i think that AllanF would be able to give you the most useful information and advice on this... he's the resident physics guru here...  maybe leave him a IM directing him to the post, or visit his site https://sites.google.com/site/thevirtualworkbench/

--Mike

To get what you are after, use a dynamic rigidbody and link it to a joint. If you disable the joint, it looks like it's got some mass.

This is what I'd do too. Just to add though, I would change the joint object to a 'fixed' type so there is no movement before you disable it.

A trojan!? I visted the same site and i didn't have any problems. Mike or any of the other members here wouldn't link you to a trojan. Just to confirm that is Alan's site and nor would he put you at risk. Now for your problem. Have you any other joints on the said rigidbody. As then would have to be stopped. Only one joint can be used on a rigidbodie at one time. You can start and stop joints though.

Mike don't take it to heart mate. Let them accuse... Then you have more time doing what you want to do rather then helping endlessly to a wasted cause.

perfect example of why many people will never get anything done... either in 3DRAd, or in anything else they attempt...

they immediately jump to conclusions that are lacking any basis in fact... they never ever consider that the fault may be their own... and then they immediately go off on an accusatory rant...

stop for a second 'Slacker, and ask yourself the following questions...
what possible reason would i have to direct you, of all people, to a trojan...
is it possible that my computer is already infected with a trojan...
is my antivirus popping up a false positive...

accusing someone of doing something which they are not guilty of doing can get you in some real deep kimshee... you should learn to engage your brain before you engage mouth (fingers on keyboard in this case)...

so much for me trying to help this f#Ck3r again...

--Mike

That is what I couldn't figure out, normally I am very careful about what sites I visit, and especially what I choose to actually download. So, to say that my anti virus software works very little and I imagine not very hard for me, in fact I cannot remember the last time it popped up to tell me something was wrong. In this case it did pop up to tell me I had downloaded a trojan horse Downloader.Generic10 or somesuch thing. It seemed to me to be a legitimate threat, but what do I know? Either way it didn't really matter as the anti virus software stopped it and no harm was done. I just really thought that if the threat was real, others may want to know. I didn't go off on any accusatory rant, it was a single sentence followed by a regardless, to me meaning that I was over it. Like I say, my anti virus never gives me such warnings, I really thought I was being prudent and even dare I say... Helpful.. I regret if you took this any other way Mike...

Some (serious) Slacker

I meant to include this shot in the last post, but can't edit it, and of course my posts still have to wait for approval, so here it is anyway, you can see the mailbox about to be hit and the ragdoll is falling apart as it takes damage from the car...

None of the projects or exe files on my site contain viruses.

However, if you are running AVG, you may get a trojan warning on a couple of the older projects. This is a FALSE POSITIVE, issued by AVG, because of a conflict it has with compiled 3DRad projects, packed with an early version which Molebox Pro, which I use.

If you get this warning, just temporarily disable AVG protection.

So yeah, now I do feel like an idiot, but not sure how I would know a 'false positive' from a real one, and yer right I do indeed use AVG as it has served me well for many many years.

I wish to formally withdraw my accusation wholeheartedly and beg forgiveness for my total noobness! I haven't been this embarrassed since I started on the 'net' back in '92 on the ole Delphi Network... (Red Baron FTW! lol)

Anyway, I still haven't been able to track this problem down, seems a dynamic body can be made static and switched to dynamic without changing any other variable, so its not that, as hypokill said, only one joint per rigid body, which I hope is totally false, cause the ragdoll addon came with 2 joints attached to each 'body part' (except the head, hands and feet, 5 joints on the torso!) and I added slider joints to the head to provide some movement but not perfect movement (on purpose, its as if the ragdoll is hanging on a clothes line that you can slide back and forth but he kind of looks like he's slowly falling off) though even with all that, I couldn't get a fixed joint to work on the mailbox, so static to dynamic seemed like a logical step.

Perhaps this whole problem can simply be put down to wonky physics? I only say this 'cause the reaction of the ragdoll and the mailbox are so totally different even though the variables (for mass friction etc) are fairly equivalent. Though I think I have wasted enough time on this minor problem (I just want to understand what's goin on! heh), and I think I've pissed enough people off for a lifetime, still not gonna detract me from trying figuring out why these things are working the way they are instead of the way I want!!!