Does anybody know if Soft Body Physics can be applied to PC and NPC character models also? I don't mean their clothing/equipment, I mean their actual body. So like, if you shot up an enemy with some regular old bullets, will the flesh react to the bullet the same way it would in real life? I'd love to see realistic damage effects on enemies.
A lot harder, probably, since humans are filled with various things compared to most environmental objects that are homogenous or made of maybe three different materials. You'd have to check against fat, skin, muscle tissue, different organs, cartilage etc depending on the angle and in the end, most bullet holes are small and wet, anyway. The damage differs mostly internally.
Breaking limbs and tearing flesh from melee and shrapnel or cut wounds would offer a greater range of easily seen gore effects than bullets.
I'm no programmer (med student, that's why I like talking about gory things
), but I'd guess that everything besides the bones being actually there and determining the limb's position (and amout of "joints") everything would be more easily faked with some overlaid textures/decals or how you call it.
What would be incredibly immersive would be skin that reacts to being touched/manipulated, stretching, wobbling, rippling etc, IMO. That would be soft body physics, yes? And breathing characters.
Imaging a plumb police officer running around a monster infested area, his fat cheeks and belly wobbling, his moustache quivering in fear, exhaling condensing breath in the dusky twilight and the fogbaround him reacting to his passing. Add some Head and Shoulders next-gen wolf fur on the werewolves chasing him and you have my dream for the PS5 gen. If it happens this gen, I'd buy two copies.
