#The reason I originally kept the entire

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

half finch
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Point is if the character must go vertical or horizontal and they have a body/legs, they'd have to be prevented from going inside the cave walls

west loom
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Right now it can go trhough tightest of tunnels but the animations clip through

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Cause animations override physics

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I pretend like the body and legs don't exist

half finch
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But like, are they supposed to

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Is there going to be a lower body that needs to not clip into the walls

west loom
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My character iz horizontal

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The only parts of the body he can see is arms when they are stretched in front of him

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Reaching for things etc

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Nothing behind that js a concern to me, you're supposed to imagine him contorting the body and legs to fit like they do in real life

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Only arms are a concern to me

half finch
west loom
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Possibly IK without actual animations is the way to go here but I'm not sure

half finch
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IK would be overkill

west loom
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Well tbf clipping is the only problem now because it negates other problems from happening

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If I fix clipping, I can see the next problem: my grab animations aren't really grabbing a chunk of the tunnel, evn if they are now not clipping

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But you're igh, I don't need an ik solution like final ik for this.

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I only need something like find closest collider point, stick hand to that, right?

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And figure out how I solve rotation as I go

half finch
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Chunk items out of it? Grabbing and holding the wall geometry?

west loom
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when crawling, you should grab the tunnel and propel yourself forward

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with simple animation, that won't look right as you won't be really grabbing part of the mesh, unless coincidentally

half finch
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Right, that is an important detail

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That would require IK or constraints

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Constraints could be simpler

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You could have a grab/pull animation that you trigger after you've positioned the hand/ grab point onto a nearby wall (contact point detected by physics checks)

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A Parent constraint might be useful for setting a specific contact point of the hand onto the wall surface, and a Look At constraint to point the whole arm towards where the shoulder should be

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Using IK would be a similar idea, but the pull animation and arm movements would be wholly procedural
More control but more work

west loom
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by grab/pull animation, I meant simply the act of placing a hand on a wall

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if I was using IK, the mere movement of the character forward would look like he is pulling forward due to the joint re-adjustment, right?

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I was contemplating between that as A or just using normal animations with animation rigging where the a point on the tunnel collider would act as the target

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IK should look better, right?

half finch
half finch
# west loom IK should look better, right?

It can look better, but the setup is a bit more complicated which ultimately determines how good it'll look, which is also affected by what kind of situations it'll be subjected to

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With IK you have to deal with a lot of edge cases like what if the player moves in a weird way or if the environment is bumpy or if the valid wall target is switching rapidly etc

west loom
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So what would you suggest ultimately

half finch
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Having a precise plan or even a design document about how the grabbing mechanic needs to work would surely help

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It sounds like IK constraints are what you want for this, but that's almost like an artform so it doesn't hurt to practice using them

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And having a backup plan, such as no grabbing with the arms just moving back when faced with obstacles to avoid clipping

west loom
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There exists no other reason why I should see my character's arm other than him grabbing a wall/floor

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Cave divers don't swim conventionally

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So I guess the backup plan would be to forego arm animation altogether but that would be admittint defeat

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Ok thank you for your help, I'll see what I can do with IK constrainst and experiment with different stuff

half finch
west loom
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After all, a tool is as good as its maker so no one can tell me what would be best for me

half finch
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"Plan A" with the non-IK pulling animation might be simpler to make, but might not be flexible enough for your purposes

west loom
# half finch Can't?

I mean, there is no reason for my character to have arms out forward if he isn't pulling himself

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Therefore, there is nothing to move back if I'm not doing that

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Making just pulling animations without clipping I don't think would help, cause I wouldn't be grabbing anything without some kind kf target

half finch
half finch
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Pulling animation doesn't have to play in full, its time on the clip can be set by distance or it can be a realtime blend between extended and pulled poses

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Parent constraint can be used to change the pivot, and look at constraint can be used to keep it oriented towards the body

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For a specific type of interaction it's just as capable as IK but simpler
But IK isn't limited to that specific type of interaction

west loom
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only with legs

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left arm will be holding the flashlight

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right arms is reserved for item usage like looking at the dive clock and other stuff I have

west loom
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I'm specifically looking at that one use case

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I didn't know constraints were a separate ''thing''....I thought IK constrains meant only...well, bone constraints in regard to their rotation

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like, you shouldn't be able to rotate your arm by 180 degrees

half finch
west loom
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a quick google suggests that chainIK constraint is...animation rigging? But without a base animation, yea?

half finch
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"Rigging" includes bones and constraints, but not animations specifically (but also weighting and skinning in some contexts)

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IK is also done with constraints, but of a fundamentally more advanced type

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As a rule of thumb non-IK constraints are per-bone, while IK constraints affect entire chains or hierarchies

west loom
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so if I'm understanding correctly, and I'm not sure that I am, that is exactly what I'm looking for

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in fact, that is actually when I meant when I said IK

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let me just clarify what I thought and we'll see how uninformed I was

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when I said animation rigging, I thought making an actual animation, which I would retarget to a target point

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like a grabbing of the wall animation, which I would adjust the target of based on where the wall was

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When I said IK, I mean no animation at all, I would define a target point where the hand bone should go, and the solver would figure out how the parent bones should behave based on that

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I figured the latter would look and feel better but now I'm a bit confused and what is what

half finch
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Yes I think you're describing a typical kind of arm IK setup

west loom
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right

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so between those two cases, what is an IK constraint?

half finch
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(Animation Rigging the package also includes both IK constraints and non-IK constraints)

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In this example you'll probably want to use the Two Bone IK constraint, since it works well for arms

west loom
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so do I need a base animation for that or no

half finch
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Not needed

west loom
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aha

half finch
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It'd be entirely controlled by the target and the hint, which determine the contact point and elbow rotation respectively

west loom
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that is exactly what I was looking for actually

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and that's within the animation rigging package?

half finch
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Yes

west loom
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ok thank you

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brilliant

half finch
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Humanoid rigs have their own variety of IK constraints but I've never used Humanoids

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And can't say exactly if it works with Animation Rigging

west loom
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basically what you're saying is, IK can do all that and a lot more, but for this specific thing I'm doing, I don't need an actual complex IK system

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cause ik constraints do that thing I Need

half finch
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IK constraints are actual IK systems
Whether that's complex or not I guess depends how you feel about it

west loom
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ok ok thank you

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it was just a terminology problem

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that IS what I need and want

half finch
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Yes I think ^^

west loom
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nothing more

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I kept my character humanoid cause when I cut off his arms, I could see the end due to some stretched animations

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I didn't know where to cut him off

west loom
half finch
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Cut them off meaning what?

west loom
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meaning not keeping a humanoid character

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just arms

half finch
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All you need is the arms, although it doesn't really matter much if the body bones are there or not, whether humanoid or generic

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(Assuming the IK you're using is indeed compatible with Humanoids)

west loom
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I see

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ok thank you

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now I know what do do

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at least the animation rigging package is free

half finch
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Your mesh can include only the arms even if there are bones for the body
Just in case it's more trouble than it's worth to implement a new bone hierarchy just to get rid of the body bones

west loom
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yes yes

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that's what I shall do

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and I won't have to worry about where to cut off the mesh

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thanks for everything

half finch
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Good luck with it ^^
Animation Rigging package has importable examples for reference

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And it's worth practicing use of the Rig workflow and IK constraints in a simple scenario first

west loom
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I see

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I'm still in a test project

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will carry everything over to a real one when it's done

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so I fully intend to screw around with it