Ragdoll AI moved and twisted after reloading

[Springheel]

This has been reported intermittedly for a while now. People position AI ragdolls in certain places, but then after saving the game and coming back to it later, the AI are not where they were placed. They're usually moved a few meters away, often twisted up into strange positions.

 

I noticed this in Heart of Lone Salvation, and a few people have already reported it in A Score to Settle. It doesn't appear to happen in every map or to every person, however, so I'm hoping to find some kind of common denominator.

 

If you've had this happen to you, can you please list what map it was? Maybe the maps have something in common that is causing this.

[Fidcal]

Are these ragdolls (mostly) corpses or KO's anyone notice? I never see these twistings because I rarely do either. I never saw it in Heart even though I test played 50 times what anyone else ever played this map.

 

Maybe it's a gamesave thing and the joint positions are not saved, only the origin and angle of the AI. So on reload the ragdoll physics kick in again and there is some clipping. But hard to see why it would twist up the body.

 

But it will be interesting to see why this happens only in some maps. Large quantities of AI? Many alerts?

[stumpy]

its ko'ed bodies, usual complaint in the console is dagger not at rest, or center of dagger not at rest or belted dagger not at rest. they only seem to move when your not there to see them move, sometimes body can be found a few feet away from the place you put it, not actually sure if bodies need the dagger attachment to twitch them around, it might be absent of dagger attachment having an attachment in place to cause twitch. seems to happen a lot on the guard ragdoll/ko'ed body. dagger rest position goes to 6 decimal places in the console feedback.

Edited July 4, 2011 by stumpy

[DeTeEff]

I noticed this in Score the last day. Don't know if the body was moved away, but it was cetrainly in a strange position. It was a KO:ed guard.

[Springheel]

Hmm, attachments is a viable theory (although almost all AI have attachments, so why does it happen so rarely?). Anyone ever seen this happen on an AI without a weapon attached (like an AI killed in combat?)

[Partol]

Happened to me in Heart of Lone Salvation. I vaguely recall it also happened in The Alchemist.

 

maybe it's related to the large number of unconcious bodies or to body stacking. the blackjack is my favourite weapon.

[Springheel]

If anyone notices this again, I'd appreciate it if you could save the game and send it to me. I'd like to check out a few things to see if we can narrow down the cause.

[Quant]

I definitely noticed this in The Heart of Lone Salvation, The Alchemist and No Honor Among Thieves (part 1).

In Heart that would have been gamebreaking, if the no-alert objective hadn't been optional.

 

Quite a serious bug imho, because it just renders all the effort you take to hide bodies useless after a couple of save/reloads.

 

The effect sometimes is far from miniscule, e.g. in The Alchimist I very early blackjacked the Innkeeper near the starting point and hid the body in his backroom. When I came back to the starting point to finish the mission, he was right in the middle of the street, curled up to a ball (at least 10 metres from his initial pos).

 

If anyone notices this again, I'd appreciate it if you could save the game and send it to me. I'd like to check out a few things to see if we can narrow down the cause.

If you still need saves, I'm sure I can dig up a couple, including several hard saves of the aforementioned missions. May be useful to check on how the translation progressed over playtime.

[lost_soul]

I've never seen them get twisted, but I was replaying Score to Settle the other morning. I knocked out a guard and placed him on the bed in that bedroom that only has one bed. I kept on playing. After saving and reloading a few times, I revisited that room. When I opened the door, his body tumbled partly out the door! It looked almost like he was thrown at me. 0:0 It was like something out of a horror movie and it made me laugh out loud.

 

I had knocked out quite a few guards by the time this occurred, so there were plenty of ragdolls on the map.

Edited October 17, 2011 by lost_soul

[Springheel]

Did these guards have attached weapons?

[lost_soul]

Yep. I hadn't been seen, so they hadn't drawn their weapons. Also, I tried it again a few minutes ago. I placed an unconscious body on the bed. I made sure none of his body was hanging off the side. I closed the door, went in to the master bedroom, and tried to re-create my steps from the other day. One time I reloaded and went back to the first bedroom to find the body on the floor. Another time, I heard him die when I reloaded. It must be a clipping issue. I have heard bodies I knocked out start taking damage after reloading in the past. The two must be related.

 

I retried this scenario a few times and couldn't get it to repeatedly happen.Maybe it has something to do with the body being slumped up against a vertical surface like the wall.

Edited October 17, 2011 by lost_soul

[RPGista]

I'm afraid I also got this problem yesterday, playing Heart of Lone Salvation (what a brilliant mission by the way...). I was sneaking around and saw that one of the noblemen had his sword drawn, but obviously he hadnt seen me yet (for some reason, it didn't tick the "don't get noticed" objective either). I thought that was weird, but then I found the reason, two other noblemen I had knocked out and placed next to the dining room were scattered around, twisted, right out in the open. Answering a few questions here: they were knocked out, not killed; they both had swords attached, and I remember stacking both bodies one over the other more or less. Other corpses seem to be fine, but there arent a lot of them and I'm yet to check all, since the map is so massive.

Edited October 18, 2011 by RPGista

[Springheel]

My best working theory is that somehow attached objects that are clipped into something when the game is saved get adjusted on map load. But I have no real idea. I agree it is a significant bug.

 

If you reload once and a body is mangled, is it always mangled when you load that saved game? Or is it inconsistent?

[RPGista]

Went back to this place I was sure the ragdolls were getting mangled. It seems that it has been pretty violent, there were objects on the floor that were standing up normally when last I passed by there, and a close by door was half opened for some reason. There were two bodies there, first time I saw it, both of them had been trhown into the dining room, rolled up. I put them back into the hall between the kitchen and the dining room, many loads later and one of them seem to be behaving noramlly now, but the other is still being thrown around randomly, I took a few pics to illustrate (of how he was placed between immediate load games):

 

 

 

 

It seems that if the bodies are placed well away from objects or walls, they will behave normally, but it could be only my impression. It does make the mission highly difficult because whenever you leave a body behind, all sort of unpredictable problems might arise...

Edited October 19, 2011 by RPGista

[Tels]

It looks to me the mangled body has still the sword attached?

[Ishtvan]

You can try setting the swords nonsolid as a diagnostic, although I don't think that's a permanent solution because some things will break.

[Springheel]

I thought they were already supposed to be nonsolid when attached?

[lost_soul]

Also, pay attention and see if a body was facing down or up when the glitch occurs. Maybe if it is face-down with the attached items in the air, it won't happen. This would indeed point to attachments as the problem. Maybe we can share experiences whenever this happens and eventually narrow it down.

[lost_soul]

Okay, I have a quicksave for you where once you load the game, you find the body in that small bed room on the floor in different positions each time. When I saved the game, I originally placed the body on the bed face down. Notarget is on because I started the mission over just to see if I could trigger this. If you want it, just tell me what file to send.

 

EDIT: sorry for double post. I forgot to edit the last one.

Edited October 19, 2011 by lost_soul

[RPGista]

The problem is, I can't remember the original state they were in when they caused the problem, and it's impossible to know because they now load in different positions all the time. I will then try a few combinations tomorrow with new AI (or the same) and see if I can get some kind of logic going, in my case.

[grayman]

Okay, I have a quicksave for you where once you load the game, you find the body in that small bed room on the floor in different positions each time. When I saved the game, I originally placed the body on the bed face down. Notarget is on because I started the mission over just to see if I could trigger this. If you want it, just tell me what file to send.

 

I'd like to look at it as well.

[lost_soul]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/252056/score_to_settle-quicksave.7z

 

EDIT: Revised version, less garbage, less confusing, smaller size.

Edited October 19, 2011 by lost_soul

[grayman]

I left the bathroom, through the bedroom, out into the hall, turned left, and entered the room on the right.

 

If that's the body you're talking about, it was in the same position on the bed 5x in a row. He wasn't face-down, though. He was lying on his right side.

 

Have I got the right body?

 

I'll look some more tomorrow.

[lost_soul]

Nope. When you leave the master bedroom, ignore the hallway to the left and enter the door just past it on the left side. It is the room that only has ONE bed. It originally had an unlit candle on the table, but I lit the candle IIRC.

 

Sorry it was a little confusing.

Edited October 20, 2011 by lost_soul

[grayman]

That's better.

 

4 tries, 4 different positions: 2 on the floor next to the bed, 1 on the bed, 1 on the floor behind the door.

 

2 of the times, I think he cried out, as if he were being hurt.

 

I'll see if I can figure out what's going on.

 

Is the guy I first looked at, in the other bedroom, someone you KO'ed and dropped on the bed? If so, what position was he in when you dropped him?