[Mod] Imporved jumping physics

[WingedWolf93]

Hello folks!

I do realise that I might have been a kind of an annoying pest back in the day when I was actually active in these forums, but I'd like to share something now, and not talk nonsense all the time about how I think wolfire guys should do their job.

Then again, this "mod" may annoy someone because I'm actually trying to make a point here, but I'd like to just give you guys an example of how OG might be improved in future, that's all.

This video pretty much explains what this mod does:


Again, I'm sorry for being an idiot before.

Enjoy!

[Silverfish]

Please upload it to the forums so we won't have to deal with millions of ads and stuff.

This is looking interesting I'm checking it out!

[Anton]

I just gave this a shot, and it is definitely pretty cool. There are a couple things that feel weird about it though (and of course, I've had a long period of time to be used to jumping as it was...). My biggest issue with it is that you lose directional control, especially when jumping off of uneven surfaces. It redirects you based off the angle of the ground as well... Also problematic is that if you make a jump, and you land, and jump again, your momentum continues from your jump, even when facing a different direction.
So the problem is a lack of forward momentum now. If you jump while moving forward, and pushing forward, you should be able to move in that direction... instead it feels like everything requires running to make jumping possible. Is there a way that you can blend the two options together? I think it could make for an interesting change...

[Silverfish]

I tried it as well and did a small change where I use the following code...

Code: Select all

this_mo.velocity/15 + target_velocity / 4

Instead of...

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this_mo.velocity/10

Just to give the player more freedom in terms of where he can go at the start while not sacrificing the physical aspect too much. Though I haven't compared it to the original jump so it might be too long or too short, but it feels pretty good at least.

It felt a bit too floaty to me, and it still feels a bit floaty, but I might be able to get used to it. My beloved wall jumping stuff seems to work fine with this mod so I'm happy about that.

The jumping feels much more accurate in general and you don't get those times where you land on a platform while still holding jump and you just fly away uncontrollably. I like the mod!

[WingedWolf93]

Alright, uploaded it here (Didn't realise I could do that, sorry about that.).

About the sense of control - it's definitely something you might have to get used to after playing something with totally different jumping physics.

The idea was to make the physics based around your running speed, making the jumping a lot more realistic and controlled, while originally OG would send you flying in your desired direction in a speed that is actually faster (I believe) than your actual running speed, making the jumping a kind of an overpowered move that you can't really completely control.

I tried it as well and did a small change where I use the following code...

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this_mo.velocity/15 + target_velocity / 4

I just had the exact same idea of how to combine the two. I'll try it out in a minute and see how it works.

Thanks for the feedback!

EDIT:

Just tried out how it works by combining the two forces and it's actually pretty good on flat ground, but it allows you to climb really steep surfaces that you can't normally walk or roll up on.

I do belive that this type of physics is still better than what OG originally has.

[Silverfish]

I did some more experimenting and tried enabling you to jump as far as you can in the original game while still letting the physics affect you noticably, and these are the numbers I came up with:

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this_mo.velocity / 10 + target_velocity / 4

[Korban3]

I'll have to try this out. Just looking at the video, I get a weightier sense to the characters. The jumping also reminds me of Die by the Sword's admittedly primitive platforming, just that it's better. The jumping was very movement based rather than input based. Looks good. Although, I think the original jumping was done that way because David wanted more forward force for running jumps and upward force for still jumps.
It's because when you sprint forward and leap, you don't propel yourself straight upward in addition to your run. You push it a diagonal vector in between the two to get maximum distance. Standing still is when you get total upward force, most of the time.
Definitely looks entertaining and yeah, the jumps are a bit more frightening with this.

[sammyrye]

THIS IS SO COOL!

I actually posted a while back asking if anyone knew a way to turn off the "super leap" that always happens when you jump forward. I wanted to design platforming maps, but the super leap made any platforming challenge way too easy, and took away the whole sense of speed and "flow" that I like in a platformer.

I made a quick map out of simple blocks to play around with the new physics. The map is really not any fun at all with the standard jumping, since you can just jump from block to block without building up speed. It's really no challenge at all, so it's boring.

But, with this new jumping, it's actually fun because you have to time your jumps right to keep up your momentum, if you want to clear the large gaps. Try it (I uploaded it here in attachments). The goal is to get to the top of the bright yellow tower.

Thanks for making this!

[Rovert]

Very cool mod. I do agree that the current jumping system seems a bit... Unnatural, even for an anthropomorphized ninja rabbit. I think the direction that the mod is going is a good one. However, I seemed to notice that, just for an instant in the video near the end, you had trouble getting up a relatively steep angle that you would normally be able to jump up with the old mechanic. I don't know if this has been fixed by silverfish's suggested code, so correct me if it has. If not, then that could spell trouble for this mod in that it would actually make it more difficult to traverse paths with this new jumping that were otherwise very easy to maneuver through with the old jumping.

[Jaz]

Very cool mod. I do agree that the current jumping system seems a bit... Unnatural, even for an anthropomorphized ninja rabbit. I think the direction that the mod is going is a good one. However, I seemed to notice that, just for an instant in the video near the end, you had trouble getting up a relatively steep angle that you would normally be able to jump up with the old mechanic. I don't know if this has been fixed by silverfish's suggested code, so correct me if it has. If not, then that could spell trouble for this mod in that it would actually make it more difficult to traverse paths with this new jumping that were otherwise very easy to maneuver through with the old jumping.

Silverfish's code does indeed fix it.

Pretty easy to fix it yourself too. Just search the line Silverfish replaced using Ctrl+F, then swap out all appropriate codes.

[WingedWolf93]

Yeah, I think I mentioned this before, you can indeed climb really steep surfaces, because you can get that extra push from the start, and then you can move youself forward a bit more.

I'd agree it may actually be a bad side to a control like this, however I can't resist saying that it's probably mainly because it has been like that in Overgrowth for a very long time. Since you can indeed climb extremely steep surfaces (The example in the video was probably not steep enough to not get up there, but perhaps allowing the character to climb on steeper surfaces could fix that?), I feel it can actually damage the level design, because at least some sort of restrictions have to be made for the player in order to create some kind of work of quality. Like how fun it would be if you could just fly through walls to the finish line? Of course that's a bit too far, but I hope you see my point.

It is really fun to climb a huge structure or mauntain by finding your own path up there, but it's not that fun when you realise that you can just hold forward and space for a couple of minutes and you'll get the same result. I understand why someone would disagree with this and I totally respect that, but I just wanted to share my opinion on it.

[SylverByrd]

Not trying to be a prick or anything but I read about how you said that it was unrealistic because your jumping speed is faster than your running speed. I'm not a complete expert on physics but that might have to do with the fact that you are a rabbit. We know rabbits jump and stuff so their legs must be very strong which would propel them further and faster. Again I'm not sure if this makes sense here but...

[WingedWolf93]

Not trying to be a prick or anything but I read about how you said that it was unrealistic because your jumping speed is faster than your running speed. I'm not a complete expert on physics but that might have to do with the fact that you are a rabbit. We know rabbits jump and stuff so their legs must be very strong which would propel them further and faster. Again I'm not sure if this makes sense here but...

Well, if you look at it that way they should probably run just as fast as they jump anyway.

But whatever the case, the point is that you can't really change your jumping velocity (Except upwards, depending on how long you hold the jump key), unless you use an analog controller, which makes platforming quite limited and even, at times, annoying to deal with. I am not really talking about jumping from on huge platform to another one really far away, but reather doing more precise jumps, that would actually require landing on platforms that are easy to slip off from.

Judging from Aubrey's last Art Asset Overview video, there is going to be that kind of stuff, and I'm a bit worried that the current jumping physics might actually make those segments less enjoyable.

Then again, perhaps Overgrowth's level design later in development will actually support this kind of jumping physics in ways I haven't personally seen before in other games...

[SugarRush]

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE UPDATE THIS??? GOSH DAMMIT!!!

[Sehiro]

Imagine this mod combined with a sprinting mod... And maybe a specifically designed parkour level... Finishing it would feel glorious.
Good job