I have a couple of projects where i really need a ragdoll free floating in space, but sort of constrained to the center of the screen, a spring joint should handle the hovering, and i will set the projects gravity to 0.
what can i use to let the player wave the mouse past him or use the arrows to buffet him around like it were space winds... a soft, invisible push
Its a fixed camera looking at a centred astronaut.
When the mouse pointer hits the
astronaut, apply a force to the
astronaut in the direction the mouse
was moving when it first touched. (You can also
make the force strength be
proportional to the mouse speed if
you want.)
That's the basic idea. There are all sorts of tweaks you could do, depending how you want it to work. For instance you could apply the force every frame for as long as the mouse is over the astronaut and/or the mouse button is pressed. You will probably want the astronaut's movement to be dampened so that it slows down whenever the pushing stops. Etc.