About the latest info in the valve info thread

[lans]

Checked out FarCry again, and I am pretty sure there is no keyframe blending. There are several flinch animations, but none of them are physically simulated. The characters ragdoll when dead, and they don't ragdoll the way Valve claims their ragdolls work (i.e. that momentum is preserved)

When you talk about the momentum - are you refering to Far cry's awkward slip-slide movement of models?

 

[Apos]

No, I mean, when a character rag dolls, it's retains it's previous momentum IN the rag doll. FarCry characters can be running towards you when you shoot them, but once they die, they ragdoll as if they had just been standing still. HL2 characters, like the running guy in the Barney video, retain the force of their previous movements even as they go limp.

I dunno what you mean about the slip-slide stuff, but maybe that's relevant too: can you give an example of where to look for it, or describe it in more detail?

 

[goldenboi]

Ya know, it seems that EB games knows the release date. Out of true optimism, I asked the dude @ EB, on the way to picking up a pizza, "When's Half-Life 2 come out?" He said.. oh yeah September 2nd. I was like... "Is that OFFICIAL?" He's like yea.. that's what they said at the E3 convention. I was like uhh... ok. "What about Doom 3?" He said July 21st. I'm all... "Is that official?" He said.. "Yeah." Very, very, interesting. :smoking:

 

[Apos]

So, then, it isn't quite official. Because Valve doesn't know when they will be done yet and were just estimating at E3. id is probably almost completely done and can time things much easier since they don't have as many huge, ambitious products to role out.

 

[figge]

Ya know, it seems that EB games knows the release date. Out of true optimism, I asked the dude @ EB, on the way to picking up a pizza, "When's Half-Life 2 come out?" He said.. oh yeah September 2nd. I was like... "Is that OFFICIAL?" He's like yea.. that's what they said at the E3 convention. I was like uhh... ok. "What about Doom 3?" He said July 21st. I'm all... "Is that official?" He said.. "Yeah." Very, very, interesting. :smoking:

Yeah... EB... yeah... right...

 

[lans]

No, I mean, when a character rag dolls, it's retains it's previous momentum IN the rag doll. FarCry characters can be running towards you when you shoot them, but once they die, they ragdoll as if they had just been standing still. HL2 characters, like the running guy in the Barney video, retain the force of their previous movements even as they go limp.

I dunno what you mean about the slip-slide stuff, but maybe that's relevant too: can you give an example of where to look for it, or describe it in more detail?

It's actually once you've killed someone, shooting them at any part of the body tends to make them "slip" along the floor in an awkward and similar direction. A bullet in the leg makes the whole body jerk and slip backward. Similarly, when you shoot someone, they ragdoll and then they weirdly slip-slide on the ground (non-flat). Friction doesn't seem to take place, but I suppose this has very less to do with mommentum.

 

[Polykarbon]

The Crytek engine doesn't fully support "Euler" key frame motion blending at the moment. It does support classifier blending, which uses rigid estimated animations to blend sequences of motion and force; when a "body" changes an animation sequence from static to dynamic. As stated by other users in this thread though, this can and will cause problems, mainly with complex surface and animation reactions.

 

[Apos]

So it's after they're dead? We haven't really seen any post-death ragdoll action, so we probably can't say. I've seen what you mean though. I wonder if there's a tradeoff here: if you make the joints too loose and not transfer movement into the entire body, they look unnatural, so a shot in the leg will make the leg twirl around goofily. But if you make them too tight, then you get the effect you are talking about: the whole body jerking around.

Are you sure that friction is playing NO role, or is it more that it just dosn't feel like friction is working in a realistic fashion? That latter case might, again, be something where there are tradeoff problems with the current implementation: you want the bodies to move and slide, but not like jello, and there's no good middle ground with the way it currently does friction.

Lots of stuff for us to ponder out, dunno.

 

[riTuaL]

I sure hope they implemented that into the game. He's right, in the trailers there are no signs of this, but I believe this guy. Doesn't seem like some idiot 13 year old running around on forums posting his hopes to reassure himself that the game will be exactly what he wants

 

[Polykarbon]

I would be suprised if HL2 didn't support Restitution and angular damping with the ragdolls.

I think you guys can rest easy on that...

BTW--If you want to see pretty much the best example of proper friction restitution and angular damp markings in a game, go play Americas Army.

 

[Apos]

You know, I just watched the barricade vid again to see that guy dying when shot. It's inconclusive actually: maybe the thing was happening, or maybe it wasn't and what Ellis was talking about (preserved momentum) wasn't in yet. But something I did notice: could it be that Barney flinches when you run forward at the very very beginning? Like you bumped into him?

 

[Apos]

I would be suprised if HL2 didn't support Restitution and angular damping with the ragdolls.

I'm pretty sure angular damping relates to the constraints on the bodies so they have realistic joints that don't fly all over the place: but what's restitution?

 

[lans]

So it's after they're dead? We haven't really seen any post-death ragdoll action, so we probably can't say. I've seen what you mean though. I wonder if there's a tradeoff here: if you make the joints too loose and not transfer movement into the entire body, they look unnatural, so a shot in the leg will make the leg twirl around goofily. But if you make them too tight, then you get the effect you are talking about: the whole body jerking around.

Are you sure that friction is playing NO role, or is it more that it just dosn't feel like friction is working in a realistic fashion? That latter case might, again, be something where there are tradeoff problems with the current implementation: you want the bodies to move and slide, but not like jello, and there's no good middle ground with the way it currently does friction.

Lots of stuff for us to ponder out, dunno.

You could say the later, that friction isn't working in a realistic fashion.

 

[UltimaGecko]

I just hope the ragdolls don't work like Deus Ex 2 or Thief 3 (and sortof like FarCry, but FarCry is better) with the ragdolls - based on what I've seen they work pretty good though.

In those games the bodies have such unnatural death posistions...especially Thief: Deadly Shadows. Bah, you shoot a guy with an arrow and he'll fall over backwards in some awkward Micheal-Jackson pose, with one hand over his crotch, his head touching his feet (which are under his torso) and his other arm thrown off in some wildly unrealistic direction.

You'd be unlikely to keep a body like that if you posistioned it that way after death, let alone dropped a ragdoll in a standing posistion to get it.

Half-Life 2's seem fairly good...although the only ones I can really remember are in the E3 2004 videos with the buggy and mines. This...doesn't really have anything to do with blended flinching animations or keyframe binding though so...errr.

[/slinks out the door]

 

[Tiddalick]

Meh, Having bodies that way is fun!

I think HL2s will be more realistic. Just look at the video with the crane where Gordan crushes the soliders with the crate. Just after climbing up onto the dock he kills a guy with a shotgun, the body didn't dance about and it wasn't knocked back like it had been hit with a truck.

 

[Wesisapie]

the biggest problems with ragdoll for me were always that they cant never decide where to finish moving (ie. they are always jerking slightly between two positions) and they slide ridiculously, as if they are made from butter and they are playing on the hl2_fryingpan level.

 

[lans]

the biggest problems with ragdoll for me were always that they cant never decide where to finish moving (ie. they are always jerking slightly between two positions) and they slide ridiculously, as if they are made from butter and they are playing on the hl2_fryingpan level.

Far cry's rag dolls are like that...but I agree with Tiddalick, the deus ex 2 rag dolls were pathetic - the body seemed to be inflated with air, they didn't seem to have any mass.

 

[Wesisapie]

well as long as they aren't jelly models like in Kingpin, that should be ok.
kingpin... that game was actually pretty cool now that i think about it
time to reinstall

edit: oh what... 1000 posts = ant lion! they are so easily destroyed by a measly shotgun prowler was cooler.

 

[lans]

well as long as they aren't jelly models like in Kingpin, that should be ok.
kingpin... that game was actually pretty cool now that i think about it
time to reinstall

There is one part where I was slightly dissapointed with hl2's ragdolls. In the firefight/barricade video with barney (bink 2003), when gordon shoots the combine soldier from the terrace, he falls down and bounces on the floor! emm, that didn't feel realistic at all.

 

[Tiddalick]

There is one part where I was slightly dissapointed with hl2's ragdolls. In the firefight/barricade video with barney (bink 2003), when gordon shoots the combine soldier from the terrace, he falls down and bounces on the floor! emm, that didn't feel realistic at all.

Well he did fall from quite a height, I would of thought it natural for him to bounce a bit. Now...had that Been Deus Ex 2, it would be been like a beach ball! :E

 

[lans]

Well he did fall from quite a height, I would of thought it natural for him to bounce a bit. Now...had that Been Deus Ex 2, it would be been like a beach ball! :E

heh, but I'd like him to fall down as a stone, as there shouldn't be any bouncing at all, but I could be wrong then again.

 

[SMT]

heh, but I'd like him to fall down as a stone, as there shouldn't be any bouncing at all, but I could be wrong then again.

Perhaps Combine soldiers have the fused DNA of humans and basketballs?

 

[Brian Damage]

I just got this weird mental image of a Combine basketball team... Where they try and stick each other in the baskets...

I gotta get more sleep...

 

[PatPwnt]

There is one part where I was slightly dissapointed with hl2's ragdolls. In the firefight/barricade video with barney (bink 2003), when gordon shoots the combine soldier from the terrace, he falls down and bounces on the floor! emm, that didn't feel realistic at all.

He didnt even bounce more than a foot. It's fine! Actually, he didn't fully leave the ground at all. Only his torso bumped up a bit because he fell at an angle... Haven't you ever seen those skate board accident videos?

 

[SubKamran]

Well I believe him...Valve would be dumb not to

 

[lans]

He didnt even bounce more than a foot. It's fine! Actually, he didn't fully leave the ground at all. Only his torso bumped up a bit because he fell at an angle... Haven't you ever seen those skate board accident videos?

I know a person falling from such a height would bounce a little bit - but IMO it just didn't look that natural. I mean, when those combine were shoot who were below they crumpled under the weight of their legs and fell down awkwardly - the way they should. You know that their center of mass is below and that looked natural, but the combine falling from the top just didn't compare to that realistic rag doll.

 

[MultiVaC]

One time I was skateboarding and bounced kinda like that when I fell. I have it on video, so I can see what it looks like. It hurt really, really badly.

 

[Crusader]

People do bounce when they hit the ground from a height.. Only generally there is a period of compression where the body sustains damage before that. Here, since this is just a computer game they can only really do the bouncing. However I always thought that looked cool

 

[Ralfst3r]

Holy crap, this Havok2 engine looks awesome!

 

[RoguePsi]

10 day old thread resusitated. It's a miracle!!

 

[Andy]

people are more elastic than you think and they never go "splat", check out the havock fallguy demo it's soooo coool

http://www.havok.com/havok2/Fallguy.avi

 

[DvS]

I'm not sure if it's been said or not.. but I really think that what Erik meant was animation blending, instead of the debated detail of wether you could knock someone down into a ragdoll position, without killing him... which is not possible.

 

[tommie]

Wow I didn't think something like this could change my whole outlook on the game. By looking at the Zombie movie from Havok where it compares no hit animations vs animations -- I really hope HL-2 has or gets the animations done.