Playmaker Actions

[hazuki]

Hi,

I recently purchased and reviewed UCC, I must admit I took issue with the claim that Playmaker integration is present. The actions are minimal and if you want to try setting up experiments or even do full scale work in playmaker this isn't possible due to the lack of actions. The offer from the developer to create new actions on request is kind and I don't doubt the intention at all but...

The point of playmaker is that you can quickly jump in without touching any code, often this means you'll have a bunch of ideas and want to approach them through experimentation, for example, let's say I want to have a character stop being controlled by the user and go into a full body animation. So I make a new generic ability and invoke it via one of the available PM actions (start/stop ability)... all good yeah? Except what do I do about the IK which is still enabled? I don't have actions to stop the character from looking at their feet or the sky during the full body animation. Likewise I can barely interact with the camera to stop it from doing its own thing. I can try and use PM's reflection actions but these are not reliable across all platforms so now I'm stuck. So, if the developer supplies these actions that's great, but I have to stop working while I wait for them and in honesty it might not be the right way to go anyway as it's all prototyping, then the next hurdle comes along and I have to figure out what I think I need, post here, wait for them to be done etc.

If the question is 'What Playmaker actions do you require?'

I guess the only correct answer is 'All of them'.

Sorry to sound so negative, but I have a premium asset that I bought in good faith and I can't use it in the way I was led to believe I could and this is why I believe the claim 'Playmaker integration' is inaccurate.

 

[hazuki]

As an example, right now, I'd like to be able to try changing between preset ability configs, so I'd like to set the character's
Jump Ability
/Force
/Force Hold
/Force Damping Hold

Motor
/Root Motion Speed Multiplier
/Root Motion Air Force Multiplier

It seems kinda crazy to do this this way and I'm sure you'll get sick of me asking for many, many actions but I'm happy to try it if you are!

 

[Justin]

This is good feedback on the Playmaker actions.

The point of playmaker is that you can quickly jump in without touching any code, often this means you'll have a bunch of ideas and want to approach them through experimentation, for example, let's say I want to have a character stop being controlled by the user and go into a full body animation. So I make a new generic ability and invoke it via one of the available PM actions (start/stop ability)... all good yeah?

For jumping you can use the Start Stop Ability action and then specify the Jump ability. This action will allow you to start any ability, and is probably going to be one of the most useful actions within the integration.

Sorry to sound so negative, but I have a premium asset that I bought in good faith and I can't use it in the way I was led to believe I could and this is why I believe the claim 'Playmaker integration' is inaccurate.

As an example, right now, I'd like to be able to try changing between preset ability configs, so I'd like to set the character's
Jump Ability
/Force
/Force Hold
/Force Damping Hold

Motor
/Root Motion Speed Multiplier
/Root Motion Air Force Multiplier

It seems kinda crazy to do this this way and I'm sure you'll get sick of me asking for many, many actions but I'm happy to try it if you are!

I took the strategy on creating the 'higher level' actions because for setting individual parameters the Ultimate Character Controller has an extremely powerful system that is much easier to use than setting the parameters on individual objects. The state system allows you to change any object value based on a preset value. This is a unique system that makes it really convenient to quickly switch field values. You could create a HigherJump state and adjust the Force, Force Hold, and Force Damping Hold values and have those three values be activated when a particular state is called.

Using the included state system there really isn't a need to create an individual action for each parameter. This isn't intuitive though if you are just getting started with UCC though so I'll add it to the docs.

With that said I realized that I didn't create a SetState Playmaker action so I've included it in the Playmaker integration. I've also attached that action here.

 

[hazuki]

Hi Justin, thanks for this, I may take my review down as I feel I may have come to some conclusions prematurely about your product, sorry about that, then I can re-review later.

I can confirm that the SetState action solves a lot of the issues I thought I was going to face.

One quick, semi-related question, I don't see that it's possible to alter the gravity multiplier via a state, i wanted to use it to slow the fall speed down under certain conditions (i.e. the character can glide with an equipped item). Thanks.

 

[Justin]

Hi Justin, thanks for this, I may take my review down as I feel I may have come to some conclusions prematurely about your product, sorry about that, then I can re-review later.

Thanks for updating your review. Though it looks like you said four stars but it is still listed as three

One quick, semi-related question, I don't see that it's possible to alter the gravity multiplier via a state, i wanted to use it to slow the fall speed down under certain conditions (i.e. the character can glide with an equipped item). Thanks.

Make sure you are adding the preset to the Ultimate Character Locomotion component. I just checked and the Gravity Modifier is available when looking at the list of properties for that component.