death animations

[Rumblepit]

so i have heard nothing about this yet,but i would love to see some new death animations. playing other games in the past i would lmfao so hard at times because the manner in which people would die.its just a small thing that can bring alot to the game.

[Vash02]

I believe we heard something about rag dolls at the fan faire. Though I believe it was something that the forgelight engine could do and not whether it was in the game or not.

[kklkit]

Back on topic, quick history review:

Half-Life, PlanetSide era (2001-2003):
Solely pre-recorded dead animation

Half-Life 2 era(~2004):
Solely ragdoll physics

Call of Duty/Battlefield 3 era(~2011):
Pre-recorded dead animation comes first, then enable ragdoll physics

As long as it includes ragdoll physics, I think it is good enough for me,

[Coreldan]

There are few issues with ragdolls:

It takes bandwidth streaming the exact ragdoll physics to every player in the vicinity. It also takes calculating power from the server, especially in a game of this size where people are everywhere and die fairly much.

Now, somewhat similar'ish games have solved that problem. APB for example has the client calculate the ragdoll. The server just informs the client of the direction of the impact and other stuff so the client knows which way in general to ragdoll, but after that the ragdolling is clientside. For example once, I was killed by a player who seemed to be mad at me and after my death (watched him through killcam) he decided to unload a whole magazine of his full auto shotgun to my face. Funnily though, my body had ragdolled into a different place in my screen than in his and in my screen it looked as if he was shooting at the ground few meters off me. He obviously saw himself shooting at me instead.

The above scenario wouldn't be a big of an issue. I actually find it a smart solution to the problem. However, APB does not have ressing of dead players. PS2 will have ressing, which is why we can't have people in different places than what is actually shown. This is why the ragdolling has to be server side and everyone needs to see the corpse in the same place. Now, this can get quite heavy on the server.

As for generally about the animations. I like BF3s pre-animated death animation which then turns beautifully into a ragdoll. Pure ragdolls are quite ugly at times and usually not any more realistic looking than having no ragdoll at all

[kklkit]

Originally Posted by Coreldan

There are few issues with ragdolls:

It takes bandwidth streaming the exact ragdoll physics to every player in the vicinity. It also takes calculating power from the server, especially in a game of this size where people are everywhere and die fairly much.

Now, somewhat similar'ish games have solved that problem. APB for example has the client calculate the ragdoll. The server just informs the client of the direction of the impact and other stuff so the client knows which way in general to ragdoll, but after that the ragdolling is clientside. For example once, I was killed by a player who seemed to be mad at me and after my death (watched him through killcam) he decided to unload a whole magazine of his full auto shotgun to my face. Funnily though, my body had ragdolled into a different place in my screen than in his and in my screen it looked as if he was shooting at the ground few meters off me. He obviously saw himself shooting at me instead.

The above scenario wouldn't be a big of an issue. I actually find it a smart solution to the problem. However, APB does not have ressing of dead players. PS2 will have ressing, which is why we can't have people in different places than what is actually shown. This is why the ragdolling has to be server side and everyone needs to see the corpse in the same place. Now, this can get quite heavy on the server.

As for generally about the animations. I like BF3s pre-animated death animation which then turns beautifully into a ragdoll. Pure ragdolls are quite ugly at times and usually not any more realistic looking than having no ragdoll at all

Yeah. I believe both APB and BF3 utilize client side ragdoll.

Client side ragdoll is not a problem when the game doesn't have any revive mechanism.

As far as I know Forstbite (BC2,BF3) utilizes client side ragdoll despite having a revive mechanism, so you can see people being revived when there isn't any dead body on the floor at times. It can also be a possible loophole for hacks since there is no server side checking.

[Coreldan]

Hmmh, I havn't noticed anyone trying to ress the ground while nobody is in there. However, it could perhaps be cos in APB, when you run over someones corpse, the corpse will move as if you were playing football with it. This is usually the cause for wicked "hay ill teabag this guy even if hes not there!". The ragdoll effects alone seem to be somewhat the same for everyone, I guess cos the server gives the baseinfo and the client just executes the info.

So I guess it could work mostly fine even if the ragdoll is calculated client side, but player movements, shooting or explosions wouldnt make the corpse move around further than the initial ragdolling.

And yeah, client side anything is usually sorta bad when cheating in mind. I guess one could make revive hacks, telling the server that "sure I just ressed this guy (even if im 100m off him)", but yeah. Most of the important stuff in PS2 will most likely be server side.

[Xyntech]

What if there was a single central physics point that was server side detected, which determined where the entire body would end up being, but then all of the joints and everything that actually made the body flop around were client side? That way the general positioning of the body would remain consistent and more secure against hacking, while the server wouldn't have to calculate every little movement of the ragdoll.

[xSquirtle]

Originally Posted by Coreldan

There are few issues with ragdolls:

It takes bandwidth streaming the exact ragdoll physics to every player in the vicinity. It also takes calculating power from the server, especially in a game of this size where people are everywhere and die fairly much.

Why would they make death animations server side ? Doesn't make a bit of sense. Only thing the server is going to send to players, is that player X killed player Y with a type of weapon(maybe some other minor details). bottom line pure ragdoll or not, it will not effect connections from client and server.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by xSquirtle

Why would they make death animations server side ? Doesn't make a bit of sense. Only thing the server is going to send to players, is that player X killed player Y with a type of weapon(maybe some other minor details). bottom line pure ragdoll or not, it will not effect connections from client and server.

If the ragdoll goes flying off, it will affect balance because of medics resurrecting players. But as long as the bodies general location is consistent across all players and the server, it will be fine.

But yeah, calculating every aspect of the ragdoll serverside would be ridiculous.

[Traak]

Originally Posted by Coreldan

It takes bandwidth streaming the exact ragdoll physics to every player in the vicinity. It also takes calculating power from the server, especially in a game of this size where people are everywhere and die fairly much.

I don't know that that is true.

If I am just being streamed the dead player's position and his orientation, my computer can add the animations and physics of his limbs etc.

After player A drops off a balcony when dead, my computer can figure out everything else from there. Since it is a non-gameplay affecting item, i.e. no amount of shooting him is going to make any difference, then how well my computer interprets where his flailing limbs are is unimportant, or how far and fast he falls.

I think a lot of the stuff can be offloaded onto the clients.

[witek]

Hi there, Speaking of death prediction, I find it really odd that one of the on-line death prediction services showed me the same death date that I was foretold in my dream about a year ago. http://yourdeathdate.info/1/index.html - I can`t explain this coincidence in any other way except that there must be some kind of magic involved here.

[Plainside]

I prefer death animations like this rather than too vulgar and realistic death animations. After all it's in the love for the game that I enjoy most rather than love for the death animation.

[Coreldan]

Originally Posted by Traak

I don't know that that is true.

If I am just being streamed the dead player's position and his orientation, my computer can add the animations and physics of his limbs etc.

After player A drops off a balcony when dead, my computer can figure out everything else from there. Since it is a non-gameplay affecting item, i.e. no amount of shooting him is going to make any difference, then how well my computer interprets where his flailing limbs are is unimportant, or how far and fast he falls.

I think a lot of the stuff can be offloaded onto the clients.

Indeed, the only issue there is in terms of resurrecting. Will everybody always see the body in the same exact location?

As I mentioned, in APB the problem wasnt usually the initial ragdoll, but when somebody runs or drives over the corpse, it will ragdoll again substantially and this wasnt server side anymore and this is what lead mostly to the hilarious "ima t-bag this air right here" situations

This might be a bit farfletched, but lets try. I think the server info of the direction of impact and amount of force just about always leads to around the same position. But, lets say you fall right to the edge of stairs. If the character lands on his back, he isnt that likely to start sliding down the stairs anymore. However if the ragdoll flailing happened to make him land on his side, the physics can quite easily make him start rolling down the stairs. Now if the server only gave the position of "land here on the edge of stairs" and afterwards the character can roll down the stairs for several meters, what does this do to ressing? Are you supposed to know where the server thinks the character is? Or I guess, the server could always keep tabs on the corpses location, just not how it got there, much like how it tracks us when we are alive.

Mmh..