Add Body Physics [Archive] - Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars Official Community Site

General.Jung

07-21-2007, 06:23 PM

Hello FireFly,

Well, I don't know if ragdoll physics excist in the QW source code, AFAIK doom3 / quake4 had them, so they might still excist in the ET:QW code: If so, It might be possible to add them in a mod.
However I don't recommend using them...

Yes, if they are in it, it will be possible. That is what I meaning. It should be possible to add them by a mod. But the better way is that id release an extension for that.

jRAD

07-22-2007, 09:32 AM

All of these things are possible in a mod.

General.Jung

07-22-2007, 10:03 AM

Hello jRAD,

thanks for your reply. Nice news at this morning. Can not wait for the SDK.

Inkubus

07-23-2007, 05:53 AM

How about, instead of ragdoll (which seems difficult to put in this game) there is more than one death animation?

This is 2007. A single death animation is...a little silly.

tVItkh

07-23-2007, 07:53 AM

How about, instead of ragdoll (which seems difficult to put in this game) there is more than one death animation?

This is 2007. A single death animation is...a little silly.

yeah seriously agreed..

if not ragdolls, at least please add / have a few different death anims..

like 3 or 4..

moonshield

07-23-2007, 12:16 PM

Why should it be difficult to add ragdolls? But I agree, death animations look better^^.

And water can be done with low grav zones: http://s49.deinprovider.de/vbarticles.php?do=article&articleid=21 - german tutorial. Should work in etqw.

General.Jung

07-23-2007, 12:24 PM

Hello moonshield,

I had the fear that that these physics were completely removed in the engine than it would be very difficult.

k3g

07-25-2007, 10:21 PM

Anybody else thinking of waiting for the gore/physics mod before picking this game up?

I'm only half kidding.

jonny b

07-25-2007, 10:36 PM

Personally, i could careless about gore and physics. I've played atleast 2 games that had physics and I turned them off after a week. 1 of them needed a physics card for the computer, that was a waste of $150. They look great and all, but it's just not necessary. BTW, that wouldn't stop me from downloading the mod. :)

Also, how many people still play with blood flash or whatever. People that play comp usually turn as much eye candy off so they're not distracted. When it comes to stuff like that, i tend to think on the lines of a competitive gamer. They are the ones who usually stick with the game the longest. Not your normal run of the mill gamer who buys 3 FPS and plays all 3 in a day.

TTK-Bandit

07-25-2007, 11:29 PM

I've done water for quake4 and seen code for doom3, its pretty easy to implement it.
takes a day or two, maybe a little more if you want weapon effects to act differently under water.

gore/blood should be easy too.

I would not recommend ragdolls, they don't look nice. rather a few more death animations, like 3-4 and the body angle adjusted slightly based on terrain, so it does not fly horizontally on a steep plane.

k3g

07-27-2007, 07:52 PM

Also, how many people still play with blood flash or whatever. People that play comp usually turn as much eye candy off so they're not distracted. When it comes to stuff like that, i tend to think on the lines of a competitive gamer. They are the ones who usually stick with the game the longest. Not your normal run of the mill gamer who buys 3 FPS and plays all 3 in a day.

I'm sure there are "still" plenty of people who will want to play the game with the maximum settings and effects possible, myself included. Let the serious competition gamers turn whatever settings off they want, I'll stick with my eye candy :).

k3g

07-27-2007, 08:03 PM

I would not recommend ragdolls, they don't look nice. rather a few more death animations, like 3-4 and the body angle adjusted slightly based on terrain, so it does not fly horizontally on a steep plane.

That would be better than nothing. I have to ask, why do ragdolls get such a bad rep? They looked fine in D3/Q4. I thought ragdoll physics was the wave of the future...? Couldn't we be working towards improved ragdoll physics if the current model looks bad, which IMO, based off of previous games using the Doom3 engine, doesn't look bad at all.

Kamikazee

07-27-2007, 08:11 PM

That would be better than nothing. I have to ask, why do ragdolls get such a bad rep? They looked fine in D3/Q4. I thought ragdoll physics was the wave of the future...? Couldn't we be working towards improved ragdoll physics if the current model looks bad, which IMO, based off of previous games using the Doom3 engine, doesn't look bad at all.
The problem with ragdolls is that
1. the "weight" need some tweaking before they look real and don't appear to be made of simple ropes.
2. they have the tendency to get stuck in the most awkward places, slide down hills or be curled up in such a way that hitboxes go out of the window. Don't forget Stroggs still want to poke a needle in there to gib humans into Stroyent or convert them into spawnhosts. GDF medics on the other hand don't want to find out where they need to place their shock paddles when the head got pressed to the chest when some arms got in the way.

Generally, good ol' death animations are more controllable. They also don't eat up physics processing time. (Something which could bring Doom 3 to it's knees. Id said you never want to stack two or three ragdolls onto an elevator platform, for example.)

Inkubus

07-27-2007, 08:30 PM

F.E.A.R.'s ragdoll physics are prime, and what's wrong with getting stuck in funny places? I think it's hilarious.

MoP

07-27-2007, 08:40 PM

Probably not hilarious if a $50,000 tournament prize hangs in the balance and a vital teammate who needs a revive is stuck hanging by his elbow from a pipe on the side of a building :)

Slade05

07-27-2007, 09:10 PM

No.
It is dead hillarious and funny.
There goes somebody`s 50k bucks. ;)

Inkubus

07-27-2007, 09:47 PM

No.
It is dead hillarious and funny.
There goes somebody`s 50k bucks. ;)

Haha yeah that's what I'm thinking.

I also think game tournaments are kinda dumb :) My opinion though.

k3g

07-27-2007, 10:01 PM

Probably not hilarious if a $50,000 tournament prize hangs in the balance and a vital teammate who needs a revive is stuck hanging by his elbow from a pipe on the side of a building :)

How would that even happen? And, why would it necessarily be bad for that kind of thing to happen? It would just be another dynamic element of the game. IMO it would be more fun that way.

k3g

07-27-2007, 10:07 PM

The problem with ragdolls is that
1. the "weight" need some tweaking before they look real and don't appear to be made of simple ropes.
2. they have the tendency to get stuck in the most awkward places, slide down hills or be curled up in such a way that hitboxes go out of the window. Don't forget Stroggs still want to poke a needle in there to gib humans into Stroyent or convert them into spawnhosts. GDF medics on the other hand don't want to find out where they need to place their shock paddles when the head got pressed to the chest when some arms got in the way.

The fix for #1 is: Tweak the weight variables until they look right. I don't see #2 being that big of a problem honestly, the torso should be easy to tell from the rest of the body no matter what position they're in...

PointlesS

07-27-2007, 10:43 PM

How would that even happen? And, why would it necessarily be bad for that kind of thing to happen? It would just be another dynamic element of the game. IMO it would be more fun that way.
yeah it sounds awesome to be a medic with an unconscious covert ops and 1/2 a second left of hacking the objective and can't revive him because his body according to the server is to the left but on your screen it's to the right...because ragdolls were in so we could see dead enemies fold in half when shot

k3g

07-28-2007, 12:14 AM

yeah it sounds awesome to be a medic with an unconscious covert ops and 1/2 a second left of hacking the objective and can't revive him because his body according to the server is to the left but on your screen it's to the right...because ragdolls were in so we could see dead enemies fold in half when shot

Wait - that doesn't sound awesome, Oh, I see what you did there.

I'll have to give you the benefit of the doubt. If it's not technically feasible because of client/server synchronization issues then, hey, guess there's nothing you can do, right? On the other hand, if it is possible, it would be cool.

reyalp

07-28-2007, 12:47 AM

I'll have to give you the benefit of the doubt. If it's not technically feasible because of client/server synchronization issues then, hey, guess there's nothing you can do, right? On the other hand, if it is possible, it would be cool.
No doubt it's possible to make some kind of ragdoll system that doesn't usually have a big negative impact on gameplay or performance, but like everything else in this process it is a trade-off.

As a developer, you have to decide what features/performance optimizations/bug fixes/schedule slips are you willing to sacrifice for a particular feature. Given that ragdolls are mostly cosmetic, they'd be pretty low on my list, and it looks like SD has made the same choice.

k3g

07-30-2007, 07:15 PM

No doubt it's possible to make some kind of ragdoll system that doesn't usually have a big negative impact on gameplay or performance, but like everything else in this process it is a trade-off.

As a developer, you have to decide what features/performance optimizations/bug fixes/schedule slips are you willing to sacrifice for a particular feature. Given that ragdolls are mostly cosmetic, they'd be pretty low on my list, and it looks like SD has made the same choice.

I appreciate the well thought out response, but I don't think it's a technical problem with implementation, as it seems the team at SD has left ragdoll out because of gameplay reasons.

I'm not aware of a legitimate technical reason for leaving ragdolls out besides speculated client-server sync issues. There are better excuses from a gameplay angle, but I disagree with them.

I'm certainly no programmer or part of a development team, I just haven't heard a good reason why the ragdolls aren't there. It seems like a critical element of an FPS game. I'm not trying to be stubborn or anything...

Try and imagine the difference between playing Doom3 with ragdoll, and playing without (I'm aware this isn't the best example, SP vs. MP so the technical limitations are completely different). I can't even imagine playing without, it just seems ridiculous.

I still play and enjoy the beta very much (70+ hours), but I notice this prone levitating cadaver nonsense all the time, and since it's a beta there's a certain level of acceptance and patience for unfinished features like this but when this becomes a full retail game and bodies are still hovering magically off rooftops and prone on staircases as if someone carbonized their body and nailed their feet to the steps, I'm sure we'll hear more about it.

reyalp

07-31-2007, 12:56 AM

I appreciate the well thought out response, but I don't think it's a technical problem with implementation, as it seems the team at SD has left ragdoll out because of gameplay reasons.

The technical and gameplay reasons go together. To make the gameplay work (i.e reviving/spawnhosting/disguise) you have to solve the technical issues. Spending the time on the technical issues means less get spent on something else, or the game is later. "When it's done" is all very well, but "done" is actually still a compromise of what actually absolutely has to be done for the game to be a success.

I'm not aware of a legitimate technical reason for leaving ragdolls out besides speculated client-server sync issues. There are better excuses from a gameplay angle, but I disagree with them.

It isn't speculative. Syncing complex physics over the network is either hard, expensive, or both. In games where you don't have to interact with the bodies, this isn't a problem, because they don't have to sync. If two clients see totally different death poses, it doesn't actually matter.

k3g

07-31-2007, 02:04 AM

It isn't speculative. Syncing complex physics over the network is either hard, expensive, or both. In games where you don't have to interact with the bodies, this isn't a problem, because they don't have to sync. If two clients see totally different death poses, it doesn't actually matter.

I did a little looking around about this and found this cool article:

http://www.gaffer.org/game-physics/networked-physics/

Which backs up what you said, with the double meaning on "hard, expensive, or both" regarding also network bandwidth. Client side prediction combined with lots of physics would appear to cause mad lag.

I'm still optimistic that there's a solution...

otakujohn

08-03-2007, 05:53 PM

Probably not hilarious if a $50,000 tournament prize hangs in the balance and a vital teammate who needs a revive is stuck hanging by his elbow from a pipe on the side of a building :)

Now if you're talking about Fear style ragdoll, I might agree with you, but your argument doesn't hold water at all when it comes to games like Q3/4 and UT. There have been many occasions where large sums of money were involved in those games, and the engine physics never became an issue. How this game is ANY different baffles me.
Also, We're talking about realism here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when someone gets hit with a rocket or tank round they either go flying or blow in half.

reyalp

08-03-2007, 11:05 PM

Now if you're talking about Fear style ragdoll, I might agree with you, but your argument doesn't hold water at all when it comes to games like Q3/4 and UT. There have been many occasions where large sums of money were involved in those games, and the engine physics never became an issue. How this game is ANY different baffles me.

In ET:QW in you have to interact with the bodies. In Quake and UT you do not.

The original UT ragdolls were entirely client side. Two different clients could see the bodies in entirely different poses.

arsenic0

08-11-2007, 05:30 AM

Probably not hilarious if a $50,000 tournament prize hangs in the balance and a vital teammate who needs a revive is stuck hanging by his elbow from a pipe on the side of a building :)

Oh comon, atleast come up with a better excuse than that..

CS:S and BF2 both have ragdoll and probably make up a majority of the "major" tourney events...

moonshield

08-11-2007, 01:28 PM

CS:S and BF2 both have ragdoll and probably make up a majority of the "major" tourney events...

CS:S Servers get an extreme high CPU Load when ppl get killed - results in lags. Btw: Would sending "unfinished" snapshots to keep game smooth be a solution?

Sublim3

08-11-2007, 04:08 PM

CS:S Servers get an extreme high CPU Load when ppl get killed - results in lags. Btw: Would sending "unfinished" snapshots to keep game smooth be a solution?

Depends on the GSP, I provide a Premium L.A Nuclear Fallout private server for my CS:S team, 100tic absolutely no lag and the best Hit registration out.

moonshield

08-11-2007, 09:16 PM

Depends on the GSP, I provide a Premium L.A Nuclear Fallout private server for my CS:S team, 100tic absolutely no lag and the best Hit registration out.

Ok... But those ragdolls still need much power ;).

Nail

08-11-2007, 10:07 PM

and you still don't interact with bodies, no revives

FatMom

08-12-2007, 11:15 PM

ragdoll would be a nightmare for the technician, just think aobut trying to revive a teammate who is going down the hill....

Sublim3

08-13-2007, 12:10 AM

damn... i actually think its fine as is.. ragdolls dont have a place in this style game.

Maybe if there was no revives then it would be cool, not practical for the type of game it is IMHO.

sponge

08-16-2007, 07:06 AM

Oh comon, atleast come up with a better excuse than that..

CS:S and BF2 both have ragdoll and probably make up a majority of the "major" tourney events...

CS:S ragdolls are client-side since the gameplay is not dependent on them at all. BF2 is not even in the same galaxy for competitive events as anything Counter-Strike, or even Quake.

Zhou

08-21-2007, 01:24 PM

CannonFodder1.0

08-21-2007, 05:14 PM

I can see the issues with implementing rag-dolls, but a few more death anims would be really nice. Once you start looking through demos it becomes fairly silly watching everyone die the same way every time.

Heck ya!

Randomly cycled death animations would be truly schweet. Animations are locked to 30Hz, so syncing isn't an issue. It would work just like "taunts", eh? When you die, the server would tell everyone ( including you ) to play the random death animation on your player object. Scripted animations can be much more dramatic and visually immersive then just flopping around.

A simple yet effective solution. :p

M@gic

09-30-2007, 12:31 PM

Dont know if anyone have played Turok, because there is some nice death animations in that game.

tVItkh

09-30-2007, 03:07 PM

we just need more death animations.

& maybe somehow try to fix the floating dead bodies on slopes/angles.

GorkerMorker

09-30-2007, 05:15 PM

I loved the death animations in the original UT (the last unreal game without ragdoll). You could actually shoot a body against a wall with a minigun and keep it pinned there if you continued shooting it.

Then again, when i'm running around with my shotgun around the MPC deployment zone with four opponents, an incoming airstrike, two anti infantry deployables incoming, and several teammates to revive, i won't take a moment to admire the way my victim fel to the ground.

Exportforce

09-30-2007, 08:16 PM

I don't see any problems here and the "excuse"... well... c'mon.
There have been, as someone posted before, those mods etc. on other games of that engine. For a team like ID should have for ET:QW it would be a work of less than 3 days for a full implementation of full bodyphysics, if not even water too. This game is great, no question, but please don't be that lazy.
You can do this, without us having to play mods to have physics.

olzo

10-04-2007, 11:24 AM

Just wanted to say thx to jRAD and the other programmers here for seemingly reading through all of this and commenting here and there...

Nothing worse than a support forum with no replies.

And agree on the gibs, blood & gore... ragdolls are ok but not overdoing it like in HL2. They need to be "heavier" like IRL. Can't just catapult a corpse with a monkey wrench either, right?

Socratatus

10-05-2007, 12:16 PM

I would`ve liked Ragdolls. I thought static deaths were a thing of the past in FPS` until this!

I think the arguments against ragdolls are a bit lame. For instance, a guy`s stuck on a pipe by his elbow so he can`t get revived. Well, this is slightly in the future right? have some kind of throwable revival hyperdermic needle or shock pads that can reach the ragdoll. Chuck it at the guy, he gets revived, drops to the floor. Same principle can be used for any ragdoll caught in difficult spots, just provide the medic with a long reach or throwable method of getting to them. then have the ragdoll `free` for a second on revive so he can get out of the `stuck` spot.

The only GOOD reason I can see for having no ragdolls is that it really reduces CPU overhead. I have a middle range, perhaps low-end PC (Athlon 3500+, 6800 Gforce 256 and 2 meg ram) and I am astounded as to how well it runs the game. I can run on MAX settings (with Ultra shadowing) at 1024 X768 with only a tiny bit of slowdown with a lot of smoke and explosions. If i take Ultra off and reduce AA\AF a little, it`s smooth. Not bad for a mediocre PC and a 2007 just released game.

So I guess that`s the good reason for no ragdoll, though it looks a little unrealistic seeing the same death animation - especially when he falls on his face and immediately turns over onto his back like that snake that pretends to be dead.

Kamikazee

10-05-2007, 12:48 PM

So I guess that`s the good reason for no ragdoll, though it looks a little unrealistic seeing the same death animation - especially when he falls on his face and immediately turns over onto his back like that snake that pretends to be dead.
Also thought about the way you would synchronize ragdolls over the network? Don't forget the clients and the server need to have nearly the same state of the ragdoll, otherwise revives will fail.

Death Dragon

10-05-2007, 04:53 PM

Dont know if anyone have played Turok, because there is some nice death animations in that game.
Sounds like you didn't play the german version. ;)

dracflamloc

10-05-2007, 09:53 PM

I'd really like a mod to add some good ol' Quake blood+guts. I don't get this whole 'dumbing down' for kids thing. I mean TV shows can show pretty much anything bloody these days no problem, yet game companies need to dumb stuff down for the ESRB?

Id your fanbase is mainly older guys (well.. comparatively), and nobody even follows the 'don't sell MA games to kids' rules anyway!