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Yeah, it's not the most optimal photo-manip job. Back then I have not been that skilled yet with Blender so I had my troubles. And with the large reworking of the Armature of the dragon I can not render that scene anymore since with different Armature the pose it totally off.

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Leader, Head Programmer: Epsylon | Drag[en]gine ( Wiki )

So, here we are. Fixed some code to deal better with spring constraints. So here is the video to watch.
Dragon Rag-Doll Test 2 ( with spring-wings )

And for those not wanting to read there the description quoted in here:

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Leader, Head Programmer: Epsylon | Drag[en]gine ( Wiki )

Not perfect, but that's pretty sweet. Betcha it'll be hell to make actual animations for, though.


Hmmmm... Halo 1/2/3 all do this I'm pretty sure One of the things that makes dying so fun. You get to see your body go through holy hell while you wait to respawn (when your body stops moving, the camera does switch to a third-person view of another random player).

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->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton

Uhh no, what Dragonlord has done is applied ragdoll to parts of the mesh, for instance, the feet, which then make sure they are orientated on the terrain/other bodies correctly.

Halo 3 does this, but you'll only notice it in the legs/feet of characters, when an actor dies, their biped becomes a ragdoll body entirely, where every portion of the biped becomes a tangible, moving entity that reacts with other parts of itself and with the environment.

Zelda Twilight Princess does this as well (very impressive) and a whole bunch of other games.

The term 'ragdoll' has become too widely abused and associated with a dead character that luls about on the floor.

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Not correct actually. I'm using procedural animation techniques ( inverse kinematics in general ) to align the actor with the ground as well as aligning feet with the ground as far as possible ( rules prevent over-bending if the ground is too steep ). This has nothing to do with rag-dolling at all but with procedural animation techniques. In the last video though what I did there is actual rag-dolling. This term is often misused but I use it here in the correct sense for what I'm doing there. The actor is approximated by a collision object linked by constraints. In my case I use analytical shapes as collision shapes as they are faster and less edgy ( half-life 2 for example uses triangle meshes as collision shapes and trespasser uses only boxes ). Rag-dolling is therefore the process of attaching an actor to such a collision object from a given point in time and optionally releasing it again. The term rag-doll comes from the fact that usually no motors are applied to such a collision object for speed reason which makes such a collision object behave like an actual rag-doll in the real world. With a real body muscles get cramped applying a retention force to the attached limbs. Using the spring constraints I sort of simulated this retention force on the wings. It would be possible to do the same on the other body constraints but such retention force setups are quite tricky to get working.

So in conclusion:
- The body/feet to ground alignment is done using procedural animation not physics
- The tumbling down is done using non-retention rag-doll physics
- The wings are done using retention rag-doll physics ( using spring constraints )

Now about the "for dead people only" comment. Using rag-doll only for dying actors has become the default in games today but is also boring. This is why I stated in the comment that I go beyond this. Players can get exhausted, knocked unconscious or tranquilized in which case the rag-doll is used. After some time though they come back to normal depending on the cause ( exhaustion is short to middle duration whereas the other two require a second player actor to take action ). Furthermore my system is generic. Hence you can create rigs with complex animation and physics properties and use them for anything not just models ( for example for AI, puzzles and more ). So I'm doing quite a few things different then what is going on in other games. I'm actually using the rag-doll physics for game mechanics not just dying-actor eye candy. I really have to stress this part as some seem to misunderstand what's going on here.

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Leader, Head Programmer: Epsylon | Drag[en]gine ( Wiki )

Put all together in-game ( same video, pick the one playing better for you ): moddb video, youtube video . Details about what you can see there can be found here.

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Leader, Head Programmer: Epsylon | Drag[en]gine ( Wiki )

Whoa dude! True dragon's-eye-view! Nice. I've never seen that visually represented before. And yeah the ragdoll etc. is good

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->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton

Well... most people are not really aware yet of what extraordinary and unconventional stuff is included in my game. "Dragon View" is just one of them with "Dynamic Investigation", "Realistic Interaction", "Cinematic Combat" and "Knowledge System" being some of the more interesting things

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Leader, Head Programmer: Epsylon | Drag[en]gine ( Wiki )

Wooah, sounds nice! . Really nice, actually.

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