Ragdoll Physics Modding

[RespiringDoorMat]

Hi, I'm trying to edit the human ragdoll physics, an endeavor that I set upon ever since I noticed the flawed ragdoll physics of the humans, where their knees contract and make the ragdoll death positions all too similar to each-other, reducing the ragdoll variety to a noticeable extent to me. I noticed this the day this game came out, and after literally hours of trying to find out what is causing this I was directed to 'phys_HUMAN', a physics asset that is the ragdoll all the humans (ADVENT, XCOM and civilians) use.

 

Having found that, I now know the cause of the problem: the ragdoll physics themselves, I previously believed that there was some excess code or something that made the ragdoll behave in a weird way but nope, it's the ragdoll itself. However, after hours of fiddling around with the UDK phat I can't get rid of this weird effect the ragdolls knees have, if the kneecaps are not facing downwards towards the floor, the knees will ALWAYS bend: https://gyazo.com/4e354f72fef090c54d7328a4e495bb1c

 

It's as if there's a tendon that stretches all along the boy to the knees and it seems to be happening by... magic. Obviously that isn't the case but it might as well be due to my less than low knowledge of editing ragdolls with the phat, and the fact that the phat for UDK is probably quite simplified to the UE4 one that the devs will have used to make the ragdoll in the first place, and my suspicions were that this effect was being caused by some sort of option that was enabled/disabled/ messed with that has resulted in this effect and so making correcting the ragdoll impossible with the version of phat that I'm using. That's just a theory though.

 

There is another physics asset in the UDK: 'humandeadmale', who has different shaped bodies (collision boxes) that are positioned differently and has less bones, most notably lacks shoulder bones whereas phys_human does have shoulder bones. This 'humandeadmale', while its ragdoll isn't perfect definitely doesn't have anywhere near as drastic an effect with the knee bending as the phys_human one, and I'm not sure whether or not it's due to the simplicity or how the bones/ constraints are arranged and positioned or what. https://gyazo.com/b01088f967e332687e254324582b0c19

 

 

I would really appreciate anyone with any sort of input whatsoever, hopefully someone who has experience working with phat and has some idea as to what is causing this, helping me find out what's causing this effect on the ragdoll.

 

 

Thanks

[Maclimes]

I *think* that "humandeadmale" is actually a leftover from XCOM:EU. (There's a few other oddball assets from EU scattered about in the UDK).

 

That would explain why the bones and collision boxes aren't the same.

[RespiringDoorMat]

No, but the model is from a prop in XCOM 2, its a dead human prop. I've seen it before on maps and its in several packages, like in the advent torture building you can see them in the beds.