Quick update on Walk (Patreon)

I really hoped to post an alpha 2 build before the end of the month but time flies! I think it's still worth a quick update, for those interested.

So I went through a few iterations and explored a few models. Dynamic head-driven walking cycles is a tricky problem. My initial assumption, which was "hey I'll just animate the path of the foot and there you go!" works for constant speed walking, or slow acceleration. But in VR, this is not what happens. Humans wiggle their heads around, so the feet were trying to "predict" movement and hilarity ensues. I then thought I could continuously update the curve, but it's not a super idea either since when you move forward, then backwards just a little bit, the path changes direction and the foot flies around like crazy. So, no choice, I have to continuously update the arrival, detect potential landing conflicts, and smoothly adapt the path while accepting off landings.

And it works, that is very cool! I was also able to review how the feet angle works, so now I'm actually defining where the weight is, and if the weight is further forward than the toes, the feet will rock on them; same when crouching or when reaching up. This part works very well, and I was able to also use that logic to automatically handle the "three rockers" (heel roll, ankle bend, forefoot), which helps make the whole cycle looks more natural.

So now I have messy code due to the many attempts I've made, I need to do some basic cleanup, and also fix a few known problems that I left since I didn't know if the solutions would pan out. I think those will be fairly straightforward. Then I also want to better manage hip position, specifically when looking down and crouching, the hip should recede much more than when just crouching. Otherwise when you look down to look at your own body, the model crouches and walks forward which feels very weird.

Then the hip rotation and weight also need some tweaking, since that's what makes the walk cycle "work". This includes weight absorption on foot contact and hip style for a more feminine or masculine feel.

I'll also probably add a few basic controls to better integrate to Timeline (and other animation systems). I already have feet targets, to determine exactly where you want the feet to end up, and a trigger to disable walking but keep the foot auto-bending.

I hope to release something "soon" with the new system but still ugly, then another (or more as warranted) with style improvements and basic controls, and then I can go on tweak mode, which is the most painful part but also the one that will make it look actually good.

There's also a big problem that I didn't yet think of an elegant solution: passing collisions. Currently you can easily get feet completely tangled. I could scan for collision every frame and hope that the resolve engine would give the same result every time, but I feel that there's an elegant solution to that problem.

Working with physics, VaM and learning all those details on how walking actually works (and walking in circles just to feel how my own body behaves and realizing tons of small details that we take for granted) is hugely interesting but much more complex than I thought. Once I get something that works "okay", I'll probably make a poll to know whether people are still actually interested in this, I know I have lots of requests (and ideas) for other plugins too.

As usual, thanks for everyone who supports and give meaning to all those efforts!

Oh, there are a few videos on Discord but I'll try to make one here as soon as I squashed the experience-breaking bugs so you can see how it behaves now!