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ragdolls setup tutorial

Started by motorsep, September 11, 2014, 08:31:38 AM

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motorsep

I have been looking for a tutorial on how to setup ragdoll from scratch, and as you probably guessed there is none. Does anyone have a solid experience with setting up ragdolls _properly_ (we have one ragdoll set up, but something was not correctly done and it doesn't work properly)

argoon


motorsep


BloodRayne

Tips:

- Use no spaces in bone names
- Use no upper case letters in bone names
- Always have an origin bone
- All bones must be connected to other bones or the origin.
- Bipeds need specific bones for IK to work right (knee, loleg, foot see the MP model for a good reference). IK uses the ragdoll definition.
- The AF editor crashes quite a lot. I tend to use the AF tool for creating a new AF. Then using notepad for basic setup and then the AF tool for tweaking.
- Setting up a proper ragdoll means you need to weight each bone correctly, otherwise some limbs could be too 'heavy' in comparison with other limbs.
- When learning I found that creating simple ragdolls first (e.g. a flag, a rope etc..etc..) really helped me to understand the underlying principles, or rather. It really helped me learn which buttons to press and which buttons not to while using the AF editor. Starting with simple shapes it's also easier to test the different rotation methods for each bone. These are called the constraints.
- When creating a ragdoll you'll need to add constraints to each limb, constraints tell the engine in what direction the limb may rotate, and how far. This makes it so limbs can't rotate into unnatural movements (e.g. an arm that twists 360 degrees would be impossible and will distort the model so the arms need constraints).

Making ragdolls is basically just a lot of fiddling, testing, dragging the model through your testmaps and seeing how it reacts with the world.

motorsep

Quote from: BloodRayne on September 12, 2014, 03:10:13 AM
- Use no upper case letters in bone names

I use it - never have had an issue. Even doom 3 uses upper case in the bones.

Quote from: BloodRayne on September 12, 2014, 03:10:13 AM
- The AF editor crashes quite a lot. I tend to use the AF tool for creating a new AF. Then using notepad for basic setup and then the AF tool for tweaking.

I think we nailed this bug.

Quote from: BloodRayne on September 12, 2014, 03:10:13 AM
- When learning I found that creating simple ragdolls first (e.g. a flag, a rope etc..etc..) really helped me to understand the underlying principles, or rather. It really helped me learn which buttons to press and which buttons not to while using the AF editor. Starting with simple shapes it's also easier to test the different rotation methods for each bone. These are called the constraints.
- When creating a ragdoll you'll need to add constraints to each limb, constraints tell the engine in what direction the limb may rotate, and how far. This makes it so limbs can't rotate into unnatural movements (e.g. an arm that twists 360 degrees would be impossible and will distort the model so the arms need constraints).

This part is kinda tedious, especially with universal joints :(

Thanks.

BloodRayne

Yes, it's tedious. That's why I often see teams just make one or two general skeletal setups and then model around those, so they can reuse the ragdoll. I cut hundreds of hours of fiddling and (play)testing by simply opting for gibbing creatures in Grimm:Quest for the Gatherer's Key.