rag doll question

[Flanders]

I was wondering if it's possible to make things like banners and curtains deform in a realistic way if the player walks into it.

So far I could not find an example of a rag doll that moves if the player collides with it. Does anyone know of a way to do this with doom 3?

 

Also, the maya import plugins for maya 7 and 8 can't be downloaded from the wiki here

[Ishtvan]

Most ragdolls are set not to collide with the player in the AF file, being set to have contentsof type:CONTENTS_CORPSE. You can make them collide with the player by setting them to CONTENTS_SOLID. Then all the physics must be set up, what collision bodies are attached to what joints of the MD5 model, etc. I don't knwo what "resolution" you want on your curtains/banners. Performance tends to slow down as you add more joints/vertices that can be deformed.

 

For what you're wanting, it might be easier to use a trigger and a fake animation or something. It wouldn't always be a realistic deformation, but better than nothing.

[Flanders]

I'll think about it and experiment with it tomorrow, thanks.

[Flanders]

I tried setting contents to solid for a ragdoll and its body parts. The player can't walk through it now. But when the player collides with it remains rigid. Is it not possible to make a ragdoll deform when pushed by the player or some object with a collision model?

[Ishtvan]

It should be possible, but I've noticed that it takes a lot of force for some reason. I'm not sure if it's because all the ragdolls were set to be really stiff because Doom3 masses were unusually high or what. For example, if you pick up a crate and slam it into a rope, the rope doesn't budge and the crate stops dead. If you hit the rope with a sword/blackjack, it moves a little but not that much.

 

I was on the verge of filing a bug report about this, but I can't tell if it's a tweaking issue of the ragdolls being too stiff or a code issue of the force being reduced somehow. We'll have to look into it.

[Flanders]

It would be great if this problem can be solved somehow. If not, maybe I can make some ragdoll curtains/banners/cloths with a very low mass so that it does behave as it should. I think TDM could use some of these things, unmoveable curtains are sooo T1 .

[Ishtvan]

If you want to try some experiments, you can start with a copy of a ragdoll (AF file) and try lowering the masses a lot. You'll probably have to lower the constraint frictions too since they were designed to resist higher masses and might just stick with a low mass.

 

It might have something to do with the activation settings too. Ragdolls are set not to activate until they get hit by X amount of impulse, but I don't think that's it because they don't move around that much even after exceeding that. It could be that somewhere in the source Id just divided down the impulse on ragdolls for no apparent reason, so it takes massive impulses to make them move at all.

[Flanders]

I tried lowering all values for masses, densities and frictions with the af editor but without result. The ragdoll still won't move on impacts.

[Ishtvan]

You could try editing the AF file with a text editor (it's in the AF directory) and lowering these settings:

suspendSpeed 2, 2, 10, 10

noMoveTranslation 10
noMoveRotation 10

 

I know the AF files say not to edit them by hand, but those are lies, all lies! The first one sets the speed at which the ragdoll parts stop moving, changing this can make the ragdoll unstable, though. The second set define what force it takes the ragdoll to get going in the first place. I don't know if right now it starts moving and then immediately suspends, or if it doesn't start moving in the first place.

[Flanders]

Nope, that doesn't work either. I did notice that I could walk through ragdolls after I move them around with g_dragentity even with contents set to solid. Maybe id disabled ragdoll movement on impact because of this.

[Ishtvan]

Okay, we might have to look into it in the SDK. You can still apply impulses to them, because hitting them with a sword or blackjack still works (that calls ApplyImpulse directly). But it could be that for some reason, impulses aren't being applied properly when other things collide with them.

[Flanders]

There is a bug report for this now:

http://bugs.angua.at/view.php?id=1634

[Flanders]

Just tested this with vanilla d3, same problem. Firing at it triggers ragdoll movement, walking into it doesn't.

[rebb]

Maybe it's not a bug, but just a missing "feature".

It could be that id Software just didn't think it would be useful to have ragdolls react to the player's movement. Or maybe they even left it out because it caused problems.

 

I think obihb on the doom3world forums did some cloth-like ragdoll setups for his Wolfenstein Project some years ago. Those did also only react to shots, iirc.

[Flanders]

Indeed. The question is if we can make it work somehow. I have no idea how to do this and if it's too difficult I can understand that.

[Ishtvan]

It would be nice to have at least ropes drape over things that you push into them, but it could be that the ragdolls are too unstable to handle it when something pushes into them. We can try some experiments, but I don't see finding time to work on this any time soon myself.