[Released] Kinematic Character Controller

can i make character controller have weight. so when character land on a "seesaw", the seesaw will be affected by this character controller's weight

 

You can do this with AddForceAtPosition() at the ground hit point. Add a force corresponding to whatever mass you want the character to have
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Rigidbody.AddForceAtPosition.html

 

Just to be clear, is this the approach where the object following the spline and the PhysicsMover object are two completely separate objects with no parenting?

 

Yes, I tried both approaches, I am going to write my own spline solution I think, so I have more control over it. If that does not work either, I'll report back!

 

hey again!

First off, the controller has been solving a few issues I was having in regards to jumping and falling along walls! So: thumbs up!

I have a little question. Not sure if it's the intended behavior or not. In the main test scene, there are some blue square moving platforms (by the blue boat), one of them is also spinning. When I land on it I move along with it however I'm not being spun around with it. I would expect that when I'm on a rotating object my character controller should rotate as well.

Is there any reason why it's like this? is this the intended behavior? Is there any way this can be fixed? Could that be related to slope alignment in any way?

Thanks, looking forward to your answer.

 

This is a question of what is being done in your CC's UpdateRotation() method

I think by default the character's "orientation method" is set to "Towards camera", which results in this:
https://i.gyazo.com/b93904e2888551e28049c1512958425f.mp4
...because even if it's getting turned by the platform, it's still always reorienting to face the camera

If you set it to "Towards movement" instead (or if you delete all the code in UpdateRotation()), you'll get this:
https://i.gyazo.com/3bcca9f701b427e4384dc5213766a77b.mp4

If, however, you need the "towards camera" behaviour combined with the platform making your character rotate, what you're actually looking for is making the platform rotate the camera, so that the character will in turn face towards the rotated camera direction. You could modify the update code of ExampleCharacterCamera so that if its followed character is on a moving platform, it rotates every frame by PhysiceMover.RotationDeltaFromInterpolation on top of its original rotation code

 

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Will give it a go.

 

Hiya!
I'm using the plugin for a 3d platformer and its working like a charm! I was wondering if there's a way to combine the PhysicsMover functionality with animation-based movement to simplify some scene/mechanic setup. Setting the position to the current position/rotation freezes the motion, so its bypassing the animated values somehow. Removing the PhysicsMover and setting the animator update mode to "animate physics" at least has the controller pick up the platforms motion, but it doesn't apply any of the rotation. Is there a setup that would allow using animations like this, or does all the PhysicsMover motion need to be coded?

 

The approach i suggest for this is to have an empty transform doing an animation, and then have your PhysicsMover be a totally separate object that copies the animated transform's pos+rot when it's time to set them

You also have the walkthrough section on moving platforms which shows a different but more complicated approach to physicsmovers + animation (requires you to manually sample the animation in code)

 

Ah, the first one is a pretty simple work around! I'll take a look at the walkthrough example, but the former sounds like it should work for my purposes, thanks!

 

Hi Phil! Happy Holidays!

I'm implementing the networking code for my game and I remember that you used to have an example project with rollback and prediction. Could you share the project? I don't mind if it doesn't work, I just want to dissect how you manipulated KinematicCharacterSystem.Simulate() for proper rollback.


Thanks!

 

Here's a zip of the old walkthrough section on networking along with the walkthrough pdf that explains everything

Keep in mind this was all just an attempt to demonstrate networking, so the code of the demo isn't really usable

 

Hi, I make a flattening monster but KinematicCharacterMotor used capsule collider it can't make the flattening shape. How can I use a box collider instead capsule?

 

KCC can only use an upright capsule, like Unity's CharacterController component

But nothing prevents you from making the mesh flat independantly from the collider

 

hi, i have a preblem, how can i get the distance between character and grounded?
Can KCC provide a simple API direct return the distance?
I use the transform position but it really hard to check all the collider layer tag and setting

 

Hi, is it possible to make KCC work with highly tessellated terrain? Thanks

 

Yes, the webGL demo has examples of it running on terrain

 

If you're not already grounded, there's no built-in way to access that info because it would involve either making extra capsule casts, or making the ground probing casts super long which would result in performance loss

So what I suggest is to call your own motor.CharacterCollisionsSweep downwards that detects ground distance. As an optimisation, you can choose to only call it when motor.GroundingStatus.FoundAnyGround is false. When the GroundingStatus does find ground, the distance to ground is Vector3.Project(motor.GroundingStatus.GroundPoint - motor.TransientPosition, motor.CharacterUp).magnitude

 

I mean actual tessellation. We are using MicroSplat for example. And already own KCC. But when I tried putting the example KCC on a tessellated terrain, he fell through/ignored the tessellated part of the terrain - and kept using the normal terrain collider. And I found no mention of tessellation in KCC docs, nor in this thread.

I understand tessellation is on the GPU side and is complicated to use for physics. But I also saw this, which gives me a little hope. What do you think? Is it possible?

Also, HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone

 

As long as there is a collider (generated at runtime by tessellation or not), then KCC should collide with it

However, I don't know exactly how MicroSplat's tesselated collisions work, but the author seems to say at 3:09 that the package comes with a certain API for tessellated physics which the users must use in order to handle their particular use cases, and that it's not a solution that just works automatically. So it looks like in the case of MicroSplat, it doesn't actually generate a real collider, but rather just gives you a way to sample the height of where the ray hit would be at that position.

The author also says in the video at around 3:30 that for a character, he'd recommend just sampling the collisions for each foot. What that means is that the character controller could just collide with the regular untessellated terrain mesh, but the IK would place the character's animated mesh on the exact surface of the tessellated terrain

 

Unfortunately it's not just about the feet, otherwise I would do just that

Generating a collider sounds nice in theory, but the geometry is too complex with the tessellation in place. Yep, I could possibly generate somewhat lower-poly version of the collider, but that would be quite complex to implement and handle various edge cases at the same time.

Also the video, unfortunately, applies to another product. Similar product from the same author, but not the same product. I'm waiting for a reply if I could get somewhat similar API at least for raycasts. I sent the video like a proof of concept - that it should be possible to perform at least raycasts against the tessellated data.

Come to think of it, that would not be enough for KCC though. I think... it's not using just raycasts, right? But some spherecasts etc. as well?

I would love to simply ditch the tessellation to simplify my life, but our graphics designer would have my head He loves it... the detail he can add.

 

Hey Phil,

How do you pause the KCC now? I saw in a previous thread you said use KinematicCharacterMotor.HandlePhysics(false, false)

However this doesnt seem to exist anymore. What is the current way to pause things? When I just KCC or KCC.Motor to enabled = false, it works, except I go through the floor if Im jumping. And have to jump again to get un-embedded.

I'd like to totally pause everything. The previous request was also have to move things once paused, which I will also need for teleporting. So will the pause also allow updating pos/rot, like the previous answer you had?

Thanks!

 

I would've suggested just Motor.enabled = false. But alternatively you can try all 3 of these simultaneously and see if it solves the issue you get when disabling the motor:

• motor.SetCapsuleCollisionsActivation(false)
• motor.SetMovementCollisionsSolvingActivation(false)
• motor.SetGroundSolvingActivation(false)

As for how to move things while paused, simply go with Motor.SetPosition(pos, rot, true)

 

It uses capsulecasts, yeah. The only way I'd see this working is if you'd generate a really small meshCollider every frame only in the area underneath the character in a certain radius.... we'd have to see how expensive that would be

 

Hello. Will be there stutter effect if i will using your CC with camera which moves in update()?
Character moving in update or fixedUpdate?

 

It won't stutter. In the example character controller from this package, the camera moves on update

The CC moves on fixedupdate, but it is interpolated on update

 

Even if you're able to make the character controller not being fully "kinematic", please consider adding an option to make if fully kinematic. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I don't think I want my character reacting to physics that much without full control over what's happening.

 

Yup, that's the plan

 

Has anyone ever have the ExampleCharacterController (from the main example scene) fall through a terrain?
It just happened to me, but only once and I'm not able to reproduce it. Don't remember the exact place on the huge terrain where I fell through
Unity 2019.3.0f1
KCC 3.2.1

 

Are there any known issues with this in unity 2019.2.x(17)?

 

@michaelmcmurdy_amtote -works like a charm for me, haven't had any issues with it in 2019.2.17

 

Cool, thanks!

 

Quick question since I can't seem to wrap my head around it. The simulate method which handles updateVelocity and all that uses Time.deltaTime but it runs in FixedUpdate(). Is there a reason it doesn't use Time.fixedDeltaTime?

 

Time.deltaTime returns fixedDeltaTime when used in FixedUpdate. So, there's no reason to use fixedDeltaTime explicitly, and code is more portable if you don't. From the Time.fixedDeltaTime documentation:

 

That is not something I knew! Thanks a bunch!

 

@PhilSA
I'm wanting to setup my simulation so that it will independently Tick regardless of frame rate for networking purposes. I figure that if simply Ticking inside of Update(), then different hardware will Tick faster or slower than another leading to trouble keeping in sync. The other reason is that I want the ability to "speed up" and "slow down" the simulation of the players as described in the Overwatch netocde GDC talk.

Here is what I'm currently attempting for my "Simulation Update Loop":

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. void Start()
3. {
4.     ManualTicking();
5. }
6.  
7. async void ManualTicking()
8. {
9.      while (true)
10.      {
11.            await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(TickRate));
12.            Tick();
13.       }
14. }
15.  
16. void Tick()
17. {
18.      MasterTick++;
19.  
20.      KinematicCharacterSystem.PreSimulationInterpolationUpdate(TickRate);
21.  
22.      // Event is sent that listeners (players) listen to and call Simulate on their KCC object
23.      EventManager.TriggerEvent(GameConstants.SimulationTick, MasterTick);
24.  
25.      KinematicCharacterSystem.PostSimulationInterpolationUpdate(TickRate);
26. }
27.  

A few questions:
- Is this a decent way to have a frame rate independent Tick loop? Or what would you suggest? Looking at your old Network Code it looks like you simply use FixedUpdate() to Tick(), but did you have some way to Speed Up / Slow Down the simulation with this setup?

- Because this code no longer executes inside the standard Update() loop, I'm not sure what value I'm supposed to be passing to Pre and Post SimulationInterpolationUpdate(). Do I want to pass my Tick Rate? Or do I still pass Time.deltaTime?

 

Yup that sounds good. The networking example fast forwarded by manually calling Simulate until the real present tick was reached (all in a single frame), but didn't deal with accelerating the "time scale" if I remember correctly

You should pass the true amount of time that a tick represents. So with a tick rate of 10, you'd pass 1/10. With a tick rate of 60, you'd pass 1/60

 

I just started using your character controller and I am a noob at this. So I followed the walk through up to double jumping with my own character and animation. After landing and sliding a tiny bit from a double jump, it takes a 1-2 seconds to exit jump animation to idle animation. I dont have any exit time. How do I fix that? Should I upload my project?

My animation handler code:

Code (CSharp):

1.         [Header("Animation Parameters")]
2.         public Animator MyAnimator;
3.         public float ForwardAxisSharpness = 10;
4.         public float VerticalAxisSharpness = 5;
5.         private float forwardVelocity;
6.         private float verticalVelocity;
7.         private float desiredForwardSpeed;
8.         private float desiredVerticalSpeed;
9.  
10.         private void Update()
11.         {
12.             AnimationHandler();
13.         }
14.  
15.         public void AnimationHandler()
16.         {
17.             forwardVelocity = Mathf.Lerp(forwardVelocity, desiredForwardSpeed, 1f - Mathf.Exp(-ForwardAxisSharpness * Time.deltaTime));
18.  
19.             MyAnimator.SetFloat("ForwardSpeed", forwardVelocity);
20.             MyAnimator.SetBool("grounded", Motor.GroundingStatus.IsStableOnGround);
21.  
22.             MyAnimator.SetFloat("VerticalSpeed", desiredVerticalSpeed);
23.         }
24.  
25.  public void SetInputs(ref PlayerCharacterInputs inputs)
26.         {
27.             // Clamp input
28.             Vector3 moveInputVector = Vector3.ClampMagnitude(new Vector3(inputs.MoveAxisRight, 0f, inputs.MoveAxisForward), 1f);
29.  
30.             // Calculate camera direction and rotation on the character plane
31.             Vector3 cameraPlanarDirection = Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(inputs.CameraRotation * Vector3.forward, Motor.CharacterUp).normalized;
32.             if (cameraPlanarDirection.sqrMagnitude == 0f)
33.             {
34.                 cameraPlanarDirection = Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(inputs.CameraRotation * Vector3.up, Motor.CharacterUp).normalized;
35.             }
36.             Quaternion cameraPlanarRotation = Quaternion.LookRotation(cameraPlanarDirection, Motor.CharacterUp);
37.  
38.             // Move and look inputs
39.             _moveInputVector = cameraPlanarRotation * moveInputVector;
40.             _lookInputVector = cameraPlanarDirection;
41.  
42.             // Jumping input
43.             if (inputs.JumpDown)
44.             {
45.                 _timeSinceJumpRequested = 0f;
46.                 _jumpRequested = true;
47.             }
48.  
49.             // Animation
50.             desiredForwardSpeed = moveInputVector.magnitude * MaxStableMoveSpeed;
51.         }
52.  
53. public void SetInputs(ref PlayerCharacterInputs inputs)
54.         {
55.             // Clamp input
56.             Vector3 moveInputVector = Vector3.ClampMagnitude(new Vector3(inputs.MoveAxisRight, 0f, inputs.MoveAxisForward), 1f);
57.  
58.             // Calculate camera direction and rotation on the character plane
59.             Vector3 cameraPlanarDirection = Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(inputs.CameraRotation * Vector3.forward, Motor.CharacterUp).normalized;
60.             if (cameraPlanarDirection.sqrMagnitude == 0f)
61.             {
62.                 cameraPlanarDirection = Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(inputs.CameraRotation * Vector3.up, Motor.CharacterUp).normalized;
63.             }
64.             Quaternion cameraPlanarRotation = Quaternion.LookRotation(cameraPlanarDirection, Motor.CharacterUp);
65.  
66.             // Move and look inputs
67.             _moveInputVector = cameraPlanarRotation * moveInputVector;
68.             _lookInputVector = cameraPlanarDirection;
69.  
70.             // Jumping input
71.             if (inputs.JumpDown)
72.             {
73.                 _timeSinceJumpRequested = 0f;
74.                 _jumpRequested = true;
75.             }
76.  
77.             // Animation
78.             desiredForwardSpeed = moveInputVector.magnitude * MaxStableMoveSpeed;
79.         }
80.  

 

I noticed a lot camera clipping into the player when you face the wall or when you standing under a moving platform or crouching in tight spaces in the walkthrough examples. Is there a way to minimize that?

 

Any camera controllers included in KCC are for minimal example purposes only, since KCC isn't a camera plugin. Look instead into Cinemachine, which is freely available in the package manager and has camera collision functionality. If you're looking for a third-person camera controller, try its Free Look Camera component, of which an instance can be created in the editor and configured very quickly.

 

In FPS I suppose it's best to calculate near camera plane and place the camera inside the player capsule collider just enough to make sure it never clips through the walls even for players with obscure aspect ratios?

 

For an FPS, I would expect the camera to be centered (on the x and z axis) rather than offset forward at all.

 

Yes, you are right, thanks for correcting me. Offsetting the camera on Z axis would look terrible when rotating around Y axis as the player looks around

 

Does the camera controller script work with cinemachine together? I still couldnt figure out my first problem. Where is the drag coming from. I set drag to 0 and i am still slipping when i land from a jump.

is there a manual for scripting the controller? I want to get hit.normal on slope angle to i can slide on steep slopes.

 

Cinemachine's FreeLook component can function without supporting scripts. But, you can move a Cinemachine virtual camera just like any other transform if you want to script your own controller.

Drag is the opposite of what you're describing. For reference, I use a drag of 0.1f. If you're consistently sliding only on landing, I'm not sure what could cause that. I've noticed that my controller occasionally slides a bit on landing as well, and I haven't found the cause in my case either. I'm interested in if anyone else has noticed this and found a fix.

The Kinematic Character Controller package comes with an API reference and user guide. The playground example character controller slides on steep slopes. You're sliding if grounded but not stable (Motor.GroundingStatus.FoundAnyGround && !Motor.GroundingStatus.IsStableOnGround). The normal is Motor.GroundingStatus.GroundNormal.

 

thank, your right, there is sliding. Any ideas how get sliding speed or check when the character is sliding?

 

good news, I found out where the drag thingy coming from. Theres no setting you can make to adjust it. Disappointing... You have to go inside your kcm script and add a variable or something. Its handle under HandleVelocityProjection()

Code (CSharp):

1.      /// <summary>
2.         /// Allows you to override the way velocity is projected on an obstruction
3.         /// </summary>
4.         public virtual void HandleVelocityProjection(ref Vector3 velocity, Vector3 obstructionNormal, bool stableOnHit)
5.         {
6.             if (GroundingStatus.IsStableOnGround && !MustUnground())
7.             {
8.                 // On stable slopes, simply reorient the movement without any loss
9.                 if (stableOnHit)
10.                 {
11.                     velocity = GetDirectionTangentToSurface(velocity, obstructionNormal) * velocity.magnitude;
12.                 }
13.                 // On blocking hits, project the movement on the obstruction while following the grounding plane
14.                 else
15.                 {
16.                     Vector3 obstructionRightAlongGround = Vector3.Cross(obstructionNormal, GroundingStatus.GroundNormal).normalized;
17.                     Vector3 obstructionUpAlongGround = Vector3.Cross(obstructionRightAlongGround, obstructionNormal).normalized;
18.                     velocity = GetDirectionTangentToSurface(velocity, obstructionUpAlongGround) * velocity.magnitude;
19.                     velocity = Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(velocity, obstructionNormal);
20.                 }
21.             }
22.             else
23.             {
24.                 if (stableOnHit)
25.                 {
26.                     // Handle stable landing
27.                     velocity = Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(velocity, CharacterUp);
28.                     velocity = GetDirectionTangentToSurface(velocity, obstructionNormal) * velocity.magnitude;
29.                 }
30.                 // Handle generic obstruction
31.                 else
32.                 {
33.                     velocity = Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(velocity, obstructionNormal);
34.                 }
35.             }
36.         }

You can simply multiply by 0.5f to reduce the drag by half. Deleting will feel weird.
// Handle stable landing
velocity = Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(velocity, CharacterUp) * 0.5f;
velocity = GetDirectionTangentToSurface(velocity, obstructionNormal) * velocity.magnitude * 0.5f;

And the sliding is kinda handle underneath "Handle generic obstruction" I dont know what that means

 

I think I found a bug. If you have double jump on and not allow jump while sliding, you can still jump from sliding. I think its because you're not resetting double jump when you jump on a slippery slope. Same problem in the walkthrough.

 

I want to say its a good character controller, I am loving it, and i am looking forward to make further improvements and adjustments to this character controller. I learn so much already even though i am kinda a beginner. I seen people game dev logs using this controller and i am amazed how much further potential this controller has to offer. To the creator; please dont give up.

 

I fixed all the bugs above. How do i check if the player sliding is true on a steep slope and check sliding is false after the player stop sliding?