Falling Down - Comments

@ hello love.
Essentially Ragdoll physics are the physics in games for when objects/bodies/etc move around the environments in dynamic ways, so if a character falls down a stairs in a game with a decent Ragdoll physics engine, each time they do it will be different because of things like velocity, angle, which parts of their body hit stairs etc :D x

didn't understand a word of this omfg what are physics? what do they do?! lol :) x

@ Nick.
Glad you like it, I'm trying to make this a more regular thing i.e. Bi weekly so if you had any topics you'd like exploring then feel free to suggest topics!
And agreed, freezing a wolf mid jump and watching it rocket over the edge of a mountain is hilarious.
Next topic I do should be on movie/game tie-ins, so keep checking back, getting it on after I submit it to escapist.com

As a videogame design student, the physics engine is definitely one of the neatest parts about a game engine. My class uses the unreal engine 3, which I personally love because theres just a lot of things you can do with it. Everything feels like it has weight and it's that sense of realism that so many people find really attractive about a game.

Take the series Splinter Cell for example. The first game of the series didn't use ragdoll physics and when an enemy died, they had a scripted and pre-animated death, but when Splinter Cell 3 had came out, they used it and it made all the difference. Imagine taking an enemy out at the top of a staircase and getting to watch them tumble down. It's little things like that that I'm glad to see developers taking advantage of. Or even the Elder Scrolls series. If you look at the difference between Morrowind and Skyrim, having a physics engine made Skyrim infinitely more believable. Besides, I don't see anybody rolling 1000 cheese wheels down a mountain in Morrowind.

Garrys Mod is wonderful, as is the Source Engine as a whole, especially when you mod it. Just gets a little annoying at times having to fight physics when posing a ragdoll for screenshots though. Great article!