[WIP] The Newton Trampoline

[SnprBoB86]

Really cool stuff man!

This video made me think... a lot of games are doing rag dolls these days. Rag dolls are cool and add realism, but they still aren't quite realistic enough. When your guy falls, he instantly goes completely limp. That may be physically accurate if he lands on his neck, but if he lands on his leg, hes probably going to throw out his arms to break his fall or tuck his head. When the guy lands on the hill, say on his ass, once again he probably wouldn't become a doll. Realistically, he would tense up his body, guard his head, and roll down the hill tumbling.

You seem to have done a spectacular job on the character animation with this game, I would love to see you pioneer some new death/injury animation techniques

[buhrmi]

i think this is called Adaptive Behaviour and is extremely complicated. There are extra tools for setting things like this up. Naturalmotion's Endorphin can do things like this. And its only 12.900 US$.

[walaber]

I think with my current setup, I could work out a very simple system where the ragdoll would "try" to position itself in a certain pose (that could either be pre-calculated or generated at runtime)... it would involve deciding on how to let the character "decide" it's desired poe, and then using joint motors to get the ragdoll to try and arrange itself in that pose.

off the top of my head it sounds quite feasible, and even with a few simple pre-calculated fall poses (protecting face, throwing arms back, etc) it might look quite convincing. in order to to do however, I'd need a motorized ball-socket joint, so I could try and get it to go to any particular orientation necessary for the pose. the hinge joints (elbows and knees) would be simple, but the ball-sockets might be a bit complex.

I do agree however that going completely limp for simply over-rotating a flip is a bit extreme. it is fun to watch the ragdoll flop around on the trampoline though

[walaber]

I'm still working on this project... I have a proof-of-concept working, and now I've switched over to modelling and preparing for writing the actual game, which should re-use the trampoline and character control code I have already written. I want to take my time and make this game as good as it can be. I will post some more screens and stuff once I have something to show

[unknown]

This game looks awesome. Its a really new concept, its not going to run on mac os x though is it?

[walaber]

it's being written entirely with multi-platform libraries and code, so it should be really simple to create Mac and Linux executables. I personally have an Ubuntu release on my system so I should be able to get a linux version up myself, but I would need a kind developer to compile it on a Mac, as I don't have one.

Update - I have started work on the user interface, and came up with a design that I like so far. there is a video below:

http://walaber.com/misc/tramp13.avi

now I need to do some environment modelling....

[Robomaniac]

awesome.

What are you using for the gui, CEGUI + custom skin?

[walaber]

sort of. CEGUI, with a modified image file for the WindowsLook style. code-wise it's just standard WindowsLook. I just modified the image.

[walaber]

Update
Lots of work on the menu system and game GUI. the character select screen is working great, with realtime preview of the character.

I also got my character creation screen working.
I've decided a way to add more variety to the characters (without making too many new models) is to use the following scheme:

Characters are based on a "BodyType" (model), which can have multiple "Outfits" (textures), on top of which the user can choose a custom color for the shirt and pants/shorts. this way with just a few basic body types, and a few more textures, you can make lots of different looking characters.

I have some screenshots of the work so far: (sorry modem people)

INTRO SCREEN || MAIN MENU


CHOOSE CHARACTER SCREEN


NEW CHARACTER SCREEN


I also have a video available below, where you can see it in action (it looks much cooler moving)

NEW GUI VIDEO - Divx codec, approx 5MB

[cleathley]

stunning...

[walaber]

I've been working on the first of several backgrounds for the game, this is the first background, called "The Backyard". video below for those who are interested (it has a hilarious bug at the end)

It's still very much a WIP, I hope to improve the textures, and would love any comments/criticism on how it looks. I hope to implement character shadows soon.


NEW LEVEL VIDEO - Divx AVI, approx 4MB

[Sascha Willems]

As usual it's stunning what you show in that video. The animations do look nice, and the environment too. My only gripe is the fact that the lighting seems to dark, so maybe a higher ambient amount of light would make the scenery look more "natural". Especially the player looks very dark in the shadowed areas which makes it look like it's not really fitting the scenery.

But besides that small light issue it looks great and I can't wait to get my hands on something playable.

[walaber]

Sascha- thanks. I agree completely about the lighting, I'll definately fix that, as well as some texture/mesh issues with the background.

after I make a few more environments and character models, I hope to release a demo version. but it'll still be a while, I have a lot of work to do.

[walaber]

I've been working the past few days on another background for the game, this one is a "gymastics gym" theme.

anyway, I plugged in a temp (no materials) version of the mesh into the game, and cranked up the system that sends you flying when you land off-center (for example over-rotate a back flip, and you bounce backwards)...

anyway I was just playing around, and came up with this:

video download
FUN WITH RAGDOLLS - some really funny examples of the ragdoll physics in action (DivX .avi, approx 4MB)

Once I get this background done, I hope to continue work on the game code, and work towards the first playable demo!

the ragdoll physics continue to amaze me... I end up playing around with my own demo for way too long!! I'm almost tempted to add a "crash" mode, where you can send the player flying off the trampoline just to watch him crash

[Julio Jerez]

I am going to be a gymnastic in the next Olympics.

Darth Master Walaber are you sure you are not secretly using a big buck animation package and say that you are making those video in real time. This is amazing
I have to admit when you first mention the idea of a trampoling game I thought that you would try and quickly abandon it because of the technical challenges.
Boy I am glad I was very wrong.