GM style ragdoll poser

[ut2k4 player]

Why hasn't a karma ragdoll poser (mutator or gamemode) ever been made?

Something similar to Garry's Mod ragdoll posing would give 2k4 a new creative outlet.

Cool looking custom screenshots could be possible

[meowcat]

I don't think that the game karma physics code is quite as easy to work with as it was for Garry's mod (which I've never played but have seen screenshots of), but here is how I would try to go about doing it.

Create a custom weapon that had an array of all possible player models and their associated karma files in a .ini file stored config list (you can spawn karma ragdolls easily through a little Uscript code), firing could spawn the ragdoll some set distance in front of the player. The gun would then include an instant hit fire code that could either add momentum, or "select" a joint in the model. Now the somewhat annoying thing about UT2kX engine code is that, as far as I'm aware of, there is no easy way to get a list of all of the joints in the skeletal mesh, so the instant hit mode would have to try and grab the nearest joint to where the trace hit. You could then spawn a marker attached to that joint, with the same orientation as the joint. You could then code the weapon, with a reference to the selected joint, to alternate between the three joint axes (X,Y,Z) and then allow you to manipulate the rotation. The interface on how you do that is up to you.. e.g 1. special button for changing weapon mode: spawning/deleting ragdoll, selecting joint, turning gravity on off for that ragdoll, dragging the ragdoll around, rotating the overall ragdoll, copying a skeletal pose from one ragdoll to another etc.
2. special button for bringing up a menu to select which model to spawn for a ragdoll, or for selecting the "active axis" for joint rotation.

You could maybe even preload a bone name array list for the majority of custom player models that use the default skeleton, and then just use the other joint selection method (via the trace function) for custom models (like the raptor or pikachu) that use a custom skeleton.