Precise walk animation for 2D main character?

olivier

Hello! Adventure Creator looks very impressive.

I was wondering if it's possible to make 2D main character really walk according to his feet position.

In most of the game engines, 2d  characters only walk at a constant speed.

The bottom image in the following link illustrates that idea:

https://animationbegins.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/001-2.jpg

If you set the movement at the correct speed, you can have the illusion that the character is walking (but there's always a subtle slipping effect)

For a precise walk animate, you need to adjust every frame on the feet position as explained on the top image:

https://animationbegins.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/001-2.jpg

There are only a very few game engines that have this feature (Wintermute, per example), but it's something that can be important if you have detailled animations.

Do you know if this effect can be achieved in Adventure Creator?

If not, is it planned in coming releases?

Sorry for the bother and many thanks for your help!

ChrisIceBox

Welcome to the forum, @olivier.  Ah, the old Animator's Survival Kit!

This feature's implementation would be more dependent on Unity itself.  What you're asking about is a 2D equivalent of Unity's root motion feature, which has only just been made available and is still quite young.  However, I will certainly look to see if it's enough to make possible, as I agree that it would be a good feature to have.

In the meantime, know that if you set your character's Animation engine to Sprites Unity Complex (as opposed to the default Sprites Unity), then you can use Mecanim parameters and build an FSM to build an animation set-up that's tailored to your needs.  This would be useful if you had e.g. Idle -> Walk transition animations, for really smooth animation.

olivier

Many thanks for your help!

I didn't know about root motion. I played with it today:

I added the property "position" to my walk animation and changed the x & y for each frame according to the feet position.

Then I set "Both Tangents" on "Constant" (to avoid interpolation) and I clicked on "Generate Root Motion Curves".

Finally I checked the box "Apply Root Motion" in the sprite child object of my character.

Now, when I play my game, the character walks according to his feet position... but I can't control him: he walks straight until he leaves the screen, ahah !

It wasn't the  correct solution but I learned a few things doing it.

I'll try to learn more about Sprites Unity Complex in the coming days.

There are many things to learn when you start playing with Unity!

Thanks again for your help!

octone

@ChrisIceBox I'm wondering if there has been any updates related to what @olivier is asking for. This post is a few years old, but I can't seem to find any other posts related to this feature. No problem if not, I'll explore the method described here.

ChrisIceBox

Welcome to the community, @octone.

Officially, no. However, AC will detect if a 2D character's Animator has Apply Root Motion checked. If so, AC will not move a character along the axis the sprite is facing. For example, if facing left or right, then AC will not move the sprite along the x-axis - allowing this to be controlled through the root motion.

It's not an advertised feature, but it may help you here.

octone

Thanks for the additional info! Appreciate your continued updates and involvement on this forum, it's the main reason I chose Adventure Creator!