Swap between animation-driven and physics-driven joints?

[beegon]

I'm wondering if there is a way to change how joints influence a skeletal softbody at runtime. Normally, animation on the joints influences the softbody, but could it be switched so the softbody simulation moves the joints as if they were particles? Could this switching be done for specific joints at runtime or perhaps the root joint so the entire skeleton follows the softbody's movement? Basically, I'm trying to implement a way to switch a skeletal softbody back and forth from an animation-driven state to a physics-driven rag doll state. Any thoughts you have on this would be appreciated!

[josemendez]

I'm wondering if there is a way to change how joints influence a skeletal softbody at runtime. Normally, animation on the joints influences the softbody, but could it be switched so the softbody simulation moves the joints as if they were particles? Could this switching be done for specific joints at runtime or perhaps the root joint so the entire skeleton follows the softbody's movement? Basically, I'm trying to implement a way to switch a skeletal softbody back and forth from an animation-driven state to a physics-driven rag doll state. Any thoughts you have on this would be appreciated!

Softbodies work on mesh vertices, since they're intended to deform the mesh. They cannot influence joints.

What you describe sounds rather similar to what ObiBone does, though: it places a particle in each joint and links them together using twist/bend and stretch/shear constraints, creating some kind of "active skeleton". ObiBone is part of the ObiRope package. See:
http://obi.virtualmethodstudio.com/manua...setup.html

[beegon]

I see. I will probably try that then, thanks! Just to make sure I understand, obi bones should be able to work in tandem with an obi softbody's skeleton? So the obi bones simulation and softbody simulation can influence the model simultaneously?

[josemendez]

I see. I will probably try that then, thanks! Just to make sure I understand, obi bones should be able to work in tandem with an obi softbody's skeleton? So the obi bones simulation and softbody simulation can influence the model simultaneously?

Nope. For that to work the bones must be simulated before the softbody every frame, otherwise you'll get frames where the softbody would not follow the bone animation. For performance reasons, all actors in Obi are updated in parallel and there's no way to update them sequentially in a specific order.

kind regards,