[WIP] The Newton Trampoline

[walaber]

working on the character system still, it's coming along very nicely.

heres another wip video... please keep in mind that this model's animation was thrown together just for testing, and the final version will (a) have a better model and (b) better animations!

but I think you get the idea:

http://walaber.com/misc/tramp8.avi

[The unProfessional]

I feel his pain when he lands on the bar at the end

Looking pretty cool, Walaber

[Sascha Willems]

You're mad walaber This is already looking awesome and I can't wait to try out the final thing. I guess the penetrations (the feet of the character go through the trampoline sometimes) are just a graphics thing. I hope you really do animations using a real ragdoll, which would make it totally awesome to play and look at!

[Thomas]

I hope you really do animations using a real ragdoll, which would make it totally awesome to play and look at!

yes, julio's planned animation features should be nice for this.

[walaber]

indeed, too bad I don't feel like waiting for the animation system to be started / finished

anyway here's an updated video that's much better, as you can see I've added twisting as well, so the number of moves is greatly expanded.

UPDATED CHARACTER VIDEO

the current animation is still a temp and therefore really crappy, but the underlying system allows for pretty smooth transisions, etc, so I think it'll be pretty impressive. I'm still planning on using a simple shape for standard collision, and only spawning a ragdoll when the user crashes.

however once the Newton animation system is added, I could always go back and try adding it to the game!


Also I think I'm going to implement my own ragdoll class, so that I can choose different types of joints for the bones (hinges for knees, etc) as well... should be an interesting challenge. I've been thinking how to implement it for the past day or so.

[cleathley]

gotta admit that very sweet...

[walaber]

in the last 2 days I've implemented a custom ragdoll class that will eventually be used with this game, and I'm pretty happy with it so far. the reason I opted for my own system instead of the built-in one is that I wanted to allow for different joint types between bones (hamely hinge jionts for elbows, knees, etc), and I also wanted to remove the requirement that bones main direction is in the local X-axis.

as it happens Blender armatures default to bones pointing along their local Y axis, and rather than come up with a code workaround for the existing ragdoll system, I just made my own, which was actually a really cool learning experience. my system can now create a ragdoll from an existing skeleton in any pose, based on information stored in an xml file.

anyway, here's the video:
http://walaber.com/misc/tramp10.avi

please note that yesterday my homepage exceeded it's bandwidth limit, and is down until midnight tonight, at which point the link above should become available. a lot of foreign sites have put direct download links to my Stunt Playground game on their pages, and the popularity is flattering but the bandwidth is ridiculouos! over 10GB in a snigle day! I have been forced to remove the Stunt Playgrond download for now until I can think of a better solution...

[Zacpod]

Maybe a place like www.the-underdogs.org would host it for you... They're very indy-game friendly, and stunt playground is such a blast.

[tomek]

I have been forced to remove the Stunt Playgrond download for now until I can think of a better solution...

Maybe do some JavaScript links that user must click directly?

[Julio Jerez]

ah, I see some quality here. very coll.
wow 10 gb in a single day, thats atracting some attenction.
we are having similar result with our site too sometime is down because of traffic.

Youuuu don't know the powerrrrrr of the newton site

[walaber]

I solved the problem by removing the download from my site, instead placing a link to the download on Fileplanet.com. that should take the load off!

[walaber]

another WIP video, this time showing a slightly improved character system (still with crappy animations though), trick naming implemented, and of course trampoline ragdolls (the end of the video has a few crashes) this is still very much WIP, I hope to have a much better model + animation video relatively soon.

VIDEO DOWNLOAD - microsoft codec, appro 4MB.

[walaber]

new video, showing an improved character model (with texture!), and improved ragdoll.

I haven't been able to work on it too much lately because I was moving back to the US from Tokyo, which is all settled now.

TRAMP12.AVI - microsoft mpeg4 avi, approx 5MB.

[martinw]

Looking good walaber

It must look very realistic as I wince sometimes when the guy falls off

[Julio Jerez]

do not know what to say anymore,