ODECAL, a Flexible Open Source Rag Doll Simulation Engine

Abstract

This paper describes the implementation of ODECAL, a real-time physics powered, rag doll simulation system with animation blending ability. Unlike the traditional key frame animation rag doll system, our animating 3D character can blend into physics state to perform rag doll simulation and vice verse seamlessly. It can even be applied to any form of creatures with bone based articulation. ODECAL can be used for the development of computer games as well as virtual reality applications to enhance the realism and sense of immersion. ODECAL was build with flexible design in mind to allow it to integrate easily with any 3D rendering toolkits and game engines. It was written entirely in C++ using object oriented design to provide programmer a ”developer friendly” modularize architecture for large scale software project. We also utilized open source technologies for low cost development as well as its strong cross platform feature.