A ragdoll-less approach to physical animations of characters in vehicles

ABSTRACT

Recently the use of vehicles has increased in importance for many games. This is not only for open-world games, where the use of vehicles are a crucial element of world traversal, but also for scenario based games where the use of vehicles adds a more varied game-play experience. In many of these games, however, the characters inside the vehicles lack the animations to connect their motion to that of the vehicle. The use of a few poses or small number of animations makes in-vehicle characters too rigid and is particularly noticeable in open vehicles or those with excessive motion such as tractors, speedboats or motorbikes. This can break the connection the player has to the vehicle experience. To solve this problem, several games have used a method to control a ragdoll with physical parameters to follow the input poses [Fuller and Nilsson 2010] [Mach 2017]. However, this solution has several complications regarding controllability and stability when simulating a ragdoll and a vehicle at the same time. I would like to introduce a new approach using particle-based dynamics rather than using a ragdoll. We present two methods: a particle-based approach to physical movement (see Figure 1) and modifying goal positions to generate plausible target poses (see Figure 3).

References

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Index Terms

• Computing methodologies

  • Computer graphics

    • Animation

      • Procedural animation