Ragdoll

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

Obviously, I feel differently.  If you want to make a scientific inquest into this light conversation, then I'm afraid you have a bunch of work ahead of you.  Since you have already chosen laziness in that you aren't willing to look it up yourself, I might just have to live with the fact that you don't believe me.

To my credit, I have my history of being correct, and my gigantic brain.

I'd suggest dialing down the ego there.  You have a history of being high handed,  arrogant and pedantic, nothing more.  You aren’t willing to accept people’s word without verification… can anyone say “Rambo’s Lynx�  Why should anyone accept your 'word'.  How about all the other times you’ve doubted people’s word and been proven wrong.  Its not just once.  Its happened far often than I am sure you are willing to remember.

[bravo 6 0]

I´m not opting for Ragdoll as it would consume too much CPU power for eyecandy only and it would be most likely cause problems in MP, but the death anims definately need an overhaul. There are simply too much situations where you shoot someone and he shoots up and dies in slow motion without any credible animation in between. Imo it looks a lot more surreal in Arma than it did in OFP as the anims do not blend into each other very well and sometimes the animations just do not fit into each other to make it look real or good.

I agree with Balschoiw on this subject.

IMO there are more and other important features then this one.

[max power 21]

Obviously, I feel differently. If you want to make a scientific inquest into this light conversation, then I'm afraid you have a bunch of work ahead of you. Since you have already chosen laziness in that you aren't willing to look it up yourself, I might just have to live with the fact that you don't believe me.

To my credit, I have my history of being correct, and my gigantic brain.

I'd suggest dialing down the ego there. You have a history of being high handed, arrogant and pedantic, nothing more. You aren’t willing to accept people’s word without verification… can anyone say “Rambo’s Lynx� Why should anyone accept your 'word'. How about all the other times you’ve doubted people’s word and been proven wrong. Its not just once. Its happened far often than I am sure you are willing to remember.

In that instance I was seeking to verify the claims myself which I was eventually able to do. I actually worked quite hard at it. I actually think that everyone should do that whenever they doubt something. I'm really sorry that I was stepping on the toes of that witch-hunt though. At any rate, it's not out of anyone's grasp to verify my claims as well..

And as for my self aggrandizing comments, I was kidding. If you were confused, I apologize. Perhaps in the future I will use more smilies.

There we go.

[stegman 3]

OK, bringing us back on track;

To be honest, I've never been impressed with 'ragdoll' effects/physics. They always look rather silly. You shoot a man and he goes pin-wheeling through the air like...well..like a ragdoll! Humans aren’t ragdolls we have allot of weight behind us (well i do anyhow. lol!

Also people will keep doing silly things with the ragdolls like throwing grenades at them or blowing them up with C4, to see what funny position they might land in. (Don't pretend you wouldn’t! I know i would!

Plus I’m sure it would take a lot of calculations and processor resources that could be better spent else where, like AI or vehicle handling...

Don't you agree?

[bravo 6 0]

i have no idea.

Though i know that in ArmA if you fire a soldier with a sabot and hit him.. the soldier will fly like they did in OFP..

Not so sure if this could be somehow improved.

Note: im not asking for ragdol.. just a noticeable change for better, if not possible, ho well.. tuff

[The_Captain 0]

I'd rather see soldiers disintegrate when hit by a sabot/lgb/satchel instead of flying through the air, more than I'd like to see a ragdoll implementation.

You can fix this with a scripting workaround that detects a signifcant change in velocity upon death (and deletecollections the soldier, replacing him with a particle effect), but it's somewhat iffy in MP.

I'd rather see this improved at an engine level.

[dmarkwick 261]

Lots of good pros & cons here, I can agree with almost all of them

On balance, I would go with the ragdoll crowd, but maybe a dialed down version. Have the torso end up the same location for inventory interaction purposes on all clients shouldn't be too hard, after all it happens right now. Even if it's a positional update after an interval I think it would be fine.

My own personal reason for ragdoll would be the infinite number of death poses possible. As it is now, I can pretty much pick out a dead body from almost any distance due to there being a recognizable few number of death poses. Ragdoll might mean that I need to be a lot more careful about deciding who's dead

[kavoven 4]

No ragdoll, and no bunny-hopping, for very good reason. If you want that sort of crap, un-install any BIS products you have and go back to TF2.

Please ragdoll and no stupid death animations for very good reason. If you want that sort of crap, you can play a 10 year old game.

See the argument?

[stegman 3]

As it is now, I can pretty much pick out a dead body from almost any distance due to there being a recognizable few number of death poses. Ragdoll might mean that I need to be a lot more careful about deciding who's dead

Interesting point.

Variety is the spice of life…or death in this case.

What you said about the 'gear' is interesting too. I feel that if your going to use 'ragdoll' then the persons weapons should fall to the floor rather than be stuck to their hands.

(same when you take their weapon, maybe your gun should be dropped to the ground rather than put in their hands..?)

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

In that instance I was seeking to verify the claims myself which I was eventually able to do. I actually worked quite hard at it. I actually think that everyone should do that whenever they doubt something.

Yeah you do go above and beyond trying to prove you are always right don’t you.

I'm really sorry that I was stepping on the toes of that witch-hunt though. At any rate, it's not out of anyone's grasp to verify my claims as well..

That wasn’t a witch hunt. It was the outing of a thief and a liar who attempted to steal a friend’s work. A witch hunt would have been trying to fabricate some BS to stick him with then try to destroy his reputation. He did that for himself. The others in his team saw through it for what it was and left him. That should be evidence enough.

I wouldn’t mind so much but you had no involvement in that issue until you appointed yourself judge and jury and start posting self promoting crap. Rambo was given notice well in advance of that post and he still lied about it saying he made it himself; right up to the point when screen shots proving that he was using a stolen model appeared. Only then did he suddenly and rather conveniently claim that he used a model that was uploaded 24hrs after Pathy’s first post. The facts were immediately obvious without you having to try and cast doubt on Pathy’s evidence.

And as for my self aggrandizing comments, I was kidding. If you were confused, I apologize. Perhaps in the future I will use more smilies.

There we go.

Going off your previous post I definitely wasn’t at all confused. But you are right, maybe using more smilies might disguise some of your snidey rhetoric.

Returning to the topic, Rag doll: I know its argued that it would add CPU load but would it really affect performance that much?

But I guess it depends on whether the "new" engine supports that kind of physics. It’s always been both frustrating and amusing that you can stop a 30 ton tank with a small tree in arma. As well the OFP/ArmA game engines always seem to immediately discount the collision detection for corpses which would imply that the engine would need a massive upgrade to incorporate rag doll physics etc so wouldn’t be cost/time effective.

Edits for crappy spelling

[NoRailgunner 0]

No ragdoll because BIS can improve animations.

Those ragdoll-death-animations in many movies and fps are eyecandy and far away from realism (some are "busted" by Mythbuster). Let's see what we can get about:

Quote[/b] ]AI using taunts and hand signals for coordination and increased immersion

[max power 21]

Quote[/b] ]

Yeah you do go above and beyond trying to prove you are always right don’t you.

It's something we have in common, I think.

Quote[/b] ]

That wasn’t a witch hunt. It was the outing of a thief and a liar who attempted to steal a friend’s work. A witch hunt would have been trying to fabricate some BS to stick him with then try to destroy his reputation. He did that for himself. The others in his team saw through it for what it was and left him. That should be evidence enough.

I wouldn’t mind so much but you had no involvement in that issue until you appointed yourself judge and jury and start posting self promoting crap. Rambo was given notice well in advance of that post and he still lied about it saying he made it himself; right up to the point when screen shots proving that he was using a stolen model appeared. Only then did he suddenly and rather conveniently claim that he used a model that was uploaded 24hrs after Pathy’s first post. The facts were immediately obvious without you having to try and cast doubt on Pathy’s evidence.

No, Rock. A witch hunt is getting a bunch of people riled up with a huge circus with torches and hearsay. Your aim was to publicly humiliate him as well as whatever else you were trying to do. I don't know you and I don't know Rambo, but I'm suspicious at attempts to create such a circus. Conducting yourself with a modicum of decorum, in seeking justice privately would not have been witch hunting.

And so what now? You're still trying to tell me that you were right in doing what you did in that issue. You felt the need to bring it up again and now you're justifying it again. I believe you and Pathy were on about something about calling kettles black or something before the thread got locked.

Quote[/b] ]

But you are right, maybe using more smilies might disguise some of your snidey rhetoric.

You certainly have me figured out don't you? I dare say you know me better than I know myself. But if the above is false, Rock, and I'm wrong about you, perhaps you're also wrong about me.

BTW, nice token comment to pander to staying on topic. As if that was your reason for posting!

If you wish to discuss Rambo further, I can be reached via PM unless you want to try to publicly disgrace me as well.

[sanctuary 19]

For the CPU concerns, with Arma2 and its minimum requirement being 2 cores and "optimal" settings being 4 cores , i doubt ragdoll is as concerning for CPU performance it was on games requiring a lot less hardware.

If nasa computers like these are unable to manage ragdoll without performance drop, there is something very wrong in the code.

But that said, Rogue Spear had an impressive amount of different death animations, you nearly never saw 2 time the same during a mission when you were taking down tangos.

All of them were just so well done that they were all believable and felt real.

So there is no need of ragdoll, just a lot more variations in the animations.

[Balschoiw 0]

Had one of these odd moments yesterday when I shot a prone soldier. He went up like a rocket and dropped. I´d like to see such fixed as it looks so unreal and amusing that it´s hardly contributing to a "real" atmosphere.

Variety of animations and the right implementation seems to be the key. They also should get rid of the delay they currently have when shooting a unit. Right now you shoot him and there is a delay before the death anims kick in. Don´t know the reason for this, but it looks simply odd.

[stakex 0]

OK, bringing us back on track;

To be honest, I've never been impressed with 'ragdoll' effects/physics.  They always look rather silly.  You shoot a man and he goes pin-wheeling through the air like...well..like a ragdoll!  Humans aren’t ragdolls we have allot of weight behind us (well i do anyhow. lol!

Also people will keep doing silly things with the ragdolls like throwing grenades at them or blowing them up with C4, to see what funny position they might land in. (Don't pretend you wouldn’t!  I know i would!  

Silly huh... Have you ever played OFP/ArmA?? Put a satchel under someone and see what happens. Or fire a tank round at a squad of guys... They go flying through the air playing their death animation untill they go stiff and then slide across the ground for several yards. Its not AS bad in ArmA, but still very "silly" and not very "realistic". Not to mention it looks horrible having stiff bodies flying all over the place in a big fire fight.

As I said before... Im not saying ragdoll is the awnser for ArmA2. But the argument that ragdoll shouldn't be used becuase its "silly" or "un-realistic" is nothing short of a bad joke, and a terrible argument. Its almost as your saying the ArmA system is a pillar of realism, when in reality the ArmA/OFP animation system is terribly unrealistic. It can't handle explosions, people getting hit by cars, or any great force acting on a character. Not to mention the same death animations repeat over and over.

Wouldn't it make sense to replace a not so good looking, unrealistic systme with one that might not be 100% realistic, but looks better all around? Ragdoll can handle ANY situation... something the pre-defined animation system of ArmA/OFP simply cannot do.

Ragdoll can be made to look very real if its done correctly. Its a total myth that ALL ragdoll effects are Far Cry style with bodies flying all over the place for virtually nothing. Several games have pulled off amazingly good ragdoll effects that look far more real then deaths in ArmA. The only real argument against ragdoll in ArmA is if it could be done and not be a CPU killer. But with Dual cores a requierment, and Quad cores recommended......... anything is possible.

And finally.... this one really gets me laughing. Who cares if people play with the ragdoll effects in games and see what the can do with them? Its a GAME afterall... its ment to entertain. If people spend hours playing with your death animation system alone... Id say your doing something right in game development.

[model 101 0]

If people would spend time looking at ragdoll death effects, they are playing the wrong game. And people that dont care about ragdolls will have to suffer with poor performance.

It looks silly when you fly in the air like in OFP, but your not really suppose to shoot tank rounds or use heavy explosives on infantry now do you?. In any case it wouldent be any different other then it would be a ragdoll flying in the air @ 4 FPS

[stakex 0]

If people would spend time looking at ragdoll death effects, they are playing the wrong game. And people that dont care about ragdolls will have to suffer with poor performance.

It looks silly when you fly in the air like in OFP, but your not really suppose to shoot tank rounds or use heavy explosives on infantry now do you?. In any case it wouldent be any different other then it would be a ragdoll flying in the air @ 4 FPS

Explosions kill infantry in combat all the time... do you think every IED that has killed someone in Iraq was used on a vehicle? And what about land mines? Either way... you have any idea how many times I have been killed by a tank round while on foot in ArmA?? Or seen people killed by satchel charges used as claymores? It happens alot... The fact that ArmA is a game, and real world military logic does not apply seems to escape you. Sure, in real life no ones going to waste a tank shell on infantry... but in ArmA, it happens all the time.

On the other note... It really remains to be seen if "poor performance" would go hand in hand with ragdoll when the game is going to have a min dual core processor requierment. Games with graphics as good, if not better then ArmA have done very good ragdoll on MUCH MUCH lower specs. Of course ArmA2 will have much larger environments with more people, but will be played on PC's far beyond what was requiered or even available when games like Half Life 2 and Far Cry came out. So it stands to reason even if the AI takes up massive amounts of resource, that there should be plenty of CPU resource left to power a better death system of some sort.

Personally I feel your truely over estimateing how much of a CPU hit ragdoll would cause in ArmA2... especially a toned down, realistic ragdoll that has a more restricted movement running on dual core. Don't forget... everyone dosn't die at once, and ragdoll only kicks in when someones killed and could be set to "freeze" once they finish "dieing". So it would be very rare for the ragdoll system to be very active and causeing a big PC resource hit at any given time. Perhaps if you used a nuke or something... but since there are probly going to be no nukes in the release of ArmA2, thats not a concern of the devs.

Not to say theres not other issues with ragdoll, such as MP problems... but CPU useage (and realism) are probly the weakest argument against.

[dmarkwick 261]

Further to my last post, I've been replaying Hidden & Dangerous 2 and was reminded how effective ragdoll is. It's not all tumbling down stairs and flying bodies, it's about a realistic crump when you achieve an instant kill, and a unique pose for that dead body. Sometimes you see a partial view of a body and you really have to be careful that it's really dead because you cannot recognise the death pose.

Other things that H&D2 did well are dropping of weapons and dropping of other equipment (helmets). In fact very occasionally you can ping a soldier's weapon from his hands, or have it pinged from yours.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure the OFP dead dropped their weapons when killed, was that built in or was that the result of a well-distributed addon? Seemed like it happened all the time.

[model 101 0]

Quote[/b] ]Explosions kill infantry in combat all the time... do you think every IED that has killed someone in Iraq was used on a vehicle? And what about land mines? Either way... you have any idea how many times I have been killed by a tank round while on foot in ArmA?? Or seen people killed by satchel charges used as claymores? It happens alot... The fact that ArmA is a game, and real world military logic does not apply seems to escape you. Sure, in real life no ones going to waste a tank shell on infantry... but in ArmA, it happens all the time.  

On the other note... It really remains to be seen if "poor performance" would go hand in hand with ragdoll when the game is going to have a min dual core processor requierment. Games with graphics as good, if not better then ArmA have done very good ragdoll on MUCH MUCH lower specs. Of course ArmA2 will have much larger environments with more people, but will be played on PC's far beyond what was requiered or even available when games like Half Life 2 and Far Cry came out. So it stands to reason even if the AI takes up massive amounts of resource, that there should be plenty of CPU resource left to power a better death system of some sort.

Personally I feel your truely over estimateing how much of a CPU hit ragdoll would cause in ArmA2... especially a toned down, realistic ragdoll that has a more restricted movement running on dual core. Don't forget... everyone dosn't die at once, and ragdoll only kicks in when someones killed and could be set to "freeze" once they finish "dieing". So it would be very rare for the ragdoll system to be very active and causeing a big PC resource hit at any given time. Perhaps if you used a nuke or something... but since there are probly going to be no nukes in the release of ArmA2, thats not a concern of the devs.

Not to say theres not other issues with ragdoll, such as MP problems... but CPU useage (and realism) are probly the weakest argument against.

Im not arguing that explosions shouldent kill infantry. But when you purposly do it in a extreme fashion and then complain about it dosent get you any rewards.

I hope you realise that. I have also flown in the air like superman after a bmp shell. Again how would that change by implenting ragdoll?.

Not only will it affect performance (and it will) but there are so much work behind a relativly useless feature, that could more easily be adressed with more varied animations.

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

No, Rock.  A witch hunt is getting a bunch of people riled up with a huge circus with torches and hearsay.  Your aim was to publicly humiliate him as well as whatever else you were trying to do.  I don't know you and I don't know Rambo, but I'm suspicious at attempts to create such a circus.  Conducting yourself with a modicum of decorum, in seeking justice privately would not have been witch hunting.

It’s odd that several people including myself PM’d him before it all kicked off.  It wasn’t until he denied it, saying he made it from scratch that it kicked off.  It wasn’t organized, it was unfortunate that he stole a model that was so well known.  Let alone one that most of us knew so well because we worked on the FLK mod.  The points at which he lied publicly and you interfered ensured that it wasn’t going to get sorted out privately.

And so what now?  You're still trying to tell me that you were right in doing what you did in that issue.  You felt the need to bring it up again and now you're justifying it again.  I believe you and Pathy were on about something about calling kettles black or something before the thread got locked.

I am telling you that you made the situation worse.  You interfered with no knowledge of what was going on, placing yourself in the middle of the situation as a “judgeâ€.  You did nothing to calm the situation only inflame it.  As for bringing it up again, I’m using it to illustrate my point about you interfering in things you know nothing about and writing pompous self promoting posts to satisfy your own vanity.

You certainly have me figured out don't you?  I dare say you know me better than I know myself.  But if the above is false, Rock, and I'm wrong about you, perhaps you're also wrong about me.

Wouldn’t it be nice if I was.  We only have forum posts to judge each other from.  But given your previous posts I still maintain the way that I have described you remains accurate.

BTW, nice token comment to pander to staying on topic.  As if that was your reason for posting!  

Actually the only reason I found the topic was the rag doll issue.  I was going to post something when I came across your first post.  You distracted me long enough that I forgot to post my original questions.

If you wish to discuss Rambo further, I can be reached via PM unless you want to try to publicly disgrace me as well.

I don’t have a need to publicly humiliate you.  I would prefer that you stick to topics you actually know something about.  Thats all.

Quote[/b] ]Explosions kill infantry in combat all the time... do you think every IED that has killed someone in Iraq was used on a vehicle? And what about land mines? Either way... you have any idea how many times I have been killed by a tank round while on foot in ArmA?? Or seen people killed by satchel charges used as claymores? It happens alot... The fact that ArmA is a game, and real world military logic does not apply seems to escape you. Sure, in real life no ones going to waste a tank shell on infantry... but in ArmA, it happens all the time.  

On the other note... It really remains to be seen if "poor performance" would go hand in hand with ragdoll when the game is going to have a min dual core processor requierment. Games with graphics as good, if not better then ArmA have done very good ragdoll on MUCH MUCH lower specs. Of course ArmA2 will have much larger environments with more people, but will be played on PC's far beyond what was requiered or even available when games like Half Life 2 and Far Cry came out. So it stands to reason even if the AI takes up massive amounts of resource, that there should be plenty of CPU resource left to power a better death system of some sort.

Personally I feel your truely over estimateing how much of a CPU hit ragdoll would cause in ArmA2... especially a toned down, realistic ragdoll that has a more restricted movement running on dual core. Don't forget... everyone dosn't die at once, and ragdoll only kicks in when someones killed and could be set to "freeze" once they finish "dieing". So it would be very rare for the ragdoll system to be very active and causeing a big PC resource hit at any given time. Perhaps if you used a nuke or something... but since there are probly going to be no nukes in the release of ArmA2, thats not a concern of the devs.

Not to say theres not other issues with ragdoll, such as MP problems... but CPU useage (and realism) are probly the weakest argument against.

I’m with Stakex on this, I cant imagine it would be a massive hit on the spec of PC’s ArmA 2 is being aimed at?  There will be a performance hit in some way but if the engine is written  well enough it shouldn’t be a problem.

Although I have got to say I’m still on the fence about ragdoll effects.  The way I play (I fly mostly in MP) wouldn’t let me see the eye candy aspects of ragdoll but it does open up the door for more realistic physics and explosion effects etc.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always had a big problem with the Death anims, they are a bit naff when you have seen them for the hundredth time. It’s a common complaint I know but they always die the same or very limited number of ways regardless of how they were killed.  You shoot someone they fall over.  Drop a 250lb bomb they fall over in varied directions rather than in response to the blast, not very realistic.  The bodies should react differently to different weapons. What I want is the environment to react more like the real world does.  I suspect that in writing “Ragdoll†into the engine it would mean other things were possible?  Interacting with other objects in a more realistic way.  I’m not too sure if that really is something that rag doll would give us but I am sure it would require a rewrite of the engine to achieve and if you are going to rewrite the engine for rag doll physics why not do it properly?

Im not arguing that explosions shouldent kill infantry. But when you purposly do it in a extreme fashion and then complain about it dosent get you any rewards.

I hope you realise that. I have also flown in the air like superman after a bmp shell. Again how would that change by implenting ragdoll?.

Not only will it affect performance (and it will) but there are so much work behind a relativly useless feature, that could more easily be adressed with more varied animations.

I think to achieve ragdoll in ArmA you need a revamp of the entire game engine.  “Supermanâ€, getting killed behind a wall when a grenade goes off, tanks getting stopped by a stone/tree/fence etc are all signs that something isn’t right.  It needs doing, I just don’t think its ever going to happen at this late stage.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]I think to achieve ragdoll in ArmA you need a revamp of the entire game engine.

I guess the basics are already there in Arma. Take the barrels for example. They react quite naturally to applied force. They roll, tilt over, have weight. For sure a ragdoll system means much more than that, but the basics are already implemented for objects.

[stakex 0]

Im not arguing that explosions shouldent kill infantry. But when you purposly do it in a extreme fashion and then complain about it dosent get you any rewards.

I hope you realise that. I have also flown in the air like superman after a bmp shell. Again how would that change by implenting ragdoll?.

Not only will it affect performance (and it will) but there are so much work behind a relativly useless feature, that could more easily be adressed with more varied animations.

Well your right to an extent that the current flying through the air problem is not a "we need ragdoll" problem... its a serious issue with the ArmA animations. Even with the current system bodies should not fly the way they do, and should have more "weight" to them. I personally don't think these issues can be fixed with the current animation system, unless explosions don't move infantry at all. This is where ragdoll comes in... bodies would not be so stiff when such a situation occures and would actually look more real. Again, even with ragdoll the bodies would have to be weighted so they don't fly hundreds of yards, but instead feet from the explosion.

While I still maintain that the performace hit on the target PC's would be minimal if the system was done right, you definatlly hit on one of the drawbacks... its quite far into development for the devs to throw ragdoll into the mix. And tho its not really a uesless feature (ragdoll sells copies of games), its overall value is fairly limited. Only the devs truely know how hard it would be to add to ArmA2, but it probly would take quite a while to get right if BIS didn't licence a real physics engine to do it.

[jackass888 0]

A easy solution for the "flying dead" is dismemberment... simple like used in slx mod. Man receives a high damage,man is deleted,body parts are spawned, at least i think it works like this. I have even blown up 30 men at once and no lag with this. And more violence is always better

Personally i would like to see some simple ragdoll, but there are many more important features the team needs time for.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]Man receives a high damage,man is deleted,body parts are spawned,

This would put Arma 2 on the index in some countries, means that BIS would not be able to sell it it in such countries as Arma would depict excessive gore and violence.

[funnyguy1 0]

Rogue Spear had an impressive amount of different death animations, you nearly never saw 2 time the same during a mission when you were taking down tangos.

All of them were just so well done that they were all believable and felt real.

So there is no need of ragdoll, just a lot more variations in the animations.

Seconded, as everything in that post. I say no to ragdoll everytime I see a topic with ragdoll in it. Ragdoll vs death anims is like the fully dynamic destruction system vs the system from ArmA2 case, the only difference being the bigger need of the dynamic destruction than ragdoll...