This is a short video showing my progress on a game idea I had, using a "powered" ragdoll, where input from the game controller is mapped directly to the joints of the character, giving analog control over a character in realtime.
Powered Ragdoll - aerial skiing prototype 01
I want to make a "freestyle skiing" game based on this, and the video shows the first tests I made tonight after getting the controls working. Currently the character is temp (re-used from my Trampoline game), and many of the physics settings / control mappings need work...
but I think this is a good start, and I feel that I can probably make a working game based on this control scheme.
next I want to spend some more time on the contact callback for the skis, to make them act a bit more like real skis, providing almost zero friction when moving forward, but much more when sliding sideways. I have already sort of implemented this, but it needs more improvements first. Also the skis might be a bit too "flimsy" still.
I will probably also build a controller overlay display as well, to show what controller input is resulting in the in-game motion.
The prototype is using the latest beta of Newton 2.0.