u/wylver-games

Thanks for the massive feedback on the previous post! I've addressed most of the issues that were raised and moved forward quite a bit, but there are still many things to improve. I'm genuinely hooked on this project and pushing hard to bring it to a quality you haven't seen in a game before. I hope you like where it's going and I'd love to hear your thoughts again.

Previous post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnrealEngine5/comments/1sy75rk/this_is_the_movement_system_i_always_wanted_to/

QUESTIONS FOR YOU

Head Bob: This makes movement natural and gives the body weight, but I know it causes discomfort if overdone. Does the current amount feel balanced or is it still too much?

Camera Roll: I stabilized the camera and overlaid a roll based on body lean (visible when cornering fast). The video shows both versions. Do you prefer the lean roll or a completely flat horizontal camera?

THE ANTI-NAUSEA SOLUTION

The main concern from last time was camera movement causing discomfort. I implemented three layers of stabilization to address it:

1. Locked the camera to the horizontal axis. 
2. Added shock absorption through the spine kinematics.
3. Eye-lock stabilization. Hardest one. - In reality we don't feel head movement because our eyes stay locked on a target. Calculating that point of interest purely from mouse input and a bobbing head took a solid two days of math, but finally made it work. Let me know if you want a technical breakdown of this.

AVAILABILITY

I am currently offering the locomotion system for licensing. I am also open to full-time or contract roles to integrate this architecture into ongoing projects. If your studio needs a system like this, let's talk. 

ABOUT THE SYSTEM

Several things always bothered me in military games: characters that snap direction instantly, players who jiggle left and right without weight and momentum to dodge bullets, sliding feet, and the head-glitch exploit that lets players shoot without exposing themselves. 

Key features of my system:

• I have built the core around the physics to give movement real weight and inertia while keeping inputs responsive. Lightweight soldiers are fast and maneuverable, while heavily loaded units feel sluggish and struggle to corner while running.
• All movement is procedural. No animation clips are used. All step cycles are curve-based, which makes it easy to create very different movement styles.
• The camera sits at the right eye position. It is a true first person. This removes the gap between where your head is and where your gun is, so an enemy can't fire at you without exposing themselves first - head-glitch exploit.
• The locomotion is fully separated from the IK layer. It drives null objects, and those null objects drive the biped IK. This makes switching to another engine like Unreal straightforward.

PERFORMANCE

It takes about 0.5 ms to calculate all the system and IK solver together on my old machine. I have not done any optimization so far. I'm currently using Final IK, and later plan to switch to Unity's Animation Rigging package which uses worker threads for IK calculations and should give a significant performance boost. I also plan to add refresh throttling and LOD for distant units.

FOOTNOTE

During the work I understood why systems like this are so rare - it's extremely hard to build well. In real life you just walk. Here you have to break down every type of step you take and figure out how to implement it in code, while keeping everything clean and solid. If you duct-tape any issue, you will pay for it on every step after that.

Thanks for the massive feedback on the previous post! I've addressed most of the issues that were raised and moved forward quite a bit, but there are still many things to improve. I'm genuinely hooked on this project and pushing hard to bring it to a quality you haven't seen in a game before. I hope you like where it's going and I'd love to hear your thoughts again.

Previous post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/1sy1jsu/this_is_the_movement_system_i_always_wanted_to/

QUESTIONS FOR YOU

Head Bob: This makes movement natural and gives the body weight, but I know it causes discomfort if overdone. Does the current amount feel balanced or is it still too much?

Camera Roll: I stabilized the camera and overlaid a roll based on body lean (visible when cornering fast). The video shows both versions. Do you prefer the lean roll or a completely flat horizontal camera?

THE ANTI-NAUSEA SOLUTION

The main concern from last time was camera movement causing discomfort. I implemented three layers of stabilization to address it:

1. Locked the camera to the horizontal axis. 
2. Added shock absorption through the spine kinematics.
3. Eye-lock stabilization. Hardest one. - In reality we don't feel head movement because our eyes stay locked on a target. Calculating that point of interest purely from mouse input and a bobbing head took a solid two days of math, but finally made it work. Let me know if you want a technical breakdown of this.

AVAILABILITY

I am currently offering the locomotion system for licensing. I am also open to full-time or contract roles to integrate this architecture into ongoing projects. If your studio needs a system like this, let's talk. 

ABOUT THE SYSTEM

Several things always bothered me in military games: characters that snap direction instantly, players who jiggle left and right without weight and momentum to dodge bullets, sliding feet, and the head-glitch exploit that lets players shoot without exposing themselves. 

Key features of my system:

• I have built the core around the physics to give movement real weight and inertia while keeping inputs responsive. Lightweight soldiers are fast and maneuverable, while heavily loaded units feel sluggish and struggle to corner while running.
• All movement is procedural. No animation clips are used. All step cycles are curve-based, which makes it easy to create very different movement styles.
• The camera sits at the right eye position. It is a true first person. This removes the gap between where your head is and where your gun is, so an enemy can't fire at you without exposing themselves first - head-glitch exploit.
• The locomotion is fully separated from the IK layer. It drives null objects, and those null objects drive the biped IK. This makes switching to another engine like Unreal straightforward.

PERFORMANCE

It takes about 0.5 ms to calculate all the system and IK solver together on my old machine. I have not done any optimization so far. I'm currently using Final IK, and later plan to switch to Unity's Animation Rigging package which uses worker threads for IK calculations and should give a significant performance boost. I also plan to add refresh throttling and LOD for distant units.

FOOTNOTE

During the work I understood why systems like this are so rare - it's extremely hard to build well. In real life you just walk. Here you have to break down every type of step you take and figure out how to implement it in code, while keeping everything clean and solid. If you duct-tape any issue, you will pay for it on every step after that.

QUESTIONS

Head Bob: This makes movement natural and gives the body weight, but I know it causes discomfort if overdone. Does the current amount feel balanced or is it still too much?

Camera Roll: I stabilized the camera and overlaid a roll based on body lean (visible when cornering fast). The video shows both versions. Do you prefer the lean roll or a completely flat horizontal camera?

ABOUT THE SYSTEM

Several things always bothered me in military games: characters that snap direction instantly, players who jiggle left and right without weight and momentum to dodge bullets, sliding feet, and the head-glitch exploit that lets players shoot without exposing themselves. 

Key features of my system:

- I have built the core around the physics to give movement real weight and inertia while keeping inputs responsive. Lightweight soldiers are fast and maneuverable, while heavily loaded units feel sluggish and struggle to corner while running.

- All movement is procedural. No animation clips are used. All step cycles are curve-based, which makes it easy to create very different movement styles.

- The camera sits at the right eye position. It is a true first person. This removes the gap between where your head is and where your gun is, so an enemy can't fire at you without exposing themselves first - head-glitch exploit.

- The locomotion is fully separated from the IK layer. It drives null objects, and those null objects drive the biped IK. This makes switching to another engine like Unreal straightforward.

PERFORMANCE

It takes about 0.5 ms to calculate all the system and IK solver together on my old machine. I have not done any optimization so far. I'm currently using Final IK, and later plan to switch to Unity's Animation Rigging package which uses worker threads for IK calculations and should give a significant performance boost. I also plan to add refresh throttling and LOD for distant units.

FOOTNOTE

During the work I understood why systems like this are so rare - it's extremely hard to build well. In real life you just walk. Here you have to break down every type of step you take and figure out how to implement it in code, while keeping everything clean and solid. If you duct-tape any issue, you will pay for it on every step after that.

I've been carrying this idea for several years. Finally I found the time, and after about two months of work I brought the system to a point where I'm happy to share it.

Several things always bothered me in military games - characters that snap direction instantly, players who jiggle left and right without weight and momentum to dodge bullets, the sliding feet, and the head-glitch exploit that lets players shoot without exposing themselves. After quite a lot of planning I found a way to solve all the issues and prove that it is possible to address all this.

Key features of the system:

- I have built the core around the physics to give movement real weight and inertia while keeping inputs responsive. Lightweight soldiers are fast and maneuverable, while heavily loaded units feel sluggish and struggle to corner while running.

- All movement is procedural. No animation clips are used.

- The camera sits at the right eye position. It is a true first person. This removes the gap between where your head is and where your gun is, so an enemy can't fire at you without exposing themselves first.

- All step cycles are curve-based, which makes it easy to create very different movement styles.

- The locomotion is fully separated from the IK layer. It drives null objects, and those null objects drive the biped IK. This makes switching to another engine like Unreal straightforward.

The system is still early. A lot is left to improve, and I'd genuinely love to hear your feedback.

During the work I understood why systems like this are so rare - it's extremely hard to build well. In real life you just walk. Here you have to break down every type of step you take and figure out how to implement it in code, while keeping everything clean and solid. If you duct-tape any issue, you will pay for it on every step after that.

I tested 130+ units running at the same time in the Unity editor,  which already eats a big chunk of frame time on its own, and the performance impact was minimal. I'm currently using Final IK, and later plan to switch to Unity's Animation Rigging package which uses worker threads for IK calculations and should give a significant performance boost. I also plan to add refresh throttling and LOD for distant units.

I am currently offering this system for licensing, and I am open to full-time or contract technical animation roles to integrate this architecture into ongoing projects. If there's a project out there that could use a system like this, I'd be glad to hear from you.