Every 3rd person controller i have used/tried in unity has always looked and felt somewhat strange.
I really do not know how to describe this. there is a chunkiness to it.
Maybe its the animation but I feel it is mostly the camera. Do anyone one have any insights to this?
Do you have examples of third person games that youāve played that you feel donāt suffer from the problems youāre seeing? if itās hard to explain, perhaps some A/B vids of āthis one feels badā āthis one doesnātā might help us understand what you are having problems with.
Iām interested in this as well. Please let us know what kind of input devices youāre using, too.
Every time I eat food, I feel things. Anybody know what this is about?
Joking. There is a lot of subtle things that can make a controller feel good or awful. Some has to do with camera rotation and responsiveness, camera drag or bounciness (not technical terms), character gameobject response, animation timing, FPS⦠first, like others said, you need to define what ārightā looks like.
Most likely due to the āgeneralā structure of all controllers that are not customized for specific games. Most readily available controllers have to be generalized enough so they can be later customized to fit many ātypesā of setups. Without the work put in to add customized āfeelā to the controller - it will feel kind of chunky. ![]()
Most fps controllers probably feel either too jarring or too floaty as well. This is the result of the same logic as 3rd person controllers. Without customizing the āgenericā controllers - they are going to feel āoffā.
For action games, I donāt prefer physics-based player controllers. They may be more realistic, but I prefer responsiveness over realism. This is usually a low level design decision that canāt be tweaked out with customization, at least not without rewriting the whole thing. Iām still curious what games @JohnHudeski would cite as good third person feel.
Imho simply noticing these puts you a little ahead of the curve already. The real challenge is fixing them.
I think itās about noticing every little detail of the finely tweaked behaviour of a good reference controller, and then re-implementing that. It might help to capture 60fps camera footage with your input device and the game both in view, to do frame-by-frame analysis of how the 3rd person controller reacts to inputs.
Depends on what genre youāre going for. Of the top of my head Iām thinking Dark Souls, GTA V, Rise of the Tomb Raider (in no specific order).
For Good Feel i would cite Vanquish
Tomb Raider Max payne
I dont think Dark Souls is particularly good you are lost in the intensity of the game that you dont see how janky it can be sometimes but it is consistent with its rules
Prince of persia and assassins creed do a good job but they are using multiple cameras and actually have camera programmer/directors
Gears of war also does a pretty good job of it
What I am trying to do is to have that close camera that frames the game well enough but still keeps your character as a priority on the screen
Dead space is nice. I think there is also something about animation speed
Thanks for the humorous replies (Food
). It was a very gut reaction post and I needed to be a little vague to encourage a brain dump from willing participants
I like the feel of the Gears games and other games that clone that controller, like Mass Effect. Notice that there is no animation or camera lag. (And no physics simulation or root motion animation positioning.) Iām a keyboard and mouse player. If you look down and slide your mouse fast to the right, your character and camera will rotate clockwise without any delay. Itās less realistic and causes foot skating, but itās more responsive. I prefer AI-controlled NPCs to use root motion, though, since itās easier to see foot skating on other characters than your own.
I actually forgot Mass Effect.
But in terms of programming what are they actually doing differently.
There is a different camera for locomotion (running and walking mode)
Melee and shooting
Apart from the starting position what else is different?
Itās been a while since I played a Gears or Mass Effect game. But Iāve implemented a camera and controller in Unity that feels virtually indistinguishable, so it can certainly be done. (It was designed to emulate ME1ās controls, if that tells you how long ago it was.)
If I recall correctly, during gameplay thereās only one camera. When the player sprints, they change the FOV. Itās possible they use a different camera for scopes, but I think they just zoom and change the FOV. When the player gets hit, they do a camera shake. When the player rotates, the camera acts like itās on a rigid dolly over the playerās shoulder. It follows immediately; it doesnāt gradually slide into position. It will move in and slightly up or down to avoid clipping obstructions behind the player. It does a decent job of avoiding clipping. Level geometry is designed so the camera can always move right above the playerās head in the worst case if the player backs up against a wall.
Cant find it on your asset page.
What is your starting fov?
Itās not published as an asset. It was for a game that got cancelled, actually the same game that the Dialogue System and Love/Hate came out of, but I didnāt turn the player controller into an asset. And there are some really good third person controllers on the horizon such as Opsiveās TPCv2 so thereās no need now. I think it just used the default camera FOV except when sprinting and sniping.
I agree ME and GoW - both of them Gears and God o fWar have great 3rd person controls.
Iāve not played a Gears game ever - but from extensive research and observation think that is one of the most cinematic 3rd person controllers ever created.
I think it would be a really great Unity Asset if someone recreated āPopularā cameras. Like the camera from Dark Souls? Hereās those settings. Battlefront? Hereās that. DOTA2? We got that camera too.
Etcetera!
Most of the controllers in the asset store do way too much. I would be interested in purchasing a bare bones system that does just what i need. No more.
Canāt you modify the standard assets controller?
Iām just curious (since I donāt plan to put yet another controller on the store) ā what is ājust what you needā? Cover? Vaulting? Climbing? If so, you probably need a way to know when to climb and when to stop climbing (or when to fall and when to stop falling, etc.) Shooting weapons? If so, you might need a way to keep track of ammo, equip and unequip weapons, etc.
The standard assets third person controller isnāt great for action games. Itās nice to study, but Iām not sure I would use it as a base.
Every thing you said but mostly just running couching aim down sight
Iād imagine things like snap to cover work the same way as you would do interactions. Snap to objects
The default controller in Unreal Seems so well grounded. You can just go in and do so much with little work. Great base