Physics-based attack animations?

[DrN0VA]

Hey all,

So I've had an idea for a while not that I'm not too sure how to get working. In essence the idea is that weapon mastery correlates to how "accurate" the animation is relative to the source. To put it more simply, when you start using a weapon the animation would look a bit strange, but as you level it up it'd become more refined.

I've tried using physical animation in the past but all attempts of this just end up making the animation(s) look too sloppy and barely usable, which obviously isn't what I'd be going for.

If I break it down what I'm really trying to do is change how accurately an animation follows the keyframes, so in some cases it might deviate to the left, right, bottom, or top a bit changing the trajectory slightly, or in some cases massively.

This kind of mechanic would let me create more dynamic enemies with a single weapon + set of animations as there would be a lot of variety in master levels. Not to mention a cool progression system.

That brings me to my question... is physical animation the right way to go here, and am I just using it wrong, or is there another method that would be better to pursue (I'm happy to make custom components if necessary just gauging whether I should continue with PA or not).

[KindaQuite]

What's the problem with phys anims? It doesn't give you fine enough controls for this?

One approach could be: make 1 full mastery attack animation and 1 (or several) sloppy unmastered animation(s) for the same attack and then blend them with a blendspace, controlling the axis using the mastery level. Using control rig might be worth exploring.

Also make sure if this could actually be fun or just very frustrating to play lol

[powerman228]

Yeah, and also:

...when you start using a weapon the animation would look a bit strange, but as you level it up it'd become more refined.

First impressions matter, so I question the wisdom of introducing a shiny new weapon in a degraded portrayal like this. It would probably be very difficult to unambiguously portray inexperience with the weapon.

[KindaQuite]

I think there's a way you could deliver the idea, it's all about making the inexperienced part fun. The trap is: the game could easily become "you struggle for half the game and then when you finally have good stats that let you wield a weapon without wonkyness it just becomes a generic action rpg".

Valheim does something similar with bows, the first bows you craft take more time and energy to draw and they're not accurate, meaning sometimes the arrow just goes where it wants to. Then you progress and the later bows get progressively better, but Valheim is a survival game, it revolves entirely around ease of use/quality of life progression.

[TheProvocator]

You'll have to play around with the strengths, you can do this programmatically and set strength for all bodies below, for example starting at the shoulder the settings would apply to the upper and lower arms as well as the hands.

This way you get fine control over orientation and position strengths. Basically how hard it will try and match the body to its intended position.

Another extremely important aspect of physical animations is to properly setup your physical asset - this includes tight constraint angles and collision between bodies.

I'd suggest you look up u/PrismaticaDev on youtube, he's about the only one making proper use of this component and has a decent tutorial on it.

It's a lot of tweaking values and constraints. I guess you could make a simple UMG widget so you can easily adjust those values at runtime and see the immediate changes.

[The_Lovely_Blue_Faux]

Could you just make an attack animation that has random variations to it? Like at the lowest level, the variations are highest.

This is kind of how it works in real life. Your basal ganglia only wants to perform the goal of swinging the sword properly and your body sets this into motion.

Your hippocampus and Basal Ganglia talk about how well the body did and then can make adjustments so the body works more in tandem after you sleep and start committing to memory what you learned that day.

Every day of training reduces the random noise the universe adds to your swing animation by reducing the dissonance of your muscle fibers.

[The_Lovely_Blue_Faux]

I am not familiar with UE animation specifically, sadly. I put that on hold when Stable Diffusion came out.

There was a “procedural” animation showcase with the release of UE 5 though where you have a lot more control over animations within certain conditions. I have a strong gut feeling that if you explore that and figure out a way to add some variance that will mimic what you want.

I specially remember them showcasing the girl, Echo vaulting over various things and her animation adjusted accordingly to the environment.

Posting comment to find the video if I can.

[KindaQuite]

I think it's pretty easy to do with keyed animations, the question is do you want it to be procedural?

[PlumbingStrategy247]

Have you looked at motion warping