Phesant33

Hi, I am aware that if I get a custom character controller, I just have to let ORK know so that it can deactivate it and take over at certain times.

What I'm not sure about is exactly how that will play out i.e. what ORK functionality could be lost if I use a custom controller.

From my limited understanding ORK stops it for some instances like dialogue etc, but specifically,
1. Can I still have abilities that will play animations, and animations on taking damage etc driven by the ORK framework?
2. Can I use the custom controller on NPCs/combatants and still use the events scripting in ORK to drive their AI? I'm guessing move AI would be gone.
Please forgive the ignorance of these questions, I'm not a programmer, and just wanted to quickly check what would be involved before paying.

Thanks heaps for any help with this.

Catacomber

I've been using a custom controller since I started with ORK with no downside except I don't know how to set up sprint with it but I imagine that could be done with a button and a small script. I only use it on my player but I'vecset up npc's with their own script for walking and all the events work all right.

All my events and abilities and animations on taking and dealing damage work fine with it. And they're all driven by the ORK Framework.

Phesant33

Solved. Ah thanks heaps Catacomber, exactly what I wanted to hear :), is it your own code or a store purchase? If so any recommendations? Thanks again though

Catacomber

It's an asset store purchase by bit by bit. On iOS my players like an onscreen dpad. So I bought his asset that provides both joystick and dpad support and then asked him via email how to set it up for first person. He was extremely helpful. But it's for mobile.

But I've used others from the asset store. Have used Gripati - not sure if there's still support and Easy Mobile Joystick which is great. If Players didn't want dpad I'd still be using it. It works on both PC and mobile. But on PC I think you want to use keys to move not a joystick.

For PC I just use the stock Unity first person controller. Have used the third person stock controller too in a test file. They all work fine with ORK.

Some people here have used others-- like Opsive--

http://forum.orkframework.com/discussion/comment/12674/#Comment_12674

Phesant33

Thanks again for the great info Cata!

gamingislove

It doesn't matter for ORK if you're using one of the (simple) built-in controls or a custom control, both are treated the same way. ORK will just enable/disable those components based on the game's current state, e.g. if an event or battle blocks the player controls, the player control component (built-in or custom one) will be disabled.

This doesn't interfere with anything else :)
As for animations - they're mostly played through the event system when needed (e.g. play sword attack animation). The optional auto move animation found in a combatant's settings (for idle/walk/run animations) are based on the movement of the combatant, not the controls. If they're not working correctly, try enabling the Use Position Change option to calculate the move speed from the actual position changes per frame (otherwise it'll try to get the speed from character controllers, rigidbodies, etc.).

Phesant33

Thanks heaps GIL, I will give this a go first and then try out the other controller.

RustedGames

@Phesant33 I already added a comment to the original opsive post so be careful before spending your money.
Getting a third party controller and integrate it to handle field animations is quite easy. The difficulty comes when integrating the animations with the battle systems. Mecanim animations are a living hell.

gamingislove

That's also one of the reasons I prefer to stick with legacy animations - you have full control over it.
Mecanim is a great system, but you lose control over things and let the state machine handle the stuff, without having the tools to really check or change what's going on ... after all this time, there's still no real way to determine how long a state will play in mecanim (hence no wait for an animation to finish in ORK).

RustedGames

Thanks the lord Skele exists and I´m able to convert generic animations to legacy ;)

Phesant33

Thanks GIL and @RustedGames, even though my game is real time and so field is fine, I am slowly experiencing some mecanim pain. Blend trees are helping a bit, but it still feels and looks fairly average at the moment - I think this is more my lack of mecanim skills though. Using ORK abilities is generally OK, I may or may not drive the animations via ORK but its great to have the game effects working (I think I would have to drive them via ORK for NPCs yes?). The next stage is to look at chaining a series of basic attacks and some cast animations while moving. I also need to do some research re ways of accommodating different animations depending on currently equipped weapons (like 15 unique for each weapon type, 2h, 1h with shield, 2xsword, bow, spear etc)

I'm hearing that I could hit some real issues if I decide to go back to time bar battle system, so its great to know there is an easy way to convert to legacy? Perhaps I should check this out as opposed to mecanim, I just loved re targeting etc, but I'm completely new to this so If there are any tutes you recommend I'm all ears.

Catacomber

I've been doing fine with legacy animations. My only complaint is that a few really nice 3d monsters in the asset store have none--they're just set up for mecanim. On the other hand, they tend to be really cheap. : ) Basically useless to me though because I like the legacy animations and I hope Unity never switches over to just mecanim.

The long time providers of 3d assets like Mr. Necturus and Protofactor continue to use legacy animations although they include a whatchamacallit that allows their animations to work with mecanim.

It's easy to convert to legacy if your 3d monsters have legacy animations. Just click on the Rig tab for the prefab of the monster and change to legacy. And then set up the legacy animations in ORK animations in the editor.

Phesant33

Thanks again Cata, great stuff to know that the legacy option is viable (I came in thinking mecanim was all the rage....)

gamingislove

In ORK, you can override animations with equipped weapons, see the animation settings of weapons for that. But it sounds like hell to set that up in mecanim :D

RustedGames

@Catacomber, the Skele component (search in Asset store) will let you convert mecanim animations to legacy or generic as well. It is not expensive and it opens a new world for you to create or modify existing animations.

@GiL I had a creazy idea (maybe is not new), since in most cases we would like to use custom controller in field mode (to have mecanim, blend tree...) but still use the power of the battle systems where ORK controls the animations, could it be possible to have a second Player prefab slot?
For example:
Default prefab = Humanoid rig setup prefab (Player Only)
Battle prefab = Legacy rig setup prefab

What do you think?

gamingislove

Can already be done - Conditional Prefabs in the combatant's settings :)
As for animations, you can define both mecanim and legacy (and custom animation system) in the same animation setup, ORK uses whatever is found (e.g. on a prefab with legacy Animation component, it'll use the legacy animation settings).