Kinematic Character Controller

[CatalinZima]

When do you approximate we'll have a working example of the Kinematic Character Controller?

[Zukarakox]

It was supposed to be in v0.6.0, so probably whenever v0.7.0 comes out -- versions are taking about a month. v0.6.1 is supposed to come out sometime soon for a quickfix though, so it might be included in there.

[CatalinZima]

Thanks.
I hope it will be in 0.6.1, since I don't seem to get it right by myself. Maybe I just need more experimenting, since I'm not really good at physics programming.

[Norbo]

v0.6.1 *might* have it, though I'm leaning towards v0.7.0. v0.6.0's got some issues I'd like to address sooner than later, so if my latest plans for a better controller take too long I'll have to delay them (again) to v0.7.0. I'm not going to let v0.7.0 ship without some improvement with character controllers, though.

Right now, I'm planning on doing a hybrid character, using both a physical object to handle collisions gracefully while maintaining the quick response and special behaviors of a kinematic controller, such as stepping. This should be the simplest approach code-wise since a huge amount of interaction is handled by the engine itself.

[CatalinZima]

Ok then. I'll use the weird and buggy version I got to for now, and hope for 0.6.1 inclusion, or quick release of 0.7.0
Another strange behavior in the current KinematicCharacterController050 is that sometimes the jumping is odd. Sometimes I get a very strong boost upwards.

[Norbo]

The inclusion of the KinematicCharacterControllers was more of an accident, since as you can see, they aren't quite working great yet

They were basically experiments; the only things I consider robust in them were the fundamentals of stepping.




Update: Source code for an early version of the new character controller is now available in another thread: http://bepu-games.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=376

[00se7en]

Hi,
I've decided to resurrect this old post because I am having trouble with the current character controller. It works well on the demo, but always gets stuck on my triangle mesh objects. I think it thinks its airborne after a while and wont respond to movement even though its very close to the ground and isn't being pulled down by gravity any further. Now I haven't made any attempt at improving your code, but I was wondering if you were working on character controllers. I have read that lots of times character controllers end up having to be their own type of entity not an extension of a dynamic entity because they end up having to find ways to disable many dynamic entity features while implementing more of their own. Do you have any plans for including a more reliable or even "official" character controller in the engine?

[Norbo]

Do you have a reproduction case you could provide? Maybe a mesh where it happens reliably? I'm guessing that it has something to do with the size of the triangles; the convex cast between a large triangle and the flat disc used for its feet can be fairly sensitive. Otherwise, there might be a problem with the way it is trying to collect supports.

The current character control works mostly on a very arbitrary/velocity level despite being a dynamic entity. Most additional features requiring modifications to character behavior can be made without using a special kind of entity; if you have something specific in mind I could point you in the right direction. I probably won't be adding a character controller inside the engine because I'm not sure I could make it 'one size fits all' enough without becoming some sort of impossible to use abomination. I might revisit the open source character controller later on, though.

[00se7en]

It looks like the problem was my fault. My mesh worked fine in the demo code when I went to make a reproduction so I looked more carefully, and with my character, I had made his body too short compared to his radius and step height. What's odd is that he walked around for a while but then got stuck on uneven surfaces so I figured it was something wrong with collisions. Thanks for the (indirect ) help though.