Character controller for 4 legged creatures

[DragonSAR2013]

Have you tried to control 4 legged creatures with character controller on mountains and
slopes with animations etc., any advise will be good? I need NavMesh agents for 4 legged
creatures as well. I have just an idea of a game but could not find things to try in standard assets
for a prototype.

[LaneFox]

Many moons ago I made dis.

Used a regular navmesh, let the IK do the rest. I don’t see any reason you would need a special Navmesh just because something has four legs.

[ZJP]

Final IK is notre free. Maybe with this tools : https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/89426

Custom IK in Unity3D

[Kiwasi]

I’ve simply thrown 4 legged animations into a 2 legged controller with decent results.

[neginfinity]

@DragonSAR2013

Have you tried to control 4 legged creatures with character controller on mountains and
slopes with animations etc., any advise will be good? I need NavMesh agents for 4 legged
creatures as well. I have just an idea of a game but could not find things to try in standard assets
for a prototype.

Character controller doesn’t have legs. The process is the same for any kind of creature. As long as you provided animations and plugged them in, creature will move/walk like usual. Animation can easily have root motion on it, if you want it.

However, if you want to use mecanim with it, you’re out of luck. You’ll need to use generic animations, meaning those are non-retargetable.

So, as others said it is usual set of animations + ik. The rest depends on how steep your slope is.

[angrypenguin]

@neginfinity

Character controller doesn’t have legs.

It doesn’t, but since it’s based on a capsule collider it’s a decent approximation of a biped and a rather poor approximation of a horse.

[neginfinity]

@angrypenguin

It doesn’t, but since it’s based on a capsule collider it’s a decent approximation of a biped and a rather poor approximation of a horse.

I was talking about “Character Controller” concept, and not CharacterController class from unity scripting API.

Biped, quadruped, hexapod, octopod principle will remain the same. You have a collider object floating above the ground that plays attached animation while moving.

[DragonSAR2013]

Thanks all, great suggestions!
I will keep you all posted of progress.

[Martin_H]

Does anyone know an example where quadruped walking has been done entirely procedural in a game, and it looks perfect (or at least very close to perfect)? Like no moving the same leg for a tiny distance twice in a row, moving legs in a sensible order, no weird glitches during turns and complex maneuvers, working properly with height differences and slopes etc…

[LaneFox]

@Martin_H

Does anyone know an example where quadruped walking has been done entirely procedural in a game, and it looks perfect (or at least very close to perfect)? Like no moving the same leg for a tiny distance twice in a row, moving legs in a sensible order, no weird glitches during turns and complex maneuvers, working properly with height differences and slopes etc…

I definitely haven’t. Isn’t procedural animation kind of a fairly new area of design interest anyway?

I think it’s totally plausible. I mean, the video of the design I made was really conceptually straightforward and looked pretty good. I’d imagine with some more contingencies and stuff you could certainly make a procedural quadrupedal character act near-perfect.

[Martin_H]

@LaneFox

I definitely haven’t. Isn’t procedural animation kind of a fairly new area of design interest anyway?

I think it’s totally plausible. I mean, the video of the design I made was really conceptually straightforward and looked pretty good. I’d imagine with some more contingencies and stuff you could certainly make a procedural quadrupedal character act near-perfect.

I’ve got something that mostly works and except for 1 or 2 gamedesign relevant edge cases I should probably just leave it and move on, but I can be a bit of a perfectionist and this is an aspect I care about :-/.