Gameplay Prototype
- Traversal System -
PROJECT TYPE
DATE
Solo Project
Unreal Engine 5
October 2022 - Present
Overview
I created this gameplay prototype of traversal mechanics to brush up on and reinforce my knowledge of implementing animations into Unreal Engine. My main goal was to implement three different traversal mechanics of varying difficulty and setup.
I decided to implement a pipe/monkey-bar swing mechanic, a rope swinging/climbing mechanic, and wall-climbing.
I also chose to build the movement system around RootMotion, so for this project animations drive the majority of basic player movement.
Each mechanic had its challenges: the pole swing needed to be more of a strict system in order to work with the animations that I had access to, the rope swing was complicated due to both using physics constraints and due to my choice to use RootMotion for movement, and the wall-climbing wasn't particularly difficult except for the ledge-climb aspect of it.
I also got some good experience using Unreal's built-in Animation Retargeter and retargeted the animations to fit a different skeleton.
I plan to make more iterations on this project as there are a few places where the implementation could be improved, and the movement itself could always feel better.
Wall-Climbing Update - 10/25/2022
The video below showcases the work that I did on both a Wall Spline tool and limiting player climbing to only climbable wall surfaces. The video also shows me toggling on a debug view of the traces/ray-casts utilized in detecting directions that the player can move along the wall. The video doesn't make it entirely clear(as I don't have keyboard input-tracking visuals), but when climbing at the edge of the rocky-textured wall, the player can't move in a direction that would move them off of the wall.