Havok, Ragdolling live creatures/models

[Mr. Redundant]

ok so we have had tons of conversations about physics in source, using the Havok engine, how models would handle being (for instance) knocked down, and some said it would not be possible as it would be impossible to get the ragdolled model to land in a pose to be animated from.

or some such.

well, I went down to santa cruz this morning for the day, to spend it with my bro-inlaw sister and their new born child... while there he showed me a recent demo disk he had got from an xbox magazine he subscribes to.

it had Psi-Ops on it.. a game that didnt at all look interesting to me (then again Im not interested in many/any xbox games) but he told me to give it a go regardless, and it was worth a try.
well after playing around with it, I was truely impressed. (In fact I may give it a further go when its released later this month)

anywhoo you play as a soldier with pyrokenetic, telekenetic, mind control powers. and the game uses the Havok physics engine for its ragdolling and physics interactions.

(ok I know Im just blathering on, but IM getting to my point)

anyway, besides the fact the physics were actually damn impressive (he has the ability to use his mind like the manipulator in HL2... but he can pick up living and dead bodies... also if you stand on something and then manipulate it with your mind, you balance on it and you can use it like a magic carpet.. very cool)

anywhoo, in Psi Ops you can pick up living guys and throw them around and they ragdoll in the air, hitting barrels, rolling down stairs etc, and if you didnt kill them with the throw.. they would stand up again... flawlessly from ragdoll.

now I couldnt really make out how exactly they did it, but Im pretty certain Havok just morphs the last frame into the animation needed to get up... or even influences the end pose somewhat while it's being ragdolled.

however it is done, it was very impressive, fluid and believable... surely source could pull this off? perhaps valve just didnt want us flinging around combine?

I HEARTILY recommend that anyone with an xbox or ps2 give PSi Ops a rent when it comes out, regardless of what you might of thought about it before.
(I really thought it was going to suck and I was pretty impressed.. the physics ARE the BEST I have seen in a game besides HL2)

(Edit: I highlighted the most important text for people who arent gonna read it all )

 

[FictiousWill]

Alteration of the last keyframe sounds like a possibility. What happens when they come to rest on a slanted surface or any uneven ground? Do they appear to be getting up from a flat surface anyway? If not then they must use some crazy interpolation of animation.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

That sounds very cool, maybe Valve will put it in?

Still, I wouldn't mind it too much if they didn't.
If something's getting tossed in HL2, it's not likely to live anyways, since most tosses are the result of exploding.

 

[Rico]

Ragdoll blending would be excellent for a zombie mod... have them plop down as if they were dead, then get back up when it's unexpected. I hope that's possible in Source because I was planning to do that on a mod. I hope I won't be dissapointed.

 

[Mr. Redundant]

Alteration of the last keyframe sounds like a possibility. What happens when they come to rest on a slanted surface or any uneven ground? Do they appear to be getting up from a flat surface anyway? If not then they must use some crazy interpolation of animation.

they get up off of flat surfaces yes, I threw some guys onto barrels (so they wrapped around them) and on other surfaces (like the edge of a box, hanging half off) and what happens is they roll off, and then get up when they are on a flat surface... the animation is so well done, its not even noticeable.
there werent any really slanted surfaces in a demo, but I assume they would get up fine.. I mean its really well done.. theres no jerking, theres no twitching its simply fluid and realistic.

if you remember how in Max Payne 2 you could knock over guys (although they didnt ragdoll down, they were animated to fall and get up), that was so obviously done, and it was a canned animation.
in Psi ops its not.. its different all the time, as the model actually ragdolls then gets up again, I repeat this was impressive enough for me to want to buy it for my Xbox.. and I hate my consoles.

 

[Glo]

Ragdoll blending would be excellent for a zombie mod... have them plop down as if they were dead, then get back up when it's unexpected. I hope that's possible in Source because I was planning to do that on a mod. I hope I won't be dissapointed.

sounds like a Pindleskin mod

 

[Mr. Redundant]

Im gonna e-mail Rick ellis this:

"Hail Sir Rick.

I recently Played a demo of Psi-Ops for the xbox and I noticed one really cool effect they had.
The player could pick up living creatures (with his mind powers) and throw them, and they ragdolled in the air, hit barrels, rolled down stairs etc, and if they didnt take enough damage to kill them, they would get up again from the ragdolled state.. fluidly and believably.

Now I know Psi-Ops uses the Havok engine for its physics interactions and ragdoll effects, so it got me thinking if this same effect would be able to be achieved in the source engine.. since it too uses Havok.

also how does the engine achieve a ragdoll to "get up" animation morph?

(if you cant answer this question would you please forward it to someone who could for us at HL2.net?)

EDIT: sent

 

[Rico]

Are you emailing them Pendragon or should I? I'm very interested about them adding a feature such as this one... It would make future mods much much cooler.

 

[Bicka]

One thing that caught my eye in the new battlefield2 trailer from e3 was that when a player died he did a little death animation and then ragdolled!
What looks better, someone just ragdolling the second they die or if they were to fall to their knees and then ragdoll. Thats what bf2 did and it looked very cool.

Just one of the things I hope Valve will have implemented come da final release!

 

[Mr. Redundant]

One thing that caught my eye in the new battlefield2 trailer from e3 was that when a player died he did a little death animation and then ragdolled!
What looks better, someone just ragdolling the second they die or if they were to fall to their knees and then ragdoll. Thats what bf2 did and it looked very cool.

Just one of the things I hope Valve will have implemented come da final release!

I noticed that too, thats why I e-mailed valve THis mail, (with this excerpt in particular)

2. Is it possible for the Source engine to influence a ragdoll death via
animation? In other words, when something is killed... does it simply flop/crumple to the ground based on what hit it and how hard, or is there a way to apply some rudementary animation that may influence how the ragdoll reacts. (hitting a combine in the face with a crowbar, he reaches up and grabs his eye while he ragdolls backwards)

*** It's possible however there are some issues with animating
ragdolls. For example, ragdolls have set extents for movement (i.e. arms and legs can only bend "so far"). Animations would have to take this into consideration. Also, animations aren't aware of ragdoll collisions with the environment so some method of monitoring the animations would have to be added to the code. We have a solution for this but it's not general enough to work in every single case.

 

[goldenboi]

IRT #1

Better than Max Payne 2? ( not that they were impressive..)

 

[Mr. Redundant]

check out some psi-ops trailers (towards the end of this trailer, check how he uses his mind to throw a guy onto a rail cracking his back)
the graphics arent that hot, decent for a console I guess.. but the gameplay is amazing I spent like all day just messing around in the physics room in the demo. (like Hl2's techdemo room, except you can spawn baddies to mess around with, have unlimited Psi energy and all kindsa cool things to mess with.. barrels boxes, explosive, guns, and a huge wrecking ball on a chain you can manipulate and swing around to smash stuff)

http://www.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_psiops_mc_3.html


this is a brilliant trailer, (in fact the demo had these two levels)
it shows various ways of approaching the same situation.
it also shows the ragdoll to stand up morph on the second pass of the bridge.
http://www.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_psiops_mc_gp.html

another excellent short one, depicting the morph.
http://www.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_psiops_mc_gp3.html

 

[brokenjago]

w00t, that looks awesome

 

[tehsolace]

I've seriously never heard of this 'ragdoll blending', and I didn't even think it was really possible to pull off...I seriously hope valve considers (and impliments) it!

 

[Wilco]

I would have thought another option would have been have the ragdoll animation, Then use IK to move in a position to use a canned get up animation...

 

[Mr. Redundant]

hopefuly I get a response from Rick soon, if not I could always send an e-mail to the Psi-ops dev team and ask how they achieved it.

 

[PvtRyan]

Animation bleding is a feature of Havok, characters can go in a partial ragdoll blended with keyframe animation. For example they can react to a shot in their arm/shoulder so the arm/should kicks back a bit.

http://www.havok.com/products/index.php

Watch the zombie movie.

I think this can be done on complete characters as well, so they play their animations while they're being lifted in the air and reacting to the environment like a ragdoll.

This I miss most in HL2, the combine soldiers not reacting to gunfire accept some blooddecals. Eventhough it's fully supported by Havok.

 

[tehsolace]

Maybe theyre planning to surprise us with that...I seriously doubt they would ignore such a feature if havok has supported it this whole time...

 

[Mr. Redundant]

Animation bleding is a feature of Havok, characters can go in a partial ragdoll blended with keyframe animation. For example they can react to a shot in their arm/shoulder so the arm/should kicks back a bit.

http://www.havok.com/products/index.php

Watch the zombie movie.

I think this can be done on complete characters as well, so they play their animations while they're being lifted in the air and reacting to the environment like a ragdoll.

This I miss most in HL2, the combine soldiers not reacting to gunfire accept some blooddecals. Eventhough it's fully supported by Havok.

they do this in Psi-Ops (check the movies I linked to)
however animation blending with ragdoll is different, we are talking about the engine handing the animated model over to the physics engine (Havok) to be ragdolled, then the engine handing the model back to the game engine to animate and continue with AI.

 

[Lobster]

Have you guys seen that in-development system for AI ragdolls, that has the bodies effected by physics at all times with the joints tweaking themselves into positions to perform animations such as running and jumping, it looks a little wierd in the demo i saw but i bet its the way to go in the future.

 

[tehsolace]

Yea I think eventually we will have characters that rely more on physic's than pure animation, so if they trip, they can try and react a certain way like putting up their hands, but most of their body still reacts to the physics.

 

[DimitriPopov]

Uhm , am I under the wrong impression that if a Human being were to 'ragdoll' it means that their muscles are no longer functioning , meaning only if they are dead?

 

[tehsolace]

They can react to physic objects even while in a state of animation (movement scripting) with havok, and apparently even come from a complete state of ragdoll back to an animation keyframe - being able to get up using an animation script, but only if the physics engine placed them in the correct position as they fell.

What we've seen in the hl2 footages suggests that they don't react to gunshots while alive, and we haven't seen anything to know if they can actually get up after being dead and ragdolled.

Ragdoll just means the body no longer moves via scripting animation, and relies fully on the physics engine to move, which only seems to happen in hl2 when they die.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

Uhm , am I under the wrong impression that if a Human being were to 'ragdoll' it means that their muscles are no longer functioning , meaning only if they are dead?

Or stunned, unconcious and/or hit with enough force?

 

[Mr. Redundant]

Have you guys seen that in-development system for AI ragdolls, that has the bodies effected by physics at all times with the joints tweaking themselves into positions to perform animations such as running and jumping, it looks a little wierd in the demo i saw but i bet its the way to go in the future.

I dont believe I have... do you have a link?
I would be most appreciative

 

[Varsity]

I always wondered how they did the hit reactions in Max Payne 2.

 

[Varsity]

Have you guys seen that in-development system for AI ragdolls, that has the bodies effected by physics at all times with the joints tweaking themselves into positions to perform animations such as running and jumping, it looks a little wierd in the demo i saw but i bet its the way to go in the future.

I heard about that. It simulates muscles being streched and contracted so there is no straight 'animation' at all. Certaintly something for the future.

 

[BigGoose2006]

Far Cry

I was looking at the farcry website (no I am not a heretic) just out of curriosity, and I saw this on their overview of their physics engine:

"Character Inverse Kinematics & Animation Blending: Allows a character model to have multiple animations that blend in believable ways."

I think this is what they have in Psi-Ops. Can anyone confirm? O well, either way, if FarCry has it I am pretty sure Source will, and if HL2 doesn't have it it probably is just a gameplay thing.

oh yah, here is a link: http://farcry.ubi.com/technology.php

 

[Rico]

FarCry doesn't have it, all that means is that ragdolls can go fro ma pain/damage animation. much like Max payne 2, and then blend into death. Doesn't mean they can blend the opposite way (which is what we all want in this thread).

Max Payne 2's hit reaction were just damage animations, I know this for a fact because I make TC's for the game and I was dissapointed with a lot of havok related stuff such as that, as well as going from ragdoll to animation like we want for HL2.

I definitely hope it can be done in HL2, it would open up a whole new world of ideas and possibilities.

 

[Mr. Redundant]

as Rico said its upon death, however theres also when you shoot someone in farcry they recoil (non animation) from the hit, but I wouldnt call it fluid or even convincing.

Rico, I hear ya.. the animation to ragdoll, and back again would be the coolest effect/feature since... err vehicles.
so many ways to use it in mods.

Im praying that HL2 does indeed support it, but likely they dont, and will leave it for modders to code themselves :/

 

[BigGoose2006]

sorry, I never played FarCry so I wouldn't have a clue...

 

[Mr. Redundant]

sorry, I never played FarCry so I wouldn't have a clue...

its a pretty good game actually.
well I enjoyed it.
and its something new to play

 

[Bicka]

I was looking at the farcry website (no I am not a heretic) just out of curriosity, and I saw this on their overview of their physics engine:

"Character Inverse Kinematics & Animation Blending: Allows a character model to have multiple animations that blend in believable ways."

I think this is what they have in Psi-Ops. Can anyone confirm? O well, either way, if FarCry has it I am pretty sure Source will, and if HL2 doesn't have it it probably is just a gameplay thing.

oh yah, here is a link: http://farcry.ubi.com/technology.php

Thats just your average animation -i.e walking, posing, scratching...

 

[ShinRa]

I watched the PSi OPs game trailer (sorry im posting this now i just got to this thread), and personally i think it looks terrible. The guy sort of twitched (very noticeable) when he got up, and he just sort of walked away until he grabbed him again. The ai seems pretty bad. And all the guys had the same screaming effect....idk it was cool but just not as amazing as made out to be.

 

[CrazyHarij]

Check out the "Raggy Raggers" thread in the Max Payne Mods & Editing forum @ forums.3drealms.com if you want some realistic ragdolls, they really makes it fun playing the game again, they are incredibly realistic!

Just proves the point that Havok is very easy to edit and making the ragdolls that unrealistic and light in MP2 originally was just a design decision from Remedy.

 

[tehsolace]

I seriously hope valve is either:

1) Planning to impliment this awesome feature that havok already is capable of.

or

2) Has been keeping it out of the e3 footage to surprise us!

 

[Mr. Redundant]

I watched the PSi OPs game trailer (sorry im posting this now i just got to this thread), and personally i think it looks terrible. The guy sort of twitched (very noticeable) when he got up, and he just sort of walked away until he grabbed him again. The ai seems pretty bad. And all the guys had the same screaming effect....idk it was cool but just not as amazing as made out to be.

I have played the Xbox version of Psi ops, and when I say its fluid and realistic, with no jittering you can trust me over some old ps2 footage
at least I would hope so.... (Im refering to the ragdoll to animation transition)

we arent discussing Psi ops the game, just the feature that the Havok Engine has of ragdolling things when they are alive, then going from a ragdoll back to the game engine.

but as far as console games go, its as entertaining as they get.. nowhere near something like HL2 obviously, but its the gameplay thats gonna give Psi ops extra hours of gameplay.

 

[goldenboi]

Crazy Harij, do you think you could post some screenies of the ragdol with the settings from Ragger Raggers? I'd really like to see that, as I don't own Max Payne 2.

 

[Mr. Redundant]

Crazy Harij, do you think you could post some screenies of the ragdol with the settings from Ragger Raggers? I'd really like to see that, as I don't own Max Payne 2.

it just changes how they fall, and how they are weighted.
http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/attachments/542801-Untitled-1 copy.jpg

raggy raggers thread here, for those who are wondering what we are talking about:
http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthrea...umber=542501&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1

 

[goldenboi]

That;s lame, I thought there would be like fingers crossed over each other or some other shiznit. Oh well, I want HL2. Whoa, that felt good.