Ragdoll in Forgelight?

[headcrab13]

The advanced nature of the Forgelight engine seems to suggest that ragdoll animation will be featured in PS2, though I haven't seen it officially mentioned. I think this adds the potential for some incredibly cinematic moments.

I always felt the tower battles in PS1 could have benefited from ragdoll, when your faction is pushing to get up several levels of stairs. It would be amazing to see enemy bodies rolling down the steps toward you as you charged up at the opposition, firing wildly and throwing grenades, as the explosions tossed enemies against the ceiling and walls.

They could also use ragdoll in some other interesting ways, such as having a shotgun blast knock someone over the railing on the top deck of a tower, or having a Galaxy go down in a fiery blast that sent the passengers flying in different directions.

Do you guys expect to see ragdoll, and if so, how would this add to the feel of PS2?

-HC13

[cashfoyogash]

It would be awesome if that was how it is going to be... Id love to be stacked on a door and all of a sudden you see a dead body fly over the rail and it falls down to the ground as you and your team breach the door you head in only to see the number 1 man shot back up against the wall... That would be awesome just sounds like too much animation for massive battles.

[FastAndFree]

Do remember that all corpse locations must be synchronized across all players. And if they keep moving, rolling down stairs and stuff all the clients have to be constantly updated about them

Does not sound like a very performance-efficient idea to me

[cashfoyogash]

Do remember that all corpse locations must be synchronized across all players...
Does not sound like a very performance-efficient idea to me

Exactly, i just dont want to run in the same problem with PS2 when its released as we had in PS1... Took a super computer to run everything that was going on and it would still be choppy.

[Hamma]

There are ragdoll physics in the game.

[headcrab13]

There are ragdoll physics in the game.

Awesome, I hadn't seen any word on this yet but that's great news.

As you guys mentioned, if reviving will be done the same way, they'll need a system in place to synchronize bodies. If an explosion blows a body off the top of a tower on my client-side ragdoll calculation, and my dead squadmate's ragdoll calculation throws him into the railing, keeping him on the roof, then I might have to run down 4 flights of stairs and out into a firefight to revive him, whereas he sees himself on the roof the whole time.

If reviving was done in some other manner, however, they wouldn't need to sync up the ragdolls, and every player could be seeing a different simulation. Seems like this would be the most efficient solution.

-HC13

[Senyu]

They could add ragdolls but only on certain things. Like keep the effect of sliding down stairs but no knock back over rails. Sad but picking which ones will help performance

[2coolforu]

You can synch rag dolls across players, just use the Battlefield 2 method of making the chest a set object and ragdolling the arms and legs. This means that the chest part of the body is always in the same place on any computer allowing revives etc to be used.

[Redshift]

sometimes ragdoll just looks terrible though, i'm pretty sure when you stand on a grenade your body doesn't stand intact and bounce off the ceiling, but equally if they blow people to pieces then the rating goes up and players go down

[headcrab13]

They could add ragdolls but only on certain things. Like keep the effect of sliding down stairs but no knock back over rails. Sad but picking which ones will help performance

Yeah, I assume you're talking about the ability to knock someone back without killing them. In my example I just meant a killing blow that threw a dead body over a railing.

I agree with you though, I would want to limit ragdoll to dead characters only, because if they were still alive and "ragdolling," we'd still have that sync problem.

-HC13

[Coreldan]

Do remember that all corpse locations must be synchronized across all players. And if they keep moving, rolling down stairs and stuff all the clients have to be constantly updated about them

Does not sound like a very performance-efficient idea to me

APB had ragdolls, but after the point u died, the game just sent info that "player X died, go go ragdoll him", but the actual ragdoll part was done by each client seperately.

Worked well enough, given the scale of people wasnt as big.

I used to fraps a lot of gameplay and couple of times it was funny to watch when the angry enemy finally killed me and decided to want to T-bag me or empty his mag on my body, but on my screen it often looked like he was doing it to some random part on the ground, instead of on me, cos he saw my location differently.

So make ragdolls, they can be calculated client side instead of being synchronized.

EDIT: Now that I think, if rezzing is gonna be in, then the corpses really have to end up in the same place on everybodys screen :/

[MgFalcon]

I believe T-Ray put it very goodly that Forgelight can do crazy things, ragdoll shouldn't be a problem.

Rendering 1000 different pieces of armor? ---> I introduce to you............FORGE LIGHT!!!!!!!

[headcrab13]

sometimes ragdoll just looks terrible though, i'm pretty sure when you stand on a grenade your body doesn't stand intact and bounce off the ceiling, but equally if they blow people to pieces then the rating goes up and players go down

Yeah, as much as I'd like to see a Fallout 3-style grenade effect where your target is blown limb from limb, we both know why that doesn't fit PS2. So since bodies have to stay intact, I'd much rather see impulses like grenades, tank shells, and OS's affect bodies rather than having this massive blast and a bunch of bodies that sit there like they've frozen to the ground.

-HC13

[WarChimp130]

I've never got the obsession with ragdolling. It's kind of cool at first I suppose but it gets kind of old eventually. I don't care if it's their or no really, as long as it doesn't hamper performance. I don't care what death looks like as long as it doesn't interfere with whats going on when I'm alive.

[Death2All]

Every game seems to incorporate that "Havok" engine or whatever it's called and it's kind of a staple in every game now.


http://www.planetside-universe.com/media/main/psnext/screenshots/tpblog2.jpg


However if you link in this screen shot by the TR on the right how is crouching you can see an NC behind him that's dead in what appears to be your standard death animation/position. Perhaps they haven't implemented the ragdoll physics yet or maybe it was positioned that way for show or maybe they didn't want to take a screencap of a NC flailing around because his arm is going through the floor and spazzing out.

I don't really care about ragdoll, I can take it or leave it. I think it will provide many laughs when I got shot directly in a face by a Vanguard and shoot across the entire continent however.

[headcrab13]

I've never got the obsession with ragdolling. It's kind of cool at first I suppose but it gets kind of old eventually. I don't care if it's their or no really, as long as it doesn't hamper performance. I don't care what death looks like as long as it doesn't interfere with whats going on when I'm alive.

It's just a logical evolution in game engine technology. That's like saying "I never got the obsession with moving from vector graphics to textured objects."

-HC13

[WarChimp130]

No I get that it's the next step, but like I said it's not that make or break for me and if it hurts the actual game to have it in, I'd rather leave it out. If they can get it in no problem then go for it.

I just worry it's going to look a little goofy when a Gal pops and you see a squad of corpses flying through the sky with their arms rapidly flailing about. Not that it wouldn't be kind of funny to watch, I just don't know if it might be too goofy.

[Evilmp]

Clientside ragdolls.

I'm betting the position of the body would be marked, though the orientation/flailing physics part would be purely clientside.

I have no expertise, but that seems reasonable.

[Aractain]

NOT having ragdoll at this point in gaming would be a tactical face palm moment.

[WarChimp130]

I dunno, doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Seems like a very minor issue in the big scope of things.

[T-Ray]

The advanced nature of the Forgelight engine seems to suggest that ragdoll animation will be featured in PS2, though I haven't seen it officially mentioned. I think this adds the potential for some incredibly cinematic moments.

I always felt the tower battles in PS1 could have benefited from ragdoll, when your faction is pushing to get up several levels of stairs. It would be amazing to see enemy bodies rolling down the steps toward you as you charged up at the opposition, firing wildly and throwing grenades, as the explosions tossed enemies against the ceiling and walls.

They could also use ragdoll in some other interesting ways, such as having a shotgun blast knock someone over the railing on the top deck of a tower, or having a Galaxy go down in a fiery blast that sent the passengers flying in different directions.

Do you guys expect to see ragdoll, and if so, how would this add to the feel of PS2?

-HC13
NVidia is a beautiful partner. ForgeLight/SOE has a great partner in NVidia
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_new.html

[krnasaur]

NVidia is a beautiful partner. ForgeLight/SOE has a great partner in NVidia
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_new.html

so is there ragdoll?

[basti]

Yes, there is Ragdoll, It has been said before. :>

NVidia is a beautiful partner. ForgeLight/SOE has a great partner in NVidia
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_new.html

YOu must have a hard time currently. You propably just want to show us all the lovley stuff you guys have come up with, but know you cant just yet. Poor guy. :(

[FIREk]

so is there ragdoll?

I think that was suggestion enough. ;) Every new AAA game has ragdoll animations nowadays and I don't see a reason why a state-of-the-art MMO engine (one that Forge Light will most likely be) wouldn't have them.

[Malorn]

They could also use ragdoll in some other interesting ways, such as having a shotgun blast knock someone over the railing on the top deck of a tower, or having a Galaxy go down in a fiery blast that sent the passengers flying in different directions.

Do you guys expect to see ragdoll, and if so, how would this add to the feel of PS2?


I expect to see ragdoll physics, but not with a shotgun. Mythbusters hit that one twice showing even a .50 cal barely makes a person twitch, let alone fly back. Shotgun is the same way, target might stumble due to shock, but there's no way it's going to knock them off anything. Hollywood dramatic effects not actually possible. If physx is as good as they say, then unless they crank up the force on bullets to completely absurd levels we shouldn't see any knockback from bullets or shotguns. Missile impacts and other concussive blasts I would expect, like grenades, tanks, etc. Vanu weaponry being the exception since they don't use kinetic energy weapons.

[Bags]

NVidia is a beautiful partner. ForgeLight/SOE has a great partner in NVidia
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_new.html

If you love it so much why don't you marry it?

[Aractain]

:|

You can't marry a physics engine. Thats like having a girlfriend for only her breasts...

You need those sexy graphics, all that audio decompresion on the fly. That tight event system. Serious memory managment (so you don't forget). Not to mention a full scripting engine so you can do crazy stuff together spontanously.

[basti]

If you love it so much why don't you marry it?

It it anywhere legal to marry code? :eek:

[Goku]

NVidia is a beautiful partner. ForgeLight/SOE has a great partner in NVidia
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_new.html

While I do like Nvidia's products I do have some concerns with PhysX. Does PS2 plan on doing accelerated GPU PhysX or the PhysX meant for doing physics strictly on the CPU? A lot of players are still confused as to which is being used.

[Lunarchild]

It it anywhere legal to marry code? :eek:

I've heard of people marrying roller-coasters before...

[Redshift]

It it anywhere legal to marry code? :eek:

i present to you... the japanese

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6718706/Japanese-man-marries-computer-game-character.html

[headcrab13]

NVidia is a beautiful partner. ForgeLight/SOE has a great partner in NVidia
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_new.html

Nuff said! Thanks T-Ray, you rock. Can't wait to see what's next!

-HC13

[NYRampage]

It all sounds great up front but I remember how great PlanetSide looked before it was released and then they had to nerf a lot of aethetics that were performance impacting.

[headcrab13]

It all sounds great up front but I remember how great PlanetSide looked before it was released and then they had to nerf a lot of aethetics that were performance impacting.

Yeah I'm sure the devs wouldn't use history as a guide or try and learn any lessons from PS1. That would be silly of them to consider such nonsense...

-HC13