so, can we talk about the technical reason for no feign death?

[[AE] 5316 *TKZ*]

I figure, if it was an 'easy' fix, TF2 would have a feigning spy, and not a cloaking spy.

[trepid_jon]

A cheap feign can be done. It's just that it most likely won't be done, because there's no need for it now unless we want to have feigning and cloaking. There's no way we'd cut cloaking, because it's a good feature (buggy or not). So the real question is whether we want to add feigning back in. Personally, I think it'd be cool, but I just don't think it'll ever get done.

When we were talking about feign alternatives due to the ragdoll mismatching and work to be done to get it working "right" we pretty much immediately decided on cloaking not just as an alternative, but also as a kind of evolution of feign. Just look at cloak+ragdoll and you'll see what I mean.

The cloaking system became the wanted feature instead of some "we'll have to settle for this" thing.

[Crazycarl]

You'd have to do more than freeze the spy unless you wanted to leave his hitboxes floating in the air. You'd have a situation where you shoot the ragdoll but the spy doesn't take damage. I don't find that acceptable.

Maybe you could mitigate the lag problem by putting the ragdoll to sleep as soon as it settles and not letting it wake under any circumstances. A dead body that doesn't move when you shoot it would be a dead giveaway that it's really a spy.

Also making a non-retarded-looking animation for getting up from ragdoll would be almost impossible. Simply deleting the ragdoll and putting the player model back would be the best you could do, really.

[Tsukasa]

Originally Posted by trepid_jon

A cheap feign can be done. It's just that it most likely won't be done, because there's no need for it now unless we want to have feigning and cloaking. There's no way we'd cut cloaking, because it's a good feature (buggy or not). So the real question is whether we want to add feigning back in. Personally, I think it'd be cool, but I just don't think it'll ever get done.

When we were talking about feign alternatives due to the ragdoll mismatching and work to be done to get it working "right" we pretty much immediately decided on cloaking not just as an alternative, but also as a kind of evolution of feign. Just look at cloak+ragdoll and you'll see what I mean.

The cloaking system became the wanted feature instead of some "we'll have to settle for this" thing.

+1

[Peon]

Originally Posted by mervaka

10 bonus points if you can describe FF's theme without using the word futuristickey.....ish

FF's theme = Combat Super Heroes

[greenday5494]

you asshole skanky!

[trepid_jon]

Something about wanting to damage a feigned spy.

In your example, the ragdoll could end up across the map while the player is still stuck in place...but completely invisible.

Not very fair. Cool, but not very fair.

[Circuitous]

Yeah, that's what we have now, except you can't move at all.

[mervaka]

like i said, the limbs etc cause the problems. its easy to just say "take the spy's position blabla" but you have to do it for each limb etc..

[betterschindt]

first is there anyway to apply the ragdoll physics directly to the spy, while hes still alive?

or create a ragdoll, and make spy invisible, then link all his "joints" or whatever you have to define his postiiion directly to the ragdolls coordinates. so he would basically mimic the ragodll, but still be alive.

and lastly

what if...

you had a "death animation" (ii know our lacking an animator but just what if)
that he did, yes it would be recognizable, and maybe we can perform "some" randomization to it. then it would basically be a manual feign death.

[greenday5494]

cloak's staying drop it

[Tsukasa]

Originally Posted by greenday5494

cloak's staying drop it

ah yes, the authority of random dude #23134245.

Correct me if im wrong, but we don't *need* the ragdoll to sync up in every frame all the time, right? Syncing limbs 2-3 times a second doesn't seem like that much overhead..

Once on the ground, one sync needs to be performed and its good until someone touches the model, so no overhead there.

[slay2rr]

There is no need to have feign for spy anyway, was it a game deciding feature back in TFC??? And there is no need for FF to stick with TFC, cloak is better, and more possible than feign.

[reaper18]

like ive said:
post-modern

Imo itd be too much of a hassle to impliment and would be buggy as hell. Lets leave it as is for the devs sake, and also for progress's sake.

[greenday5494]

plus, everything says FF is a clone of TFC, and we say it isnt. here's one example. cloak sucks anyways. so does feigning.

[mervaka]

Originally Posted by mrblowtatoes

Don't ragdolls have a center?..lock the center. the limbs won't [shouldn't] magicly strech across the level.

Spy spawns, and the torso is locked in place...when you shoot it..the limbs etc etc will still move. The torso may even move still if you 'leash' it to a specific place. [like an invisable cord lockign it in place..but not freezeing the torso.]

Guns shouldn't shoot torsos across the map..and any explosion would kill the spy or [program this in] if he takes a push from an explosion, then he is not fake death anymore [like the push when you get decloaked]

Of course,its clear cloaking is not going to go anywhere..so you need an incentive to make a spy want to feigne death.

that's not the point i was making. it's keeping them in sync, so there's no discrepancies when someone shoots the corpse. without this issue, shooting corpses doesnt matter, so it's all calculated client side. problem solved.

[Circuitous]

I don't see how tracking the torso of a ragdoll corpse is any more intensive than tracking the Spy that created it - and since that ragdoll corpse IS the Spy, how is there extra bandwidth overhead?

Think, Mervaka.

[Jiggles]

Because how the ragdoll moves is determined by the physics simulation. The more the ragdoll is "simplified" (down to a single point), the less it will behave like a real ragdoll. For example, say the "center point" of the ragdoll is resting on a ledge, but the doll's leg or arm or head is nudged. The whole point of the ragdoll simulation is that that nudge can shift the weight of the doll such that it moves realistically -- the arm getting moved in turn moves the shoulder, which in turn moves the torso, etc. This can result in the ragdoll tumbling off the ledge, which would be a drastically different position.

Putting in weird limitations can help (like the arms can't move the torso), but it would ultimately result in less believable ragdolls. Blasting ragdolls across the map with a rocket is just plain fun.

[Circuitous]

That's what I was looking for.

[Tsukasa]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

Because how the ragdoll moves is determined by the physics simulation. The more the ragdoll is "simplified" (down to a single point), the less it will behave like a real ragdoll. For example, say the "center point" of the ragdoll is resting on a ledge, but the doll's leg or arm or head is nudged. The whole point of the ragdoll simulation is that that nudge can shift the weight of the doll such that it moves realistically -- the arm getting moved in turn moves the shoulder, which in turn moves the torso, etc. This can result in the ragdoll tumbling off the ledge, which would be a drastically different position.

Putting in weird limitations can help (like the arms can't move the torso), but it would ultimately result in less believable ragdolls. Blasting ragdolls across the map with a rocket is just plain fun.

May I point out however that halflife 2 ragdolls are done rather over the top and are pretty unrealistic to begin with.

No one really answered my post about syncing this only a few times per second rather than at every update (30-60 times/sec).