BEPUphysics

Hi,

Firstly I'd like to say what a great engine bEPU seems to be and its great to see active forums and support for it.
I've been playing around a little and have a question.

If I have a basic skinned human character model, with the usual bones, what would be the best way to apply physics to it?
I've seen some code where a ragdoll was built up in code, taking primitives and putting joints between them.

How would I do something similar for my 3D model in bEPU? Would I need to break the model up into individual objects, i.e arm/torso/leg etc, and put the joints between them as well?

Sorry a bit clueless on physics so not sure

Thanks

Hi!

How would I do something similar for my 3D model in bEPU? Would I need to break the model up into individual objects, i.e arm/torso/leg etc, and put the joints between them as well?

Basically, yes. In a skinning system, animations move animation bones which move vertices around. Similarly, in a ragdoll, the physics entities move the animation bones which move vertices around, so the work comes in creating well-fitting entities and joints.

It's tricky to procedurally generate a (quality) physical skeleton from a bunch of animation bones, so usually, ragdolls are designed to match a character. There's three main ways to make a ragdoll:
-Create one manually in code, like the ragdoll demo.
-Create a specialized custom 'ragdoll designer' tool that lets you position primitives and joints.
-When making the model, add some extra metadata that defines how to build the primitives and joints for a ragdoll and process them in the content pipeline.

If you don't need a really well fitting or functioning skeleton, it's relatively easy to create the entities based on the bone hierarchy and connect them together in a basic way. You might end up with a really thin torso and fat arms that move awkwardly because the procedural generator put in the wrong kind of joints, though

Ok great stuff Norbo, thanks for the fast reply.
Will let you know what I come up with and how it works.