Snowsports movement
A final year project
As part of the final year of my course at Teesside university I had to pitch plan and execute a project of my own design with the help of my tutor. I chose to create a set of mechanics which could be used within a snow sports or sledding game. the original pitch for this project had it listed as a fully complete game based around these mechanics however due to the time constraints and my relative inexperience with character animation I chose to create a plug in which could be used by a third party developer who perhaps lacked the same level of technical scripting and had a focus on art or animation.
forces
The main section of this mechanic was to orient the player and have them slide down the terrain in a way that matched with real world gravity and forces.
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This was achieved through the use of the impact normal function within unreal. I was able to take the result of the players collision with the ground and add an impulse to the character which matched direction and extent of the slope underneath them.
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The multipliers used to calculate the acceleration of the player are directly editable from a separate data table which would allow for a less technical developer to easily edit and tweak values without having to enter the blueprint at all.
script
air resistance
As there is no built in function for wind resistance the project used a version of the ground friction setting from the player movement component to adjust speed based on the players movement along the Y axis with the right joystick. This meant that as a player raised or lowered their body position the ground friction would be adjusted to give an impression of drag due to the air. This was then later refined during testing to create a more natural and realistic feeling using a lerp between two floats which could be adjusted through the separate structure created for customisation within the project
terrain
The terrain create used unreal engines landscape sculpting tool, this tool allowed me to quickly create multiple testing maps during the development phase of the project.
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I chose to use simple test maps and place holding art due to this projects intension to act as a plug in used solely for movement. this would allow a third party artist or animator to develop the plug in easily and quickly without the need for technical scripting.
player control
To control the player's direction the system directly used the input from the gamepad(fig6). This input is then used to adjust the player's rotation as well as calculate an impulse which is then applied to the player to turn. The multiplier used to calculate the impulse intensity can be altered from a separate structure and also takes the y axis input in to increase the intensity of the force based on the centre of gravity's height from the board or skis.
The Y axis consideration was made due to my research into the real world physics of snow sports and the way an athlete's position affected the size of the turning circle allowing for tighter, more responsive turns with a crouched stance over a fully extended one.
full reflective report
Linked is a report further discussing the development process for this project
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