Newton DBPro wrapper v1.23

[Xpoint]

COOL, that is realy good
Very good movement, nice design

Btw, I've started with a 3D engine (Clear View Engine), and i'm going to use newton with it, So maybe i'll post demo's soon to

[walaber]

realtime ragdoll generation tech demo

this is a tech demo for a Time-Crisis / House of the Dead style game using Newton.

all of the character movement is done through a scripting system using dummy box objects w/ pre-determined character animation. the actual movement is done throught the ForceAndTorque callback.

click on a character to "shoot" them and turn them into a ragdoll. an impulse is applied the the nearest 3 limbs, allowind for location-based death reactions






DOWNLOAD LINK

[BigB]

very cool walaber.,
How does the movement work with those dummy objects ?

[Cheery]

It looks good. Where I could find the Dynamic link libraries to run your executables you have done with DB? There was somekind of library what allows me to run DB made exes... was there?

[The unProfessional]

Hey wallaber. So are you using any physical calculations when running your characters through predefined animations? Or do you only start applying physics after the body is shot?

[walaber]

Cheery - you shouldn't need anything special, except DirectX 9.0b

The unProfessional + BigB - the system in this demo is really simple. I have a simple box primitive (with an upvector joint) that is hidden, and the .x model is attached to it. The animation is completely pre-determined like any standard .x model. I then have a simple keyframe system that calculates velocities for the characters, and uses some formulas from this forum to move them in the ForceAndTorque callback. although this demo doesn't feature it, I would also adjust the speed of the walk loop based on the speed of the character.

DBPro has a nice "pick object" command, which I use to detect a shot. Next I delete the dummy box (and upvector). Then I create a new ragdoll based on the character's current pose, and attach it to the existing model. I also set an initial velocity for each bone to the velocity of the now deleted dummy box. Lastly, using the pick point provided by DB's command, I calculate the nearest 3 ragdoll bones, and apply an impulse in the direction of the vector from the camera. this sends the ragdoll spinning in different ways depending on what body part you shoot. you can especially see this in the demo if you shoot a hand or foot or head.

the current system is not optimized at all, but I've worked out a way to do it much faster than the current implementation. the DBPro software company is holding a competition right now, and I'm making an entry based on this tech demo. it will be a time-crisis style game, using Newton for all character movement, sd well as having lots of ragdoll generation, and some interactive background objects (shootable signs, bridges, barrels, etc). I'll post a link in the showcase when it's done (the deadline is the end of October)

[The unProfessional]

Sounds pretty sweet... one quick question. Are you moving the bones of your characters by actually using forces and torques, or is it purely interpolated key-frame animation prior to the shot?


EDIT: It seems like DB pro has alot of goodies built-in

[walaber]

[edit] sorry, mis-understood your question at first:

the character animation is just standard interpolated keyframes. I think it would be counter-productive to try and make a physics-controlled character animation system until Julio adds the advanced ragdoll functionality to the system.

[The unProfessional]

Yeah, I definitely agree... your final effect is quite nice. For the most part, I see very little necessity for controlling bones via physics. Not only would it be adding massive processing, but the visual effect would probably be sloppy, or at least no better.

[BigB]

smart walaber, very smart

However, one last question , why do you need a "dummy" box ?
Why don't you apply the impulse directly to the up vector, and instead you apply it to that dummy box ?

[walaber]

perhaps my explanation was confusing...

when the character is "alive", I have a box rigid body with an upvector that is moved by applying inverse-dynamics in the ForceandTorque callback. the character model is placed and rotated to match the box, which acts like a bounding box for collision, etc.

when a shot is detected, the upvector and the box are deleted, and a ragdoll is built to the current pose of the character. then an impulse is applied to the ragdoll bones closest to where the character was shot.

[walaber]

Rigid Body Designer

this is a beta relese of a utility I created to help make collision objects for Rigid Bodies. you load a visual object, and then place boxes/spheres to represent the object. After setting other Newton settings (mass, etc), you save it to a custom binary file format. Then in my Newton program I can load a model with a single command, and all of the settings are correct.

I think something like this probably exists for A5/6 users but I'm not sure. this was designed for Dark Basic Pro users, but in theory the file format could be loaded by any 3D engine.

the download comes with a test loader program to test .bod files created with the editor in a Newton world, and a few example .bod files.



DOWNLOAD LINK - approx 3.3MB

[BigB]

Very cool Walaber., this is the tool that was missing to setup any kind of body., very cool indeed.
How about making the file format available ? So we can load the files in other languages, than DB Pro ?

Bruno

[BigB]

Go ahead .,
I supose it's just cubes\spheres positions anyways , so it shouldn't be much troube to make a loader for other languages.

[walaber]

Okay, I'll post the entire file format explanation tomorrow. I'm at work right now, and need to check the file specs before I post. I'll also throw in a file examiner utility if I have time.