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> inverse kinematics and animation blending Either this is a central feature of your game, and writing it is worth it. Or it’s a technical boondoggle, and you

> inverse kinematics and animation blending Either this is a central feature of your game, and writing it is worth it. Or it’s a technical boondoggle, and you don’t need it.

jayd16 1y ago
This is table stakes for any 3D animation, these days. Anim pop is embarrassing and almost certainly you'll want look IK let alone any of the more complex usage.
- monkeyelite 1y ago
  > This is table stakes for any 3D animation You’re doing 3d skeletal animation for your indie game? How many skeletons and animations are you going to make? And you don’t consider it a central feature?
  - jayd16 1y ago
    If you have any animations you're going to want to blend them. If you don't want to make a lot of animations you're probably going to want to use IK for procedural animation. If you use an engine, you won't be forced to spend time and make it a defacto central feature (because you wont have time for other features). You'll just have access to it. Evan a 2.5D platformer, a common indie genre, would want animation blending and foot IK without innovating on it.
    - monkeyelite 1y ago
      > If you have any animations you're going to want to blend them. Yes, if 3d skeletal animation is a central feature of your game it’s not a big deal to spend time making a good system that works for you. > you're probably going to want to use IK Plenty of 3D games with 3d animation don’t have IK > for procedural animation. Wow your game has 3d procedural animation! That better be the main feature right? The reason I’m so skeptical is a feature has cost whether it’s written in the engine you use or not. You have to do work to make your content look good for IK, and for an indie games that’s critical resources to invest in that. For most games, spending time tweaking rigs for IK is not going to make your product better.
      - jayd16 1y ago
        > You have to do work to make your content look good for IK, and for an indie games that’s critical resources to invest in that. This is the entire point of using an engine. You can spend time on the content instead of coding features that aren't unique. Suddenly many types of content are far less costly.
        monkeyelite 1y ago
        I’m saying the real cost is the content. It’s not hard to implement any of these features, you just don’t have time to do them all. I agree an engine can be a good prototyping tool.
andrewflnr 1y ago
Blatantly false dichotomy.
- monkeyelite 1y ago
  Or You simply aren’t ruthless enough about how much time you have on an indie project.
  - andrewflnr 1y ago
    Or those features can be nice-to-haves that are worth it if they're not too much effort, such as if, say, I don't know, an engine handles them for you. Come on, real life rarely justifies such easy, simple decisions. And polish can matter a lot for games.
    - monkeyelite 1y ago
      Sure I’m expressing a value judgment, a design preference - not an eternal truth. And the principle is I want to spent the effort on the most important features in which case it’s not a big deal to write them. Your best features become better than if they were cobbled together in Unity.
      - andrewflnr 1y ago
        That is, to be generous, a rather extreme and niche value judgement that corresponds to no utility I can think of. Real life has a spectrum of "important features" and a corresponding spectrum of justified effort. If that's your idea of artistic integrity, then you do you, but for anyone else it's probably nonsense.
        monkeyelite 1y ago
        > to be generous, a rather extreme and niche value judgement that corresponds to no utility I can think of Ok, well I look forward to seeing your games then, as I’m sure you’re skilled at shipping.
raincole 1y ago
It's just so wrong. These things are very standardized, and you often just want the common implementation that everyone is using. Writing these in most cases is like writing your own SHA256.
- monkeyelite 1y ago
  Is your indie game more complex than quake 3?
iFire 1y ago
Heh, I contribute to a FOSS social vr project called https://github.com/v-sekai https://github.com/v-sekai and the majority of the multi year effort was asset pipeline, ik and animation blending. Yes we donated the code to Godot Engine but we choose working on the tooling problem rather than the game… The V-Sekai game is in limbo / not a game. We made godot-vrm which does 3d avatars, with basic animations, look at, jiggle and copy constraints. Since we’re unable to use the unity ecosystem’s finalik or unreal engine’s control rig we have to code to the same level of professional quality with no budget. Features like stable multi-joint y-branching rotation and position constraints are hard. Feel free to chat in V-Sekai discord. I’m iFire.
- arminiusreturns 1y ago
  Using Godot for my big project, thank you for donating the IK stuff to godot!

> inverse kinematics and animation blending Either this is a central feature of your game, and writing it is worth it. Or it’s a technical boondoggle, and you don’t need it.

jayd16 1y ago

This is table stakes for any 3D animation, these days. Anim pop is embarrassing and almost certainly you'll want look IK let alone any of the more complex usage.

monkeyelite 1y ago
> This is table stakes for any 3D animation You’re doing 3d skeletal animation for your indie game? How many skeletons and animations are you going to make? And you don’t consider it a central feature?
- jayd16 1y ago
  If you have any animations you're going to want to blend them. If you don't want to make a lot of animations you're probably going to want to use IK for procedural animation. If you use an engine, you won't be forced to spend time and make it a defacto central feature (because you wont have time for other features). You'll just have access to it. Evan a 2.5D platformer, a common indie genre, would want animation blending and foot IK without innovating on it.
  - monkeyelite 1y ago
    > If you have any animations you're going to want to blend them. Yes, if 3d skeletal animation is a central feature of your game it’s not a big deal to spend time making a good system that works for you. > you're probably going to want to use IK Plenty of 3D games with 3d animation don’t have IK > for procedural animation. Wow your game has 3d procedural animation! That better be the main feature right? The reason I’m so skeptical is a feature has cost whether it’s written in the engine you use or not. You have to do work to make your content look good for IK, and for an indie games that’s critical resources to invest in that. For most games, spending time tweaking rigs for IK is not going to make your product better.
    - jayd16 1y ago
      > You have to do work to make your content look good for IK, and for an indie games that’s critical resources to invest in that. This is the entire point of using an engine. You can spend time on the content instead of coding features that aren't unique. Suddenly many types of content are far less costly.
      - monkeyelite 1y ago
        I’m saying the real cost is the content. It’s not hard to implement any of these features, you just don’t have time to do them all. I agree an engine can be a good prototyping tool.

andrewflnr 1y ago

Blatantly false dichotomy.

monkeyelite 1y ago
Or You simply aren’t ruthless enough about how much time you have on an indie project.
- andrewflnr 1y ago
  Or those features can be nice-to-haves that are worth it if they're not too much effort, such as if, say, I don't know, an engine handles them for you. Come on, real life rarely justifies such easy, simple decisions. And polish can matter a lot for games.
  - monkeyelite 1y ago
    Sure I’m expressing a value judgment, a design preference - not an eternal truth. And the principle is I want to spent the effort on the most important features in which case it’s not a big deal to write them. Your best features become better than if they were cobbled together in Unity.
    - andrewflnr 1y ago
      That is, to be generous, a rather extreme and niche value judgement that corresponds to no utility I can think of. Real life has a spectrum of "important features" and a corresponding spectrum of justified effort. If that's your idea of artistic integrity, then you do you, but for anyone else it's probably nonsense.
      - monkeyelite 1y ago
        > to be generous, a rather extreme and niche value judgement that corresponds to no utility I can think of Ok, well I look forward to seeing your games then, as I’m sure you’re skilled at shipping.

raincole 1y ago

It's just so wrong. These things are very standardized, and you often just want the common implementation that everyone is using. Writing these in most cases is like writing your own SHA256.

monkeyelite 1y ago
Is your indie game more complex than quake 3?

iFire 1y ago

Heh, I contribute to a FOSS social vr project called https://github.com/v-sekai https://github.com/v-sekai and the majority of the multi year effort was asset pipeline, ik and animation blending. Yes we donated the code to Godot Engine but we choose working on the tooling problem rather than the game… The V-Sekai game is in limbo / not a game. We made godot-vrm which does 3d avatars, with basic animations, look at, jiggle and copy constraints. Since we’re unable to use the unity ecosystem’s finalik or unreal engine’s control rig we have to code to the same level of professional quality with no budget. Features like stable multi-joint y-branching rotation and position constraints are hard. Feel free to chat in V-Sekai discord. I’m iFire.

arminiusreturns 1y ago
Using Godot for my big project, thank you for donating the IK stuff to godot!