ragdoll

[juls]

I just saw the ragdoll screenshots released yesterday. mmmm...I really wonder if it's useful...

Sure, as soon as you make a good physics engine for flying parts of the car, you can have flying bodies...

At the beginning I believed that flatout would be 100% realistic, and that's why they developed this very good damage model. Now I suppose that the main focus of this game will be flying parts, flying bodies, crushed cars...such things take a lot of CPU no? realistic driving sim too no?
Specially when several cars are present at the same time, no?

And you can't have both in the same game, I am right?

[fredizzimo]

The actual cpu usage is not an issue here. As the underlying physics engine, is based on, and improved from the one used in Rally Trophy. But you are right, the main goal for FlatOut is a game that you will have fun with, especially racing against other people.

And this means that we have to add some driving aids to make the driving easier, otherwise it would be too hard for most people. In RT for example, most people weren't able to drive the RWD cars. We wan't all players to be able to drive all the cars without greater problems.

But the challenge is to not make it too easy, the cars shouldn't drive by themselves. It's extremely important that good drivers can shine. It's also important that the cars drive in a believable way, I have seen many games where the car's doesn't act like real cars at all. This is where the really accurate underlying simulation helps a lot, the aids are built on top of that.

And for the flying objects, they add a completely new element to the game. You have two basic options, drive flat out, and ignore the risks of a object lying on the road behind the next corner. Or take it easy, to be able to avoid the objects. Obviously a more experienced, and more skillfull player knows the limits a lot better, and can drive at the optimal pace. In addition to that he can probably avoid the objects better at a greater speed.

In normal races, the ragdoll plays an important role, if you crash too hard he/she flies out of the car, and you loose a lot of time. The harder you collide the longer he flies, and you loose more times. In other games when you crash, there's either an artificial delay, or no delay at all. In addition to that you will have many good laughs watching the ragdoll :)

But the ragdoll is doing more than this in the game. There are many types of minigames, in which the ragdoll can play a very important part. One of the games is "long jump", where the goal is to drive as fast as possible on a ramp, and then finally throw the ragdoll out and make him/her fly as far as possible. Theese games are short, and very addictive. You only need a few minutes of free time to play them, unlike normal races where you need a lot of spare time.

[Teq]

This all souds superb fredizzimo - great ideas.

But again I'll have to launch my moaning a bit - sorry. :rolleyes:

Please add an option to turn those helps off. Driving with the center of mass 2 meters below the car (as can be seen in vids) will get frustrating after 10 minutes of playing no matter how good and fun the game is. In this case unfortunately FlatOut wont pass the stage of a demo for me.
Well I dont know how many would feel and think like me but maybe it would be wise for Bugbear/Empire to consider adding options for helps and realistic (believable that is) physics variables to satisfy this group. :)

Oh, and the damage can stay as it is. :D

[fredizzimo]

The reason why it looks like the center of mass is off, is because the camera doesnt keep up with the car rotation. Not because it actually is wrong. There's no driving aids altering this.

[Trichord]

I couldn't help but sign up to throw my opinion out here.

Anyway, I'm afraid that the ragdoll action will take away from the crashing of the cars. Of course I love to see a guy get whipped through a windscreen and into a telephone pole, but I also like to see what is happening to the car. While watching IGN's E3 movies, I often was left wondering what happened to the car (destruction-wise) while I watched the ragdoll guy sail through the air. Oh, and the guy seems to fly too far IMO. It looks as if he weighs 20 pounds. Of course, I've never seen anybody get shot through a windscreen before, but he seems a bit light.

[fredizzimo]

Don't worry about not seeing the car crash, allthough not implemented yet, you will be able to see the car crash in at least the replays.

Second about the ragdoll flying too long.

Contradictionary to yours, and most people's belief the flying distance of an object isn't dependent on the objects mass at all. The reason why a heavy object flies shorter if you throw it, is that you are not throwing it with the same speed as a lighter object.

I will show you by some really simple calculations that you could fly very far if you crashed without a seatbelt. First let's say that we are driving at 100km/h=28m/s=62mph. We are starting at about 1 meter from the ground(to get over the steering wheel).

Let's calculate the time it takes to hit the ground using the equation of kinematics.
y=y0-0.5*g*t^2 (where y is the current height, y0, the starting height, g the acceleration of gravity at earth, for simplity 9.8m/s^2, and t the time)
We need to know when the objects hits the ground, that is when y=0, so solving for t when
1m-0.5*9.8 m/s^2 * t^2=0m gives
t^2=1m / (0.5 * 9.8 m/s^2)=1 s^2 / 4.9 = 0.2 s^2
gives
t=+/- sqrt(0.2) s
is -0.5s or 0.5s
but of course the time can't be negative so the radoll hits the ground after 0.5 seconds

Now let's see how far it flies in that time. We know the starting speed is 28 m/s so the equation becomes
x=v*t (where x is the distance, v the speed, and t the time)
so x=28 m/s * 0.5 s=14m=46ft.
So in other words the ragdoll would fly 14 meters, not very far.

But let's add a 10 degree angle, the equations becomes
y=y0+v*sin(10)*t - 0.5*g*t^2
and
x=v*cos(10)*t
solving theese gives
t=1.16s
and
y=32 m=105ft.

So just by a 10 degree angle it moves over twice the distance

Increasing the spead makes things even more interesting, let's say 150 km/h=42m/s=93mph gives a flying distance of about 67 meters(220ft). Crash on a ramp, with an angle of 45 degrees and he will fly 90(295ft) meters, as would the car, don't try that at home!!!

Of course in the real world there's at least three things that would shorten the distance, the first is the air resistance, the second is the windscreen, the third is the steering wheel/dashboard.. The windscreen would not shorten it very much if the speed is high. The air resistance would shorten it more. The dashboard and steering board would of course shorten the distance even more, and it might even stop the body from flying out at all. But providing that the driver doesn't hit the dashboard, then the values would still not be that far from theese teoretical ones.

[Trichord]

Ah, I stand corrected. Thanks for adressing my concerns.

I can't wait to play it :D

[Teq]

The reason why it looks like the center of mass is off, is because the camera doesnt keep up with the car rotation. Not because it actually is wrong. There's no driving aids altering this.

Oh, that are good news. Now if we could disable those helps. :D :smash:

[juls]

In recent flatout previews, they talk about minigames in which you have to throw driver's corpse toward a huge bowling track, or a dart board.

It's my personal opinion, sure many people will disagree with me, but I will never buy a driving game which makes fun with such kind of scenes...even if it claims to have nice physics...etc.

It's a pity they added these gore scenes (even if there is no blood), this game is now for me in the same category than Carmageddon. How can I play it with children like other driving games?

[BugbearFanatic]

juls, you may want the German version, which will use crash dummies in place of humans due to censorship laws in Germany. But that might not make a difference to you either.

I see no problem with it. The difference between a game & reality are well-defined. There are far worse games that children can (and do) get their hands on.

I'm sure most of us grew up with violent cartoons, for instance.

[Trichord]

I think the idea of people getting thrown through a windscreen is much more disturbing to people due to it hitting close to home. For example, have you ever seen a terroist get shot in the face while planting C4? I certianly havn't. But I do(did) know several people who have died from being ejected from cars.

With that out of the way, I have no problem with it, because it's just a game.