Hi,
I'm looking for a way to animate humanoid characters in a physically-based manner. This is a problem of Physics and AI, but I think it's more a problem of AI. I asked about it on BulletPhysics.org here, but didn't get any answers. The problem is: given a ragdoll character, make it, under its own force, move around.
I have looked around a bit, but wasn't able to find anything useful in the way of a toolkit--mostly it's just technical papers on the topic.
My requirement is that the character is able to walk or run in any direction over fairly varied terrain, and get up after a fall. Pose matching, within reason, is also necessary. Minor attempts to correct if an obstacle has been tripped over would be nice. Open source is a must.
Having read a bit of the literature, I realize that these aren't trivial requirements, but there are for example youtube videos that demonstrate the technology in action. The problem is, there aren't toolkits that do it, as far as I can tell.
Thanks,