land properly. They should either get rid of flying corpses or keep it and introduce ragdoll for airborne characters.

I agree.

me too

[armandobronca 0]

I had some kind of physics-demo thingy, it showed a character with partly ragdolls and partly anims, looked pretty good, and it takes the best from both. Bodys wont fall trough walls, but will still have a realistic animation while falling

BTW: Ragdolls are fun

That looks interesting but if the server need to do all the math functions for hundreds of corps (or even if the clients pcs do that job), i doubt a standard server can support all that job. That's the "problem" of this kind of game.

Maybe that can be implemented for CTF games, but i think it cant be for CTI, battlefield, or other maps...

So what about a option about ragdols physics?, the mission editor can pick if ragdols will be used in a map or not...

[alex9111 0]

What about normal death anims, but if the body is in the air , it switches to a " rolling in air anim" or somthing similar ?

this was used pretty good in games like Star wars battlefront or battlefield 1942 (ofcourse this is my opinion ).

For dismembered boddies , why just don't have an option to switch it of?(like blood)

[grayace 2]

its not about "attraction" its about "displaying" fella, and if you PEOPLE are this much against gore and offensive visuals WHY are you carrying a M-16 or frag grenades??? get stun and tazer guns and THEN I would like to see you on battlefield as much as you like to see me in Iraq...

...why do you want something to be displayed, if it not even attracts you?! whatever, i recommend you better stay with soldier of fortune, because i doubt that BIS would or will implement such things. ragdoll or any other kinematics - fine and yeah, cool to have.

but it's not that clever to make mutilation and death a good looking effect, it often results in emotional blunting. ofp is a game for adults, not for kids that freakin' out by watching bodily parts flying around, accompanied by fountains of blood! if you would have seen the real world, then you would potentially argue the same way i did. if you already had your war and you are still looking for more blood, then you are definetely just bloody-minded. and hell, such a fact gives fodder to all those, who telling the whole long day, that gaming kills!

so Balschoiw got the point - you don't

it told you my point of view twice, now it's ended its a free world (at least some parts of it are) to have your very own opinion but i believe that the implementation of too much goreeffects makes the game just more attractive to a kind of audience i don't like to play with!

...happy new year

ah "dear" Hoot (Kilo 11),

I think you are getting the situation a little exaggerated... in none of my posts I requested for SoF/UT type of gore, Im going to request you to read the posts a little more carefull because otherwise Im going to think that you are even against the current "gore" level of OFP (as I reffered before "forgotten statement for a -certain POV-") :: Im saying that -in that case- your type of "adult" players dont want to see any blood ::

anyways, you can see my point or not there is one certain thing is at hand, there is no way to explain flying bodies after an explosion takes place, in a reasonable way,

Quote[/b] ]if you already had your war and you are still looking for more blood, then you are definetely just bloody-minded

may be you should try to check your browser's encryption settings, I really start to think that there is a technical error after this point..

Couldnt find any error? then here is my explanation for this, you are thinking of me that Im another "kiddy,freaking, graphics nut" and thats why you are taking my posts with a kind of very rigid prejustice, well here is my answer, I'm a flight sim fan (I dont have any interest in blood/gore but in -accuracy-) and strategy games player (HoI2/SC:BW no kiddy thing, really) and I like some FRP games...

Happy new year too!

Quote[/b] ] makes the game just more attractive to a kind of audience i don't like to play with!

and don't worry OFP is a simulation no "Du/As" counter-strike or other arcade shooter player can live in... so it's pretty clear that we always see some quality players out there

[V-MAN 0]

Ragdoll physics in DoD:Source are quite good for example. As opposed to BF2 lol but BF2 is ment to be funny not realistic

[ebns72 0]

EDIT to above post: the dod source one is also good. It is quite impressive and looks very natural when you see a squad of 5 or so guys get mowed down by an mg42...the effect just looks very natural, realistic, and terrifying. Also, you can do so much more with ragdoll than death animations. Bodies floating in water, weapons flying around, people falling off cliffs and towers, rolling down hills, and not to mention you could implement semi-ragdolls which are less taxing but combine animation and ragdolls.

bf2 ragdoll is notably horrible. The America's army one, IMO, looks very realistic and isn't taxing on the resources at all. I still remember the patch that added ragdoll and there was almost no performance difference, because AA uses some techniques, such as the ragdolls being "stiffer" (leading to more realistic effect and less physics calculation needed) and once they stop moving, they stop moving. IMO, they are not that taxing and add a lot to the game. The death animations in ofp are even worse than bf2 when it comes to high-explosive. Bodies don't fly 100 feet in the air when hit with a tank round, and they don't fly 20 feet in the air when naded. Ragdoll could fix this, not to mention in ofp flying static bodies just look stupid.

There are many clever techniques to make it so ragdoll is nearly the same system tax as normal death animations, and in ofp's case I really don't think it would have much effect on system resources at all.

Ragdoll is also ADJUSTABLE which many people fail to realize. NOT ALL RAGDOLL IS THE SAME. I have seen some games where ragdolls look stupid and silly (BF2) and some games where they so natural they look like normal death animations (america's army, day of defeat: source).

IMO, if game2 can handle dynamic building destruction using physics which handles probably twice as many physics calculations as ragdoll, armed assault can probably handle ragdoll. The client DOES NOT NEED TO CALCULATE HUNDREDS OF CORPSES AT ONCE! It can be made so it only has to calculate one corpse at a time, and it then becomes static after doing so...americas army did this and it is very performance-saving.

[Heatseeker 0]

bf2 ragdoll is notably horrible. The America's army one, IMO, looks very realistic and isn't taxing on the resources at all. I still remember the patch that added ragdoll and there was almost no performance difference, because AA uses some techniques, such as the ragdolls being "stiffer" (leading to more realistic effect and less physics calculation needed) and once they stop moving, they stop moving. IMO, they are not that taxing and add a lot to the game.

They are taxing and they look bad, if you dont believe me do this:

open sfhospital

mpcheat class r

statfps 1

summon agp_characters.npc_soldier (repeat 10 or more times)

walk

killpawns

See your frame rate go down to hell, now type the comand walk some more times and watch the FPS..

Now consider what americas army does, no a.i., small 3D maps, no destroyable objects and buildings, no complex missions or events, nothing going on and it still efects frame rate .

Now the chances of 10 people dying at the same time in AA MP are small but in flashpoint the scale is huge and there is alot going on, many a.i. and animations, explosions, tanks and vehicals, script, etc.. And in MP americas army ragdoll death sequence looks laggy and many people complained about them, the reason BF2's ragdolls look bad is because the game is big, open and demanding and to have crappy ragdoll we are better off with quality death animation. Ragdoll = waste of CPU and time .

[funnyguy1 0]

I think we all understand it Heatseeker, but my question again is:

What with situations, in which ragdoll really helps (situations Scurb and I described in our previous posts)?

You`re against it even in NGPCG?

[max power 21]

I think I read somewhere that the definitive answer is no ragdolls in ArmA, but I think that a good ragdoll is eerily realistic in portraying people who fall unconscious/dead. Also, the argument as to causing like 100 deaths at once would tax the game to hell is, in my opinion, a non argument. If you set off 100 explosions at once, have 100 tanks fire at once, fly 100 helecopters at once, the game will lag. Lots of things tax the processor/gpu if you have several events happening simulataneously... but how often does this happen in game? Are we saying 'no lag within reason' or 'no lag, ever, never, and if I see one second where the frames dip below broadcast tv, I'm going to torch my cds!'?

[DaneDK 0]

Ragdoll is no big matter to me, i like the current death animations although i do agree it doesn't look pretty when the dying soldiers go airbourne.

But if if ragdoll == lag i say better use the resources elsewere like ai.

Just my 2 cents.

Happy new year

[GBee 0]

Also, the argument as to causing like 100 deaths at once would tax the game to hell is, in my opinion, a non argument. If you set off 100 explosions at once, have 100 tanks fire at once, fly 100 helecopters at once, the game will lag. Lots of things tax the processor/gpu if you have several events happening simulataneously... but how often does this happen in game?

100 explosions is not the same as 100 deaths in OFP - the latter is far more likely to happen than the former.

A single LG bomb from an A-10 in OFP is enough to wipe out a convoy. In that scenario which isn't uncommon you might see 50+ people die (4 trucks fully loaded with soldiers). Equally dropping a bomb on the battle field might result in similar figures.

The real question though: Is seeing ragdoll implemented your number one wishlist item? If so then you either lack imagination or you are playing the wrong game. There are many areas where real improvements can be made to gameplay, eye-candy should be secondary to that.

I don't think anyone here argues that ragdoll should not included - as long as it doesn't affect performance (at all) and is better than that used in other games. It should also be a low priority for BIS.

[Heatseeker 0]

^^ 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...

[ziiip 1]

I didn't notice this cpu sukcing problem in BF2. Not like it'd be running too well on my comp.