Motion Controller

I believe the last error is a symptom of the errors above it and I think the top errors "Input String was not in a correct format" has to do with country number format differences for example:

1,000.00 in US = 1.000,00 in other places

It's happening during deserialization where I turn strings back into floats, vectors, etc..

In the Vector3Ext.cs class at the top, you'll see a line commented out. Can you uncomment that, save it, and the close/open Unity?

The line force US culture info (formatting):
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US");


This happens in the demo scenes because I saved them on my PC (US) and you're opening them on your PC (different country format).

If your game is going to be global, you'll want to force the culture info settings. This way someone in the US can play your game when you serialized it in your country.

I hope that make sense.

 

It does make sense, I did the change but that didn't fix the issue. The stranger thing is that I didn't have that issue in the past, I recall using your demo scene extensively though. That's correct I'm in Europe

 

I can't think of anything that has changed that would make the demos not work for you any more. Any chance your computer's default country setting changed... maybe a new computer?

I started looking at the code and the Vector3Ext.FromString() functions are forcing a split based on a comma. That should be fine since my demos have things saved from my computer. But, I'm wondering if that's the issue.

It might be worth you changing that to a period or using a break point to see what the "rString" value is for your computer in your country.

Let's take this to email too. Feel free to email tim@ootii.com and we'll see what it takes to get the demos working for you.

 

For anyone following the localization issue with @Necka_ , the issue is coming up with .NET 4.x and wasn't there with .NET 3.5. So, it seems to have something to do with .NET 4.x globalization and not respecting the 'System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture' value.

We're poking through Google, but if anyone has any experience with this... we'd appreciate the help.

 

Ripper? Tutorials? Sometime soon?

 

Not sure. I do these extra things when I have spare time and I haven't had much recently.

In meantime, there are 26 tutorials here that take you through the MC.

 

Hmm... do the examples not even work? https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.threading.thread.currentuiculture

I guess this uses the https://github.com/Microsoft/referencesource/blob/4.6.2/mscorlib/system/globalization/cultureinfo.cs as reference?

 

A blast from the past.

I'm not using that with the serialization stuff here. We confirmed that it's an issue with Net 4.x and country formats like "0.000,00". For some reason it works with Net 3.5, but not Net 4.x. I'm not sure what's different between the two implementations of Net, but I'm trying to find a solution that doesn't use 'System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture'

No luck so far.

 

I tried to dig around and understand if it was the internal mono implementation of that function or actually .net that was at fault. Seems like it should be the fork? no?

Do they ref that in the fork? I couldn't find it.

If the examples here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/do...o?redirectedfrom=MSDN&view=netframework-4.7.2 do not in fact print what is expected of them. then something is indeed deeply remiss and bug should be pushed upstream for sure.

 

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

I was searching to see if others hit this, but couldn't find anything.

Good point about testing those examples. I'll give that a try.

 

A quick update here...

@TeagansDad has also been introducing a whole new "Character Wizard" that sets everything up across all the assets. It's pretty sweet and turning into an amazing tool.

Between that and the refactoring of the whole ootii tree to support Assembly Definition Files there's a lot to test... 9 individual assets across 3 versions of Unity = A LOT of combinations to test. So, this hasn't stopped. It's just taking time.

 

That sound really good

Any new features on the table with this "partnership" with @TeagansDad ? I'm thinking about some of his awesome work on the Sword and Shield attack styles and also his ideas on dual wielding

 

He's got some great ideas and has really helped the community a lot.

He put in some things, but I asked him to hold off on others until the major re-org. This way there's as few changes as possible to test.

I don't want to commit on what he will do or not do. He can answer more when he has the time. I know he's busy this week.

 

@twobob - Nothing regarding dual-wielding, but about 90% of the base for my various "Animset Pro" motion packs found its way in. Mostly the base setup scripts (for adding components, configuring animator states, etc), but also the BasicHandPose motions (which run on additional animator layers masked to each hand and keep the hand or hands closed ariuar the weapon grip when playing animations from outside the weapon animation pack: jump, fall, etc), Layer Definition Sets (to quickly apply a set of layers to a new project), Attack Profiles (a renamed and slightly revised version of how I manage Attack Styles), a reactor that toggles Use Transform off when you want an AI character's motion to apply Root Motion movement (e.g. step-and-attack, death, damaged with a stagger backwards, etc).

One cool thing with the Character Wizard is that you can generate a new Animator Controller completely from scratch -- you don't even need to create the file yourself. This includes configuring each layer correctly with avatar masks, blend weights, etc.

The Basic mode of the Wizard is designed to create a character with as few clicks as possible. Assuming you have all of the required motion packs installed, you can right-click on a character model in your project view, select "ootii Character Wizard" from the context menu, then click the Ultimate Fantasy Hero button. Thus gives you a character with the typical jump and climb motions, Archery, Sword & Shield, Spellcasting, and Swimming. And it all works with no additional configuration necessary.

 

Hi TeagansDad,

I guess this will completely break the Horse AnimsetPro integration asset from Malbers?

 

I'n not familiar with that integration (I own the asset but haven't really spent any time with it), but I don't think it should, as I didn't overwrite any existing behaviours. I assume you're referring to the Attack Profiles -- right now those are set on an additional component on the weapon prefab, and a Reactor clears the Attack Styles on the Basic Melee Attack motion and assigns the new ones. If that approach doesn't work with Malbers' integration, then you don't need to use it.

 

Need to check again but the integration was more like an existing Animator (including all required animator properties for this asset) was to be used for the MC Character, so basically you skip the whole wizard thing.

If the animator of MC changes then it will break

I know/think that Malbers anyway worked with Tim for this integration (at least Malbers own a copy of MC) so I'm sure he'll fix it. He just integrated easy input, for once I got all working together I'm a little bit afraid

 

Just purchased MC and have been going through tutorials and reading the guides but am having trouble grasping how to stop the animations I start. I am creating a custom motion for melee combat. I will have several of these. Can anyone give me a suggestion for what I could use in TestActivate() and TestUpdate() to just run an animation once?

 

Hey @MdotE ,

You mentioned that you're creating custom motions. So, everything I say will be from that perspective...

With the MC, you're always running a motion which typically has an animation associated with it. In the default case, we'll run an Idle motion that kicks off the idle animation.

So, typically you can stop an animation by forcing the active motion to deactivate. That will cause the idle motion and animation to kick in and the old animation stops.

When you deactivate a motion is really up to you and the motion you're creating. For example, my walk/run motions deactivate when there is no longer input trying to move them. My jump motion deactivates when the character hits the ground. You could have a motion deactivate when a timer goes off or at the end of the swing animation.

In fact, look at my BasicMeleeAttack motion's TestUpdate() function. I do a little trick here. If the animator state's tag says "Exit", I return false and deactivate the motion. This way I know I'm done with the swing animation.

So, TestActivate() determines if the motion should activate (by returning a true or false). TestUpdate() determines if the motion should continue (by returning a true or false).

What you put in those really depends on how you want your custom motion to work. Take a look at BasicMeleeAttack motion's TestActivate(). It basically says if the attack button is pressed, return true... which activates the motion.


One word of advice...
If you're new to creating motions, start simple. Just do a combat swing animation when you press a button. Get used to the flow of the motions and how they work. Then, start getting more advanced (blocks, slides, etc).

 

Thanks, Tryz. Where do I find the BasicMeleeAttack motion? It doesn't seem to be part of MC. Is it in one of the addons?

 

Awe crap. hahaha... Yeah it is.

For the TestActivate(), check out something like my Jump motion. You'll see something like this:

Code (CSharp):

1. if (mMotionController._InputSource.IsJustPressed(_ActionAlias))
2. {
3.     return true;
4. }
5.  
6. return false;

For the TestUpdate(), it looks like this:

Code (CSharp):

1. public override bool TestUpdate()
2. {
3.     // If we've reached the exit state, leave. The delay is to ensure that we're not in an old motion's exit state
4.     if (mAge > 0.2f && mMotionController.State.AnimatorStates[mMotionLayer._AnimatorLayerIndex].StateInfo.IsTag("Exit"))
5.     {
6.         return false;
7.     }
8.  
9.     return true;
10. }

 

Nice. Works like a charm. Thanks.

 

Hi.
Import "Third Person Motion Controller" - 52 warnings (animation). Is it just me?

 

That's expected.

The animations come from Unity and are free, but they where built a while ago. So, they give warnings the first time you import them.

Just clear the console and you won't see them again.

 

Hi Tim,

I've used MC with humanoid characters and it's worked great. I am now starting a project with a non-human player and want to use MC with it. Can you point me at any recommended steps of how to use MC with a 4 legged character?

 

Hey @hoodoo ,

Check out this series that I started (and haven't finished)

In it, I talk about using the MC for my dog. It's really just a matter of replacing my humanoid walk animations with your 4-legged walk animations. Using the "Basic Walk Run X" motions makes this pretty easy.

 

Hi Tim,

I own all your Ootii assets (except the motions packs....currently). I am just about to dive deep into them but I have a question. One game concept I will be working on involves 2 characters that can join together to work as a team (somewhat like Banjo-Kazooie...but not quite) but they can also separate and function independently. How would you recommend the best way of using your assets to accomplish that? They will both have their own animations and controls but I wanted the option when they are close to "attach" to each other and then more or less function as one unit. Maybe I will have to somehow blend their animations. Do you think Mount Points would work for them to "stick" together? Any ideas what path I should pursue to solve this problem.

Thanks for any advice or input.
Please keep up the great work. Awesome stuff.
Best regards,
Shawn

 

The implementation/behavior changed in .NET 4.6. Just take a look at this Stackoverflow thread here.

In short:

The CurrentThread.CurrentCulture now depends on the CultureInfo.CurrentCulture for the main thread and not on the DefaultThreadCurrentCulture property as in .NET 3.5 - 4.5. This leads to the different formatting settings and to the problems.

And as you experience, setting the culture before the thread is started isn't an option in .NET 4.6 anymore. It has to be changed in the started/running thread to make it work like in .NET 4.5.x and before.

I hope this helps everyone which gets this error.

 

The closest thing I can think of is something like what Malbers did with his awesome Horse Animset Pro integration. Others have done similar things with motorcycles and cars.

Basically, the characters both can have MC's attached. When the "rider" gets on the back of the "vehicle", we disable the rider's AC and MC. At this point they are just a mesh attached to another mesh. From here, you can do any standard Unity stuff you want as my code really isn't in play.

The player is then controlling the vehicle and the rider just follows along. When it's time to exit, we re-enable the rider's AC and MC and start the custom "get off" motion.

The only interesting thing is if you want the rider to be active while he's riding the vehicle. Since the MC is disabled, you'd have to manage those animations yourself using standard Unity workflow.

I haven't done it myself, but I believe that's the right approach.

 

Thanks so much for helping!

@Necka_ please check out @HardCoreTec 's post above.

I tried changing my computer to French, but still didn't have any issues.


Given what HardCoreTec wrote, we may need to move the code I gave you to Unity's main thread. Meaning do it at the beginning of your app in Awake() or Start(). To be safe, I'd do both lines:

Code (CSharp):

1. System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US");
2. System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US");
3.  

Let me know if any of this helps.

 

Hey- having a lot of success with the motion controller, BUT:

I updated to the new Unity, and I am getting a single red error:

Assets/ootii/Framework_v1/Code/Geometry/QuaternionExt.cs(313,22): error CS0103: The name `NewMethod' does not exist in the current context

Any idea of a fix?

-Thanks for the good asset!

 

Is this in Unity 2018.2.5? Did you get one of these messages when you updated?



I've done a Find in Files for "NewMethod" on the entire ootii product suite, and no results come up. So I'm wondering if the API Updater did something to the file.

Line 313 of QuaternionExt.cs is:

Code (CSharp):

1. rTwist = rTwist.Normalize();

I haven't tried Unity 2018.2 (any version yet); it's on my to-do list once I wrap up a couple of things I'm working on. Maybe @Tryz can shed some more light on the issue.

 

Unity added a function I already had a name for.

Get the latest version of the MC and it is fixed.

 

Thanks for the nice tutorial! I copied the Humanoid Controller and changed the animations in Idle and Basic Walk Run Pivot. I can preview the animations in the copy of the Controller and see my animal at idle, walk and run, but when I play the scene, it plays the walk or run animation for a second or two and then stops. The animal also stops moving forward. If I stop pressing the key(s), and wait a second then press again, then the animation and movement starts working again. But after a second or two it stops moving again. I'm not sure what's causing this and wondering if you have any ideas? The input magnitude shows steady at 0.5 for walking or 1.0 for running in the Animator window, so it should keep moving.

 

You setup your animal walk, run, idle as "Loop Time"?

 

Thanks so much @Calixxa - that was the problem! Now I have to figure out how to adjust the animation a bit, maybe with the Cycle Offset, as it jerks a bit after reaching the end and restarting.

 

See if checking the "Loop Pose" option helps. Otherwise, you may need to tweak the animation itself. I love UMotion for that.

 

Yeah I tried the Loop Pose option, which actually made it worse. I duplicated the walk and run animations and assigned these new animations back into the Animator, and then changed the first keys and the last keys in the animations to "Clamped Auto", which has fixed the problem. Everything looks smooth now!

I've also been experimenting with options in MC and AC to get it looking better as far as how the feet contact the ground, and avoiding sliding problems. I haven't watched any of the videos that come after the one you pointed me at yet, but will be watching the other 3. I have a lot to learn with knowing how to tweak animations and deal with the fine details.

One other question I had is: Is there a way to keep all 4 feet contacting the ground at the surface, without any of them sinking into the ground? I tried the "Orient to ground" option under "Tilting", but when I use that I get lots of sliding when I stop moving, and the camera kind of jerks around. I'm testing on a hilly terrain and I'm using the "Adventure Style" movement style.

 

Awesome.

I dabble in animations, but I'm a much better programmer. I've found UMotion to be awesome and it supports root-motion which can help with sliding/skating. Typically that happens when the root-motion isn't really sync'd with the steps.

That's really "foot IK". There are solutions out there like my Bone Controller, Final IK, etc. However, I'm not sure how well they would work with an animal. For example, my Bone Controller's foot IK works with 2-bone legs (like humans). Most animals have 3-bone legs. So, it may work for your animal, but it won't be as realistic as others might be.

Make sure you have the "Relative" gravity checked under "Gravity & Grounding". If you don't, you'll get sliding because gravity is pointing down and the slope orientation has you at an angle.

For camera popping, you will get that as your character tilts due to the terrain. It's due to the fact that the camera is further away and small angular changes create larger movements the further out you go.


I think the best approach is to use a "Camera Anchor" where you can apply smoothing to the camera movement and rotation. I talk more about "Camera Anchors" here.
Camera Anchors

The concept is really just having the camera follow a third-object which follows your character. This middle-man can then use any smoothing logic you want to smoothly follow.

 

For a complete noob. how do you add the player_Main.cs to the player? its not like just drag and drop or anything

 

Thanks so much for all the great details on how to improve things! I am also a programmer first, and this really helps me out. I own Bone Controller and Camera Controller as well, so I'll give BC a try to deal with the foot IK. And I'll try out your other suggestions, and also check out UMotion. Cheers!

 

I'm pretty sure that's all you do. At least my notes from beta testing don't mention any special procedures. If drag and drop doesn't work, try copying it from the player in one of AIW's demo scenes, and pasting as new to your MC character. Sorry I can't be more specific right now, but I'm in the process of upgrading Unity versions right now, so can't check my test projects until they've been updated.

Edit: After updating my AIW project, you definitely should be able to drag and drop the player_Main.cs script to your MC player. You're probably still better off copying it from a demo player that's already set up though, since there are a lot of settings, and that way you should at least get something usable out of the gate, rather than having to fiddle with it to get it to work. Good luck.

 

Hi @Tryz - one other quick question. I have the Tilting with Orient to Ground working well now, with your help on setting Relative Gravity. Now what I'd really like to do is eliminate the Roll so that the character just pitches up and down (about the X axis), without tilting side to side (about the Z axis). Could this be perhaps made into an option or do you know where in the code I could make a change for this? I was messing around with the code in "public bool OrientToGround" by altering values in mTilt, but I don't know for sure if this is the right way to do it, and so far the changes seem to have no effect

 

@hoodoo: I've got nothing on your question unfortunately, but I like your avatar. Where have I seen it before...? Oh right, in the stateroom of my airship. Makes a nice paperweight.

 

I have no idea where to put that, my "code" is only Bolt graphs

 

Got another topic, I was integrating into a scene some NPC using @Malbers animals running around doing their routing.

Those animals have a Rigidbody set to Gravity with their own mass.

When I walk around with my character (motion controller character), I'm pushing those animals instead of being stop by them. I've added the animal layer into Collisions in the actor controller.

The only way to not push them is to uncheck characters/animals in the physics pref. But of course then I walk through the animals, which isn't right

I've tried with having my character set with a Kinematic Rigidbody which doesn't fix that issue.

Malbers advised me to ask you as he has seen that issue only with motion controller.

Would you know what I'm missing? it's probably something stupid on my side that I forgot

 

Unfortunately, I think it would be a bear to decouple just the roll. I use two quaternions; one for yaw and one for pitch + roll. You'd have to split that last one. I'm afraid it's just not built to do that.

 

How big is the animal? Are we talking a deer or a rabbit?

The size matters because a small animal may be coming under the AC's step height that you set.

Here's what I did:
1. I took a simple scene with the default MC (Adventure Style)
2. Added a Rigidbody to the character (no gravity, is kinematic)
3. Added a Cube to the scene with a Rigidbody (use gravity, not kinematic)
4. When the character hits the cube, he stops and cube doesn't move.

This is because the default cube size (1, 1, 1) is taller than my Step Height (0.3).

5. Resized the cube to (0.2, 0.2, 0.2)
6. When the character hits the cube, the cube is pushed out of the way.

This is because the cube is now under the Step Height and low collisions don't stop the AC. Now the character will push into the tiny cube and the tiny cube moves (since a kinematic is pushing into a non kinematic).

If you don't want the tiny cube to get pushed around, you've got a couple of options:

1. Check it's "Is Kinematic" property so it won't react to the collisions.

2. Set the Step Height to something smaller and make sure the "Foot Sphere" body shape has "Enabled on Ground" checked.

I hope that helps.

 

I must be missing something really obvious, but the animals I'm speaking about are quite big here (Deer), but I did do what you suggested regarding the foot sphere anyway.

I don't think I can switch the Rigidbody to Kinematic on the animals, @Malbers built his asset around that I believe

Here's a video showing the issue and the parameters I have set on MC:

In case you see the issue, because I feel like I'm missing something

 

Are you using the latest version of the MC? There was a fix a little while ago that could be the issue.

I don't own the deer (yet), but I put the wolf in. I had that push behavior before I put 'Animals' in MC's collision layers. Once I added it, I couldn't push the wolf.

But, I see you have that. I don't see anything wrong with your setup. Mine is just a default wolf and default player MC with the added collision layer.

If you own the wolf, can you send tim@ootii.com a simple scene that has the issue? That's probably the best way for me to look.