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Am trying to find out how to limit the motion/rotation limits of a ragdoll joints, so I can make one on which arms and legs bend it a natural way.
And.. if I apply pressure to a knee beyond certain measure, for instance, it breaks.

JDForce,

I dont have any answers for you on this, since my knowledge of ragdolls is limited, and I have been frustrated with trying to figure out how to attach the ragdoll joints to a directX imported model to start with. How did you even attach your ragdoll joints to a mesh?

I posted a thread on this a while ago and got no feedback. I have to imagine that people do not how to do this.

I do know that you would use the 6 different types of joints available to simulate particular body joints (ex: hinge joint for the forearm).

For learning purposes, I just followed the rope example, and the steps are very clear. You call "Phy assign ragdoll part" to add ragdoll bones incrementally to any skinned mesh. The instruction set for ragdolls is not in the help index for some reason but it is there.

The problem I have is that I don't know yet how to identify each joint in order to set rotation properties and to break them under certain conditions, just as in the "breakable ragdoll" sample from another nice physics engine, 3impact.

JDForce, could you take a look at my code under Ragdolls - Any Success thread?

Once I start to get my code to work, I may be able to help give you some ideas.

I could only check your code lightly, but if the rope example is working correctly, it should apply to any skinned mesh.
You can load and check the bone structure (of the rope object) with Fragmotion, and you should study the complete rope sample code. The order of ragdoll parts assignment is important.

Why do you use fixed joints? Do you want it to be stiff as a corpse? with fixed joints it will act as if you crazy-glued-solid all body joints, so it is no mistery why it does not looks natural. For sure it will plummet like frozen. A ragdoll should use spherical or revolute joints in the first place.
Try changing the joint type, for starters.

As for the incorrect skin deformation, since "Aiko" is a tested and working model, probably you are missing some bone, so when running the simulation, the model deforms, but not the one you missed. It probably stays on mid-air while all the rest follows the simulation. (I say "probably", because remember I have not inspected entirely your code)

This sounds just like what usually happens with vertices when you are making a model and you rig (skin) a model and fail to assign or weight one or more vertices correctly, and the skin deformation is incorrect. Since Aiko is correctly skinned, you can only blame your ragdoll assignment for any incorrect simulation.

I suggest you take a video capture with "Fraps" and post it to YouTube so we can see what is happening on your screen.