Turn torso with mouse?

AHHHH!!! I’ve been trying to figure out a good way to do this for hours!!!

I want to set up a fps so that when the mouse rotates left/right the character turns their torso only for the first 90 degrees, then the legs rotate 90 degrees. Basically, this is the way Bungie’s game Halo animates turning with characters.

First the character turns their torso until 90 degrees, then the legs rotate 90 to follow the torso. Again when the torso gets 90 degrees from the legs they rotate 90 degrees to keep up with the torso.

Anyone know how to set something like this up?

It’s possible to a certain measure:
Create your spine. Add an empty to the atlas, at the base of the neck, Add an IK constraint to the torso. Now select the parent bone and increase the stiff strength to say . 50 and the base Pelvis .99. When you rotate the Empty, the rest doesn’t follow imediatly, you get a smooth twist. Now must find a way to make it work on the game engine and add a mouse controller to the empty. The best way to do it would be partioned character (in separated parts, I don’t remember how we call it) hey are more versatile, but heavier on geometry, bu then you can apply the constraints and even make rag dolls…

Separate armature to top and bottom part. Parent the top part to main Cube (Collision Cube). Parent bottom part to top part, enable SlowPa (Parewnt delay) in Object panel (F7) and change the TimeOffset as you wish for the delay. The last step is to add an empty to scene (the direction where the top part will be pointing to) and add logic brick to top part, which will enable Track To that empty.

Now you will need a python script which will convert mouse moves to movement of the empty (it can be found in famous FPS template).

This will not cause the legs (bottom part) to rotate if the top is 90 degrees oriented, but it is a good start.

I am making a game that does exactly what you are asking for. You don’t need to separate the armature and you dont even need to use empties.

and also before i say anything more YES it DOES take hours and even days to figure things out so don’t always expect an easy simple solution to come to you right away.

I was hoping to get more of a game out before i released anything but i know that whenever i needed help the blender community was there for me so…
http://www.sfu.ca/~lws2/blender/

runs on latest full release of blender.

if you are interested, what i am working on next is a hitbox system and then an AI for sims.

AHHH, YES!!! That’s what I mean!

I like how it turns the torso first and not the legs until it hits a certain point. For mine, I’d like to have it turn the torso first, then the legs would rotate an automatic 90 degrees to catch up, and then stop until the torso reaches another 90 degrees away. This would make the torso smooth in its rotation, but the legs would be choppy…turn-stop-turn-stop.

Thanks so much, this should help a lot in figuring things out.

I

Yes indeed , you solved a lot of problems for my game too. I’ll implement it… Can I? I’ll probably also need Sim AI, when I start implementing, why not help each other out? I can do models, textures and I love to make landscapes.

please use it in your games ^^ I’m glad it’s useful

i only get a chance to work off and on, and that was sort of my summer blitz project so i wouldn’t be a very productive team member…but if you do anything cool definitely show me