Hellgate: London Development Diary #2

Pro-G is hosting a second Hellgate: London development diary, this time with technical artist Erik Koehlert summarizing the work he’s done on the now-gold action RPG.

Ragdoll physics using Havok’s Physics are activated during most character and monster deaths. Creating ragdolls involves setting the range of motion, constructing a proxy collision mesh usually with capsule or box shaped objects, choosing a joint type (usually ball-and-socket or hinge), setting surface friction, setting friction torque, and setting masses for each limb. My favorite part is testing the finished ragdoll. I use the Havok previewer to grab, poke, and even pick up a ragdolled monster or character in real-time and shake him around, throw him, and drag him to test the physical parameters against a test environment. If he jitters, breaks apart, or gets launched by the slightest touch I go back and adjust parameters and test him till his weight and reactions seem more realistic. The variety of monsters in Hellgate London necessitated having to create a unique ragdoll for almost every one of them. Automating the setting of certain parameters through maxscript and utilizing the hooks provided by Havok made this process go much quicker. A maxscript was created to set the proxy masses and torque frictions in the joints based on capsule volume and total weight of the joints child proxies respectively.