Im getting sick and tired of ragdoll physics

[RandyLahey]

when i first saw regdoll physics i admit, i thought it was pretty cool, in a funny kinda way. but after seeing it constantly beeing used, i get really tired of it. it seems like a lazy way of doing death animations (well yeah duh!) i understand problems with animations, but i think that it would add a whole hell of a lot more realism. especially in a game like this.... i could deal with it in FarCry, but i was surprised to see with T3 that they took the easy way out with this stupid, over-used ragdoll physics...

[Darkaven]

I totally agree, but what would it be like without ragdoll physics? I can't visualize moving bodies without the ragdoll physics there.

[RandyLahey]

Death/throw animations..... but well done ones. notice the pluralization on 'ones' i dont want to see different people falling the same way.... it is probably asking a lot, and is probably pretty hard to do.... but, this is just my feedback....

[Duredhel]

The problem with creating static death/throw animations is that there is very little interaction with the environment then.

The ragdoll animations are a great idea that's still maturing. Most use Havok and as they release newer versions that provide greater control over skeletal structure and limb weighting it'll start looking more and more realistic.

EDIT: Although there is nothing wrong with having a cool injury reaction right before letting the ragdoll take over. :D

[Yenzarill]

Originally posted by RandyLahey
... but i was surprised to see with T3 that they took the easy way out with ...

I think they used the easy way out on many more issues than that in thief 3.

[chris20202]

The ragdoll animations in Thief 3 look horrible, they are ridiculous. I would like to turn the things off completely and have all the bodies just fall to the ground, if they fell the same way that would be fine.

It would be better than the current system, where the bodies fall and make a bizarre "thumpthumpthumpthump!" sound, or where the body folds backwards in the middle of the spine, causing it to land in a contortionist position.

Ragdoll animations work much better in 1st person shooters, where the body after being shot flies backwards and lands off at a distance.

[padillah]

Call me crazy, but I kinda like the deaths not looking real. It's nothing that bugs me much (unless I throw someone down and they land with one foot on the ground and one foot next to their head) and I appreciate not trying to look real. Believe me, the last thing I want to see is a person die. Especially by what represents my hand.

Sure, there's tweeking to be done (that whole "folding in half" thing comes to mind) but don't make them too good, it'll get creepy.

padillaH

[Quillan]

I would honestly prefer it if they did look real. There was an interesting retrospective article about Thief over on (don't get mad at me, I didn't name the site) fourfatchicks.com. This quote is from the retrospective:

He kills without thought, applying no value to any life but his own—but not from a pathological thirst for violence. Garrett kills because he can, not because he wants or needs to. If he kills, it is because the life of his victim means nothing to him. For this reason, the violence in Thief is among the most wrenching in any first person game: it is possible to finish both without ever harming anyone, and taking a life therefore becomes an act of greater cruelty than it might in a game where violence is part of the equation.

It's kind of a deep thought, but strikes a vein of truth, at least with me. Cartoony deaths take away from this perspective. I don't know if the developers actually looked at it from that perspective; it is written by a third party, after all. But it did make me think.

If you're interested in reading the whole thing, you can find it here. (http://www.fourfatchicks.com/Reviews/Thief_Retro/Part_1.shtml)

[Neutrino64]

I like ragdoll physics. I think it makes everything much more realistic. However, having said that, Ion Storm doesn't seem to know how to use physics yet. Their implementation of havok physics is the poorest I have ever seen. It seems they've taken an excellent physics engine and rewrote it to be worse. After all HL2 is using havok as well and it seems to work just fine.

But that's just the game engine, which I don't like at all. I still enjoyed the game a whole lot.

[RandyLahey]

interesting thoughts..... Yes death animations would be very hard to make concidering the enviroment. But they could just make the basic death ani and then if the character hits say a wall or another guy there could be another animation for that, and so fourth... it might be asking a lot, but really this ragdoll fad has to end sometime...

[littlek]

Quit whining and just play the game!

[Neutrino64]

Originally posted by littlek
Quit whining and just play the game!

Been there, done that.:D

[Majnun]

Ragdoll physics are great.

HAVOK engine ragdoll physics are HORRIBLE.

When it's done right it's pretty cool though. They just need an engine that gives each character a realistic skeletal frame...so they fall in somewhat realistic ways. Not into a backwards arch with their head touching their heel...after being KO'd from BEHIND.

[Duredhel]

Each model already has a skeleton associated with it. The problem is that this skeleton doesn't inheritly have the necessary parameters for any ragdoll physics engine to figure out how to "drop" the model in the environment. There's additional configuration and tweaking that needs to occur and that's where this particular implementation seems to have fallen short.

[Neutrino64]

Originally posted by Majnun
Ragdoll physics are great.

HAVOK engine ragdoll physics are HORRIBLE.

When it's done right it's pretty cool though. They just need an engine that gives each character a realistic skeletal frame...so they fall in somewhat realistic ways. Not into a backwards arch with their head touching their heel...after being KO'd from BEHIND.

I have to disagree. Havok ragdolls are fine. Just look at any of the videos of games using it such as Half-Life 2. Or go look at some of their demos on the web. They all work great.

It seems to be just Ion Storm's implementation of Havok that is screwed up. Sometime I wonder if they even do beta testing. I mean how could they not notice that half the time you kill someone they curl over backwards like a gymnyst. Still a great game, but they don't get much respect form me for not fixing details like that.

[Merovingi]

Call me crazy but I don't think Thief 3 (and Deus Ex: Invisible War) are using Havok. I believe they are using the ragdoll physics from the Unreal 2.0 engine. In pretty much every Unreal warfare engine game I've seen (Rainbow Six: Raven Shield, Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004, etc) the ragdoll physics have all been the same.

Games that use Havok are like Max Payne 2, Half Life, and Painkiller. They're two different physics engines.

So, in conclusion, I don't believe the physics engine (ragdoll portion to be more specific) is Havok... but instead is the engine that is built within the Unreal engine.

[Duredhel]

Originally posted by Merovingi
Call me crazy but I don't think Thief 3 (and Deus Ex: Invisible War) are using Havok. I believe they are using the ragdoll physics from the Unreal 2.0 engine. In pretty much every Unreal warfare engine game I've seen (Rainbow Six: Raven Shield, Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004, etc) the ragdoll physics have all been the same.

Games that use Havok are like Max Payne 2, Half Life, and Painkiller. They're two different physics engines.

So, in conclusion, I don't believe the physics engine (ragdoll portion to be more specific) is Havok... but instead is the engine that is built within the Unreal engine.

Hmm, I though it was Havok (references all through-out the ini files).

EDIT: Ah, here we go... http://www.havok.com/clients/ionstorm.php

EDIT AGAIN: Looky here! When done right Havok can look awesome. http://www.havok.com/products/Fallguy.avi

[Merovingi]

I stand corrected.

Wow, I guess it really depends on who uses the Havok engine and how they use it. I've seen some REALLY goofy body positions in DX and Thief 3.

[Kanter]

I personaly don't like it that Garret has to throw away bodies.

Most of the time I have to move farther away from a wall when I want to hide a body, cuz there's not enough room to throw it.

That's rediculous!!!



I think SC had a better system on this aspect: Sam just puts down the bodies. Matter of fact: he puts down bodies IN THE WAY YOU WANT and can choose.

With T3:DS you just toss them away, not knowing where/how exactly they will land...


That's the biggest problem about the hiding corpes it think...