Maximum Wonk

wobbly gifs of procedural creatures.

[maximumwonk]

What happens when your character is controlled by physics and you turn all the joint anchors off...

[maximumwonk]

Added some tutorial signposts and speech bubbles to my wonky witch game. Features like this take a long time and can feel pretty minor, but having things to talk to in the game makes the whole thing feel more alive!

[maximumwonk]

BEHOLD THE SQUIGGLE

[maximumwonk]

Wonky witch game devlog 2/???

Our lovely Wonch now has some flashy spells she can cast to defend herself.  Super fun designing the particle effects for these in Unity!

[maximumwonk]

Took my wonky witch model from last October and turned her into a platformer protagonist!

[maximumwonk]

Just pacing around, waiting for October.

[maximumwonk]

pls don’t look at me ~

[maximumwonk]

BEEG LEG

little leg.

[maximumwonk]

A wonky elephant on a wonky rampage!  

Being able to knock around objects in the scene is one of the top benefits of a physics-based-animation system like this.  Obstacles also naturally impede motion, so creatures getting stuck or stumbling as they push stuff around is a big bonus.

[maximumwonk]

The wonks have motion!  Running laps to keep that beach bod.

The system uses all physics and inverse kinematics to move the little bird feet, resulting in some wiggly but endearing movement.

[maximumwonk]

Mama and bb birds checkin out a snack.  An old gif from my physics/ik experiments I never shared.

[maximumwonk]

Look at him go!  Combined my custom IK system with a physics controller, and now my bird son is more fabulous than ever.  

This uses PID controllers to apply torques to all his body parts, which can add a lot of wobbly personality.  Sometimes too much.  But now the model will try to maintain the posture set by their IK system, while being fully, physically responsive.  

[maximumwonk]

The dynamic duo is back - over a year since they first started flailing around, now they're hooked up to a custom full-body IK solver using some crazy hacking of the FABRIK and Kabsch algorithms. In theory, this let's them calculate their poses based on any number of desired limb positions, and determine when goals are unreachable or require repositioning.

Much love to Zalo and his genius-level math utility tools without which this would not exist.

Still want to get the whole system physics responsive, but feeling proud of the progress 🤩

[maximumwonk]

A ~minty green~ hillside, perfect for Wonks.

Had to take a minute to reign in dev goals, but now our wonky friends have a new home.

[maximumwonk]

WONTOBER #11 - a Wonkephant.  

Need several creatures to represent multiple body shapes and leg counts.  Hopefully this’ll help me craft a balance and walking scheme that works with lots of different animals.  More to come!

[maximumwonk]

WONKTOBER #10 - Someone’s got toes!  Ended up being important for making sure his feet point the right way while his legs do their thing.  Now his dance skills are even more wonky.

[maximumwonk]

WONKTOBER #9ish?  This bird knows how to party!

I realized my previous movement system was breaking all sorts of physics rules that inevitably caused major problems (i.e. constantly exploding).  So this neat fellow now moves using joint torques.  I built a little script just to point his limbs in a given direction, already pretty amusing tbh.