Is there gonna be rag doll physics?

[motorizer]

The best solution in my opinion is premade animations that turn to a ragdoll if they hit a collision mesh (either the floor or a wall) .

 

That way the animations look more real, and there would hopefully be no weird clipping in walls or floating above slopes or stairs...

 

I have no idea how easy or hard this would be, alternatively they could just ragdoll after the animation has finished playing.

 

Unity itself has built in ragdoll support.

Edited April 26, 2014 by motorizer

[Haerski]

I don't think ragdolls would be good idea for PoE. I'm no developer, but I'm pretty sure making the effect work well with character models and smashing every ridiculous physics bug (breaking the immersion since the release of Source Engine) would not be such an easy job as some might think. I think I can do without weightless corpses stuck inside objects, falling of the map, launching randomly in the air from slight touch, getting stuck into my characters leg and being dragged around the area... The more I think about it the worse it sounds. Of course I don't know how good is Unity's support for ragdolls and physics overall, but for me this still sounds like unnecessary pain. I like my enemies to stay where I killed them.

 

EDIT: Yeah, and there's always the question of how would all this work with 2D environments.

Edited April 26, 2014 by Haerski

[PrimeJunta]

@Malignacious, this is not the game you're looking for. :jediwave:

[vril]

Hopefully they will not waste resources on adding rag doll physics.  It was probably the $10m stretch goal :D

Edited April 27, 2014 by vril

[Tamerlane]

Obsidian, please meticulously recreate Diablo 2's death animations. Thanks.

[Malignacious]

I think I can do without weightless corpses stuck inside objects, falling of the map, launching randomly in the air from slight touch, getting stuck into my characters leg and being dragged around the area...

 

This kind of disinformation annoys the hell out of me, I've never experienced any of this and I've been gaming since amazing Titan Quest ragdoll physics, this feature was so fantastic, it made the world so much more immersive, that I thought this would become a new standard in all games but here we are, people lying because of sheer lazyness.

 

How the hell is this not great??

I'm really getting sick of this stagnation and active sabotage of progress.

Edited April 27, 2014 by Malignacious

[Midas Touch]

Maybe it's a lack of imagination, but I can't imagine a 2d isometric game needing ragdoll physics that are common for 3d environments.  On top of that, anything I've seen with ragdolling is prone to those hilarious bugs that Haerski went over.

Seriously, if you've ever played a Source game, Unreal Engine game, Bethesda game, GTA, Saints Row, etc. etc., there's no way you haven't seen something so crazy that you have to stop and chuckle.  Shoot, I remember giant bug corpses getting caught in my character's legs on Dark Souls, and getting dragged around, up and down ladders, and generally jittering all over until I finally shook them off.

Maybe ragdolling can be added to game without such craziness EVER happening, but I'd have to see it to believe it.


 

[Ink Blot]

Funny thing: I don't really notice the ragdoll physics in games that use it, and I certainly don't notice the lack thereof in games that don't. If it's there, it's fine. Doesn't make or break the game for me. But I don't see a need for ragdoll physics in a game like this.

[Malignacious]

Funny thing: I don't really notice

Your lack of mental acuity is of no one's concern.

[Ink Blot]

Oooh, are we going to devolve to ad hominem attacks now? Quelle surprise!

[Haerski]

 

This kind of disinformation annoys the hell out of me, I've never experienced any of this and I've been gaming since amazing Titan Quest ragdoll physics, this feature was so fantastic, it made the world so much more immersive, that I thought this would become a new standard in all games but here we are, people lying because of sheer lazyness.

 

How the hell is this not great??

I'm really getting sick of this stagnation and active sabotage of progress.

 

All aforementioned bugs observed first hand by yours truly in various games over my years of gaming. Few of them actually in GTA IV featuring that Euphoria engine of yours. Didn't look quite as good in action as on that promo video though.

 

But yeah, well done ragdolls like Euphoria are awesome and I don't mind them in action games like GTA, where you run around stumbling at other people, getting hit by cars and falling off helicopters. That's still probably not something you will be doing a lot in PoE...

Edited April 28, 2014 by Haerski

[Mor]

How the hell is this not great??

I'm really getting sick of this stagnation and active sabotage of progress.

You have to understand that every tool has a purpose e.g. this would work great in GTA game, where you interact and observe everything from up close first/third person, don't have too many realistic interaction and all characters are exclusively human. So adding ragdols mechanics that can interact with the environments in unpredictable ways adds to the experience noticeably.

 

Here however, you have top side view, with large verity of different actions and creatures, with main goal is to distinguish each as much as possible in away that would be best viewed from our preservative, so it seem to me what you suggest is really counter productive.

[PrimeJunta]

That Euphoria demo was pretty damn cool. About as relevant to P:E as a flight simulator though.

[Bryy]

 

I think I can do without weightless corpses stuck inside objects, falling of the map, launching randomly in the air from slight touch, getting stuck into my characters leg and being dragged around the area...

 

This kind of disinformation annoys the hell out of me, I've never experienced any of this and I've been gaming since amazing Titan Quest ragdoll physics, this feature was so fantastic, it made the world so much more immersive, that I thought this would become a new standard in all games but here we are, people lying because of sheer lazyness.

 

How the hell is this not great??

I'm really getting sick of this stagnation and active sabotage of progress.

 

Ah, now we've hit the real issue here.

 

Those darn lazy devs.

 

 

 

Funny thing: I don't really notice

Your lack of mental acuity is of no one's concern.

 

Hey guys look, another user for me to test out this strange 'Ignore feature'.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Bryy

[Malignacious]

 

How the hell is this not great??

I'm really getting sick of this stagnation and active sabotage of progress.

Here however, you have top side view, with large verity of different actions and creatures, with main goal is to distinguish each as much as possible in away that would be best viewed from our preservative, so it seem to me what you suggest is really counter productive.

 

 

And that's why Titan Quest with ragdoll physics feels much better than Torchlight 2??

That's why Diablo 3 and Grim Dawn feel much better than Path of Exile?

 

You have to have rag doll physics in games, emphasis on the PHYSICS as in physicality which brings immersion to the world!

[motorizer]

Seriously, if you've ever played a Source game, Unreal Engine game, Bethesda game, GTA, Saints Row, etc. etc., there's no way you haven't seen something so crazy that you have to stop and chuckle.  Shoot, I remember giant bug corpses getting caught in my character's legs on Dark Souls, and getting dragged around, up and down ladders, and generally jittering all over until I finally shook them off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be fair I've seen more than my fair share of bodies falling through walls or hovering horizontally above stairs due to having fixed death animations.

Edited April 28, 2014 by motorizer

[PrimeJunta]

@Malignacious... not sure that talking to you is a great idea, but here goes anyway.

 

P:E is explicitly billed as a retro game. The selling point isn't cutting-edge physics, graphics, or similar things. The whole point of it is to bring back the feel of the Infinity Engine games. It's also a game that's being made on a very tight budget. That's why, for example, they have painted "choose your own adventure" intertitles instead of animated cutscenes or custom animations.

 

I think it's pretty safe to say that most of us backers would prefer that limited budget to be spent on things that help recreate and build on the things the IE games did well -- big, sprawling, beautiful worlds, scads of quests and story, deep and well-written companion interactions, lots of gameplay variety with various character builds and party compositions, lots and lots of different monsters, and so on.

 

While fantastic animations, physics, and what have you would be nice, they don't really contribute all that much to these things. The fantastic demo you linked to, for example, is done with very expensive middleware. It is not a priority for this game. If you value things like immersive physics and graphics, then P:E is not the game you're looking for. There are others. Why not go play them, instead of ranting that this one does things a little differently, and how benighted we all are because we like it that way?

[Malignacious]

 

Seriously, if you've ever played a Source game, Unreal Engine game, Bethesda game, GTA, Saints Row, etc. etc., there's no way you haven't seen something so crazy that you have to stop and chuckle.  Shoot, I remember giant bug corpses getting caught in my character's legs on Dark Souls, and getting dragged around, up and down ladders, and generally jittering all over until I finally shook them off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be fair I've seen more than my fair share of bodies falling through walls or hovering horizontally above stairs due to having fixed death animations.

 

 

Also it never makes sense to waste money on things that could be done procedurally but with much better results.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Malignacious

[motorizer]

People keep mentioning expensive middleware, as if the engine they are using doesn't already have built in support, it might even take less resources than doing an animation (I don't know)

 

Not too bothered what they do to be honest, as long as it looks right.

[Bryy]

I feel like an actual dev answering this would both help and not help.

[Amentep]

People keep mentioning expensive middleware, as if the engine they are using doesn't already have built in support, it might even take less resources than doing an animation (I don't know)

 

Not too bothered what they do to be honest, as long as it looks right.

Expensive middleware is really only relevant - as far as I know - withing the context of why Obsidian didn't use their Onyx engine on this kickstarter which used a significant amount of licensed middleware that made Onyx cost prohibitive to do.

 

So that's why we end up with Unity. What Unity's capabilities are, I couldn't say.

[Mor]

 

 

How the hell is this not great??

I'm really getting sick of this stagnation and active sabotage of progress.

Here however, you have top side view, with large verity of different actions and creatures, with main goal is to distinguish each as much as possible in away that would be best viewed from our preservative, so it seem to me what you suggest is really counter productive.

 

 

And that's why Titan Quest with ragdoll physics feels much better than Torchlight 2??

That's why Diablo 3 and Grim Dawn feel much better than Path of Exile?

 

You have to have rag doll physics in games, emphasis on the PHYSICS as in physicality which brings immersion to the world!

 

Interesting, thanks for providing example as a point of reference. I looked at Titan Quest and Diablo 3.

 

You have a point there. However a. I am not certain technically speaking it is possible (without additional maps or at all) b. the only effects that IMO can't be replicated are these "power slams" which either throw the creatures back or out of the screen for ever hit in X hits, which works well in actiony button musher providing some verity in animation among the endless hords you slay, but might not be as notable or fit as well in what I believe to be a slower paced game, with much smaller hand crafted encounters. c. PoE isn't diablo3 in terms of budget so such out of the boxs extension might not be in their price range.

 

Bottom line, while I do not object to any technical marvel the devs can use to spice up the visuals (we already seen some nice examples with spells, and they are certainly going to improve with the further the game progress), I trust devs judgment on the cost/effect scale with this. (so far the game is better and better with each iteration, and seem to go along the "right" path)

Edited April 28, 2014 by Mor

[Malignacious]

Btw, I'm already learning to do things in UnrealEngine 4 now, it's so cheap, really anyone can get it now.

And the possibilities it offers are endless, even for a single person, tools are very intuitive.

 

It's a real shame that the first batch of kickstarter games aren't going to use it.

[Elerond]

Idea behind ragdoll physics is to make on the fly dynamic character rig animations that can be controlled with mathematical variations that usually represent different forces in the game. Ragdoll physics is  easier and cheaper way to produce large variety of animations for character in game when they move because of for impact, gravitation or some other forces. Downside of rag doll physics is that they demand more processing power from computer that runs the game, although these days computer usually have quite lot processing power to spent, which make it usually not a issue.

 

One can make ragdoll physics in Unity by using its Rigidbody component (which can be used to all rigid body animation not only to ragdoll animations), but I can't say anything what quality animations it produces. As making animations, produced by physic engine, to look good is usually reason why people pay high prices, that middleware developers ask for their products.   

 

Using ragdoll physics in PoE maybe bit trickier than in pure 3D game, as backgrounds is flat 2D plane, but as they are already solved this issue in their water and lighting effects by storing height information from original 3D models that they use to render backgrounds, one could thing that they could use same information to make ragdoll animations work with the backgrounds.

[Bryy]

It's a real shame that the first batch of kickstarter games aren't going to use it.

Double Fine was not the first game to use Kickstarter, nor is the concept regulated to the four or five high profile titles that came after DFA.

 

But we get it. You think every game that does not use the latest and greatest tech is an enemy to creativity.