PhAT Fingers

I’m trying to create a ragdoll rig for the entire body of the HeroTPP model, and I’m having some constraint troubles with the fingers. Whenever I push the body around with any significant force, the fingers explode into a flailing mess of digits around the whole body.

My problem is that the linear constraints on each digit are set to locked, and it doesn’t actually lock them at all. When I try to set soft constraints with extreme stiffness, I get something a lot closer to what I’m looking for, but at the beginning of a simulation the digits all jiggle around violently until they settle into their proper orientations.

Is there any workaround for this, in code, blueprints, some obscure PhAT setting, or anywhere else? Some sort of way to make a non-spring constraint?

Chains with varying masses can be tricky for the physics engine. Generally we would not bother making the fingers simulated, that will be quite expensive CPU-wise as well.

Yes, but the same problem applies to the torso, head, and limbs. Forces that have no right to tear the character apart are doing so. Is there any way to fix this?

There are a number of things that could be causing this. Here are a few things to check for:
When running in PhAT try simulating without gravity. You should not see any movement since no constraints should be violated and there should be no initial collision between the bodies in the ragdoll.

Once you have done this make sure that the angular limits are setup correctly, and for the time being I’d recommend using hard limits instead of soft as the soft limits require special tuning based on the mass of the bodies.

Could you post a screenshot of your ragdoll settings? Preferably with a constraint selected.

You can right click on a single body or constraint and pick Selected Simulation which will allow you to tune a specific body part. For example, click on the shoulder and pick Selected Simulation. You can then use Ctrl + Right click to move the arm around and see how it behaves. I would use this to make sure all of your constraints are correct.

Hope that helps