Just a little preview

[tsunamayo]

[Horkas]

So, the main issues players are facing seems to be:

• Mechs bouncing around because there is no dampening on the joints. (The joints having 100% rigidity leave no room for shock absorption. They need some dampening and play to allow gravity to work against the joints a bit.)
• Lack of IK feet bones auto leveling to terrain is another cause of bouncing mechs.
• The user interface is clunky and confusing. (Foregoing the number panels and just straight up allowing players to click a joint in the preview, and drag it into position with a x,y,z rotation/position tool, which would auto-key it to that position in the animations timeline you paused it on. That would be the simplest and most straight forward.) ((Pro-preachs angle indicator suggestion is the perfect example of what this tool would look like.))
• In the current system, Not being able to slide the numbers up or down by clicking and dragging, instead having to hand type them in is a HUGE pain in the ass and highly aggravating.
• Not having a ground plane to show the ground is detrimental to making the animation and outright almost impossible to do correctly without it.

Tips for players trying to make animations:

• Give your mechs hips. Most mechs in games that look and operate well have hips that rotate forwards and backwards with the momentum of the legs. This might help make animations smoother for allot of people. (Rotate the left hip forward when pushing the left leg forward. Drag that hip backwards as the left leg is being drug under the mech in the walk cycle.)
• Because the joints currently have no give to their rigidity, keep your feet small as possible. This will make less surface area for the game engine to freak out about. (Basically, give them sticks for feet.)
• When making a walk cycle, make sure that by the time one of the feet is all the way behind you and about to be pulled up, the other is all the way forward about to be planted. There should never be a point where both feet are off the ground or in the same area of the body, like both being infront or behind the torso in the cycle.

[BigBadKangaroo]

I can only agree with the recent posts here, @ProPeach @asanagisae @Tassyr @Horkas pretty much summed it up perfectly for me.

This Mech system works (and it's a really cool proof-of-concept) but it is really difficult to work with. After hours of trail and error, some headaches and quite a bit of frustration I came up with something that works okayish. For my level of learning such a thing for the first time I'm really happy with it and how it turned out. However, this was a pain to get it even to this stage.

https://github.com/tsunamayo/Starship-EVO/assets/81495956/01f6a019-672d-436b-9e03-fb5662cc1f06

However I do see the big potential in it to make it a really reliable and fun experience for players to create mechs. But it needs a lot of tweaking to get to a "user friendly experience". (see the recent posts of the guys I marked in the begining)

I'm still looking forward to it tho, after I saw the "just a little preview" post here on Github I got really exicted for building again. Can't wait to build mechs with a fun editor in this game!

[drimmel247]

Just want to say I love this update!

I do have a few suggestions:

1. We need more actions aside from idle and walk.
   • crouch - ctrl key press either toggle or hold,
   • run - shift key
   • sit/kneel - g key
   • jump - quick press of space
   • hover - hold space bar
   • backwards walk(repeat of walk) - s key
   • strafe left/right - q and r key
2. Maybe add different modes similar to jetpack on j key press
   • mode 1 - jump+hover
   • mode 2 - gravity based
   • mode 3 - any direction - may need additional actions in case of in space
     • space mode - gets new set of actions for movement or should be using spaceship controls. However it would need a way to control turret with both mech yoke and ship yoke for arm and head movements when aiming.

[Tassyr]

Honestly I think the keyframe thing (with some more in-game explaining) wouldn't be bad- but having it try to be an accurate physics simulation where the foot has to be in contact with the ground at the right angle and the right timing is just too much to ask. I can make an okay animation for flat footed walking.

But I can't make one for going up a hill versus going down a hill versus flat walking. Unless there's gonna be some kind of "Adaptive Foot" that just sorta angles itself towards the terrain as is (Which, personally, I'd love) it's going to be impossible to make mechs that don't just kinda lawn dart occasionally. And frankly even then I'd still tone it down; designate part of the foot for "ground contact" and from that last joint to the ground contact pad, just have the joint angle however it would need to be parallel to the below piece of ground as it transitions above it.

I'd just... make it so the animation is an animation that plays, whatever the lowest point on the leg is, that's where we contact the ground, and not try to be so hitboxy about it honestly.

[Horkas]

@Tassyr "But I can't make one for going up a hill versus going down a hill versus flat walking. Unless there's gonna be some kind of "Adaptive Foot" that just sorta angles itself towards the terrain."

That's what IK based automatic animation is. Which is something I mentioned should be added towards the top of the discussion, to which Tsun said he was going to try and implement into the system.

Trying to make these things walk in a physics based environment without that system would quite literally be impossible.

For this specific situation, there are only 3 possible ways to animate the mechs:

• Traditional animation playing, where physics and collisions have no effect on them at all, and must be animated to fake those aspects effecting them. (Basically, the exact same as the player character.)
• IK based movement.
• Detection sphere on root bone that rotates like a tire as it rolls with the ground, which is bound to the legs to force an automatic walk in the direction the sphere is rotating. (Super hacky and highly specific animation style only to be used for extremely niche things.)

[tsunamayo]

@asanagisae @ProPeach Well it seems there have been a misunderstanding, this was a early preview of mech, they are not ready for being used by newcomers. I am looking for feedback at this stage. Maybe I should do a shortlist in that case like for the survival. If people just want to enjoy mechs they will have to wait a bit more. Like I said I will add a default animation like we had before. I will also fix the several issues, like bouncing up into space.

=> regarding the symmetry after a bit of thinking I plan to add a option at the level of the join to copy it automatically from the other side, either straight or inversed. That way any modification will be propagated to the other side.

[Tassyr]

@Tassyr "But I can't make one for going up a hill versus going down a hill versus flat walking. Unless there's gonna be some kind of "Adaptive Foot" that just sorta angles itself towards the terrain."

That's what IK based automatic animation is. Which is something I mentioned should be added towards the top of the discussion, to which Tsun said he was going to try and implement into the system.

Trying to make these things walk in a physics based environment without that system would quite literally be impossible.

For this specific situation, there are only 3 possible ways to animate the mechs:

* Traditional animation playing, where physics and collisions have no effect on them at all, and must be animated to fake those aspects effecting them. (Basically, the exact same as the player character.)

* IK based movement.

* Detection sphere on root bone that rotates like a tire as it rolls with the ground, which is bound to the legs to force an automatic walk in the direction the sphere is rotating. (Super hacky and highly specific animation style only to be used for extremely niche things.)

Ah derp, sorry- I missed it in the above posts. My bad.

[tsunamayo]

@Tassyr @Horkas I will add a feature that auto-align foot to the ground to be able to walk on slope (forward). To walk on slope sideway you will need a mech with ball join not simple rotator though. I will add something that align the body too. IK will be to walk on uneven terrain, like there is small hole or something. I will try to work on showing the ground, it is tricky tough as it is physics determined, it depends on where your feet collides, that s why it is not there at this stage (it is just not draw a plan at a given height, the height change depending on your anim).

@ProPeach @asanagisae If you could tell people on discord or else that is a preview, not ready to be enjoyed! If people dont plan on giving feedback to improve the system then there it is just too early for them to play.

Cheers thanks for the feedback all, already it is very instructive for now.

[ProPeach]

@asanagisae @ProPeach Well it seems there have been a misunderstanding, this was a early preview of mech, they are not ready for being used by newcomers. I am looking for feedback at this stage. Maybe I should do a shortlist in that case like for the survival. If people just want to enjoy mechs they will have to wait a bit more. Like I said I will add a default animation like we had before. I will also fix the several issues, like bouncing up into space.

That's the impression I had yeah, but I suppose it's tough for people temper expectations on such a much loved feature! I've been telling people when the topic came up, but I'll include a message in #update-feed explaining the situation too. Players do seem to understand that it is a WIP for sure, I think some just have big dreams that they'll have to wait a little longer for.

[asanagisae]

I think we've given it a decent kick. I can't wait to see what round 2 has to offer. Thanks again for the opportunity to test a feature so early in development!

I'll leave one last video before setting this aside:

https://github.com/tsunamayo/Starship-EVO/assets/10069469/d16772e9-6cd0-4512-8360-c841a1aea5a7

[Tackietacktack]

@tsunamayo hi, I have one question.

The position from hip and knee, must we build it so or can we make hip as knee and knee as hip(changing the position)? Same by left and right.

I don't know if make problems with the collision physic or something other, so that the mech don't run right?

[drimmel247]

@Tackietacktack On the headCrap mech I used all of the joints in order to get proper movement on a 4 legged creature that has spider like legs. I agree that more joints would be ideal especially with more complex structures that require more than the hip, knee and feet (both left and right) to get proper animations.

@tsunamayo On my Gundam Exia build I am hitting the max weight capacity on the new hinges, is it possible to make the mech hinges have a stronger motor/higher weight limit? Its ok if the trade off is that ball join hinge is larger than regular hinge. The visual on ball hinge looks great with the mechs so I prefer to use them. Plus I really like that there is room on the sides of the Ball join hinge because it allows for ease of cover armor on the sides. At 1m there is room enough for 1/4 thick tile on both sides to line up with a 1m cube hull block.