but the thing is I really want to make a game that has some elements never seen in a game before...
I've been thinking about this idea for a while so tell me what u think
we all love ragdoll and everything right? well they get kinda boring after a while cause they're dead! so lets give them a spine and some intelligence and then see what happens. Its similiar to the 'euphoria' system talked about in E3 by lucas arts, but I think my ideas might be able to take it further. Think about this: no keyframed animations--program the guy to keep his own balance, and then teach him to walk and he'll run into the wall and fall realisticlly, protecting his head with his hands. shoot him in the leg and he'll have a hard time walking. put him on ice and he'll slip and fall, etc, etc... all in real time, no preprogrammed anims
If we can make a 2d game like that, now thats cool!
I already had some ideas as to make a simple ragdoll like this (and i've seen a very similar paper) but it'll require time and brains
I was thinking about putting that in my engine, well the real-time animations (to an extent). It would be easy to do, actually. All it would require is predetermined points (hands/feet/head) in an animation. Kinda like motion capture, only in 2D, and then snap particles/body parts to those points and let Verlet take care of the stuff in between.
Good God... I'm getting all excited about this now.
Last edited by OpethRockr55; 05-25-2006 at 02:56 PM.
I want to create a ragdoll that can stand on its own--no scripted animations
It can balance itself by moving all of its limb with virtual 'muscles'
that way u can tell it what series of movements it needs to do in order to walk, and let it run. then also program it to be itelligent and move its arms infront of its head when falling etc. That way you can, for ex. jump and kick off walls very easily, or mybe jump and kick off a crate, but because the crate moves u lose balance and fall to the ground. Or walk on ice and slip all over the place, all dynamically
Hmmm... That would be a great deal tougher, but maybe it might be easier to meld the two together. It would be a pain in the butt to modify every single point, so by just moving the ends of limbs to designated spots, calculated dynamically, then the "ragdoll" will follow. It's starting to sound like a dynamic inverse-kinematics thing.
Looks like my angular constraint has purpose after all.
That might make it reasonable so that if a character gets hit with a box, they ragdoll and fly across the screen, and (if they manage to survive) they then "pick themselves up" using a block of actionscript executed after the ragdoll has stopped, or even in motion, which could call for some 1337 rolling action.
The only thing I'm afraid of, if we go this way, is that they'll look like dolls, not something realistic, and they'll just flop about like fish when they move.
"The only thing I'm afraid of, if we go this way, is that they'll look like dolls, not something realistic, and they'll just flop about like fish when they move."
Actually not, I've seen simulations using physic based animations + inverse kinematics in combination with normal animation. It moves very realistic and "everything" is procedural, for example they calculate the mass and angle of the torso and from that the legs automatically move in a certain angle (trying to maintain balance) . Pretty cool stuff. Of course I have yet to see the first 2d/flash example. Of course you have to be a little math/physics whiz, like ozmic or the other known guys for example
OZMIC I HAD THE SAME IDEA BUT IT THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE TOO HARD!
Jezus, we should work together! But again, it's very hard and how would you program the controls because if you fall, it looks a bit stupid, or would you when the player falls of a barrel let the system take over the player's controls until he stands on his feet again?
I had a fla that handles inverse kinematics. It's pretty well done but the code is not clear so I couldn't do anything with it...
If you are interested I'll post it!
But what program would u use? I guess not flash anymore?
PS: I'm glad you like my explosion, I used it for my crappy games
snipergen, y dont u post that fla
honestly, idk how well this sytem will work because i've never tried it
I'll try to make something in flash and post it here so we can see what happens
i've actually seen that a long time ago. It's cool but not really playable--what I really want to do is nonscriptable animation, but I'm thinking i might have to compromise to some sort of ik.
But, I wont know until i actually do it
That software is amazing, at first I didn't know what the whole thing was about, but upon further inspection (reading and watching the videos) I noticed that all the animations are governed by physics, so it's not like for example, games where the character is being controlled by the animation system until something happens (shot, explosion, hit) only then the physic system will take control of the character (ragdoll), With this software every anim is controlled by physics so for example an animation of the character wielding a weapon is not static, the mass of the weapon can vary and it will behave differently.
"At the heart of endorphin are its Adaptive Behaviours, which – unlike animation data – are completely interactive. "
There's a lot more to that, I'll have to buy it to really know, it's just 9495 bucks for the commercial licence.
so, from what i've gathered, it seems like this could be done in flash
looks like the ai is not very computationally expensive, but the actual physics simulation is...so if flash can handle the physics this could be done
that endorphin system is cool, but a bit discouraging (if u know what i mean) so we're just gonna have to start small...(plus 2d is a bit easier )
i'm waiting till i have more time 2 do this cause i dont have much to spare right now
..any which way, I had an idea for a game/small business venture for u guys, tell me if ur at all interested to hear it out
So... basically this is pretty much just a matter of "if" statements combined with little bits of physical calculations and predetermined reactions (protective stepping). Also, you're probably right in thinking that making this 2D will simplify things. The stability/support polygon thing (sorry, did a quick read-through) would, optimally be a line or distance calculation. Pretty simple stuff (just looking at it), but really cool.
Oh, and it's possible to get endorphin for free and its even legal! It's called the learning edition: http://www.naturalmotion.com/pages/le.htm
It's awesome but I need to upgrade my pc to run it better because it lags when simulating.
This seems like quite an idea going down!
Have you guys ever played gish? Its a brilliantly simple kinda physics based game, where you are a blob of tar :P
The tar is basically just a dynamic 'frame' thats been filled in black, and it can get squashed, moulded whatever. The enivrontment and puzzles of the game are all basically just static blocks that you nede to interact with (nothing animated except facial expressions of enemies) to get around, its brilliant fun.
I'd love to help out with a game like this (that idea form the video of using the floating barrels to cross some water, its classic gish and thats what reminded me :P) if i can get the hang of the physics involved that is
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