2d Ragdoll marionette??

Hey there everyone...

Ive been working on a concept for a new 2D digital puppet.

Basically, there are two concepts:

1- a marionette... held in position and moved using "hinges" from weighted body parts

2- a digital glove puppet...the head and arms "flop about" as the body is moved around.

My big hurdle seems to be getting "physics" behaving sprites to hit each other and react accordingly.

Currently, the bodyparts just "loop" over each other...and in the case of the glove puppet, the head just rotates till its up-side-down...not a happy chappy of a puppet I must say.

Does anyone have any tips on ragdolling in construct???

Thanx in advance

You might want to take a look at the IK plugin. Used in combination with physics should work nicely.

http://www.scirra.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3971

Thanks man, after reading the documentation, Im kind of puzzled how it will fit with physics. Has anyone tried this?

Think of it as weights on a string. The weight would be the physics object, and the string would be the IK.

Thanks, I will give it a go.

The sample project wont open...

So...

I create objects with no bones

Assign physics

then code in the IK

Is this right?

Sorry for the hassle.

Thanks for your time

Well Ik is a bit hard to pin down right away, you should probably make the chain first, then experiment putting the physics behavior on different parts. Thing is it will probably take several chains, and combination to get a realistic example.

yeah, im toying with it now...but still got no idea what Im doing.

Thanks

did they fix the physics behavior so you can use it with other stuff?

Should be working fine in 98. I haven't played with the new IK, and physics yet tho...

IK doesnt work with physics, the technique i use to solve it (that linkman also uses for his plugin which i dont use) is to position objects based on distances and arm lengths. physics wouldnt make the IK chain react like your making it seem, unless i misunderstood.

if u meant that you had physics balls on strings, which are connected to the IK arms as an end target then that would make sense. you also have to make strings the length of the sum of both arm segments connecting those weight balls to their respective shoulder so that the weights couldnt move too far away from the shoulder and create and impossible situation. the body would of course then have to be connected to the balls via those strings and the shoulders and hips.

at least thats how i would imagine doing it.

Yeah basically like that, you can even use physics on the control points. Note this is less like what most people would call ragdoll, and more marionette in that its just like weights on strings, or chains.

For a ragdoll I guess you wouldn't wont to use physics much at all.

For a ragdoll I guess you wouldn't wont to use physics much at all.

uhh wut?

When I think "ragdoll" the first thing I think of is physics. How else would it tumble around realistically?

Ok, so things seem to be getting a little too technical in this convo for me now...so I thought I should try and clarrify what it is I am trying to do exactly...

<img src="http://i43.tinypic.com/30l00g8.png">

As you can see in the image, I have a hopeful character awaiting puppet control.

My aim:

move the body using the mouse (easy to do I know)

as the body moves ridgidly, the head flops from side to side depending on the force, dirrection etc. But the head doesnt roll all the way round so it is up-side-down.

Then the hands are also flopping about as if there are arms.

My main issue is that ...well...there are heaps of issues.

Nothing seems to be working

Im hoping this image and explaination helps...Im also hoping someone out there in Construct land can shed some light on how I can do this....if it is possible.

Thanx in advance

You might be able to do something like this:

<img src="http://i42.tinypic.com/jqp6gy.png">

Create two rigs, one for the skeleton, and one for the constraints (you can create the constraint rig out of one object by using the Custom mask feature in physics). The model itself will have no physics behavior at all, it's parts will simply be set to the x, y, and angle of each of the appropriate skeleton pieces. The rigs and the colliders will all have physics on them.

Hinge some colliders at the extremities so the movement of the skeleton is limited by the constraint rig. Physics behavior in Construct has an option to disable collisions between certain objects with an action, so you will disable collisions between the skeleton rig and the constraint rig so that they're not fighting each other. Only the colliders will be affected by the constraint rig, and they will keep the skeleton from moving too far.

I haven't tried anything like this myself, but I'm quite sure that with some tweaking it would work.

As for the mouse movement, I'm sure I have an example of how to blend mouse and physics around here somewhere... I'll have a look.

Thanx heaps, I thought there would be a simple answer to it...

yesterday, I worked on a "non physics" version of the puppet...tricking the events so that it seems to have physics..it works well and seems very reliable.

I will post it up here. How do you post a cap.?

I will have a go at creating a physics one based on your great suggestion!

Thanx again