Buggy movement when character in freefall

Summary

Buggy behavior when character leaves the platform edge and enters free-fall.

Background

When the penguin leaves the edge of the ground platform, it falls in a strange, 'floaty' way. It should fall normally, accelerating due to gravity. This is probably caused by some velocity changes made in the script.

I've been working continuously on animation recently, and before that was getting the character to move up slopes, so naturally little to no consideration was made with the behavior of player mechanics like falling, etc. But now that I'm starting to overhaul the movement to take skeletal mechanics into account, this 'floaty-falling' issue became quite apparent.

Walking Upright Animation

When penguin is moving while standing/upright (aka in walking state) it should move its flippers, bob its head, and move its feet in a penguin-walk-like fashion.

This should be the hardest one due to the subtleties of locomotion and what not. Will have to do a lot of watching videos and read up on the physics of such motion.

Primary Player Controls

Standing up, lying down, jumping, moving, and all that jazz, all while feeling smooth and reactive to user.

Implement advanced platforming mechanic Add proper slope handling

The game is making a pivot towards a sonic like platformer where the penguin can slide along a track-like course and collect items, among other things.

This means, as step towards having sonic like behavior is to having much improve handling for a variety of different surfaces, from sloped/curved/jagged, etc.

...In other words, more advanced collision detection is needed, whether it be through raycasting, composite colliders, or other techniques, as well as rotations of the colliders, balance checks, etc.

On-belly Idle Animation

When penguin is not moving and in sliding on-belly state (for more than a second maybe?) it should bob up and down slightly moving its flippers.

Add following player controls with the conditions:

• If up arrow and lying state => switch to standing
• If down arrow and standing state => switch to lying

Upright Idle Animation

When penguin is not moving and in standing upright state (for more than a second maybe?) it should bob up and down slightly moving its flippers.

Add a splash screen, with a 'press any key to continue' sort of thing.

Primary Character Art and Animations

Note: Yes, I'm aware this got freaking huge, and should of been split up into more epics, but that's all besides the point now. I really underestimated how much time and effort all the animations would take, definitely was NOT expecting a magnitude on the scale of months!

Art and animations for the penguin character.

At the minimum should have:

• idle-standing animation (flapping wings/slight breathing movements)
• idle-sliding animation (flapping wings while lying down)
• walking animation (wings moving as it walks like a penguin)
• sliding animation (wings moving as it slides on belly like a penguin)
• jumping animation

With blended transitions between all of them too, and root motion from the ik used by the animations

Finish up the proportion/rescaling work in the art editor.

Get more-or-less to parity with the original walk animation.

Overhauling user interface to bring it in sync with rest of game

Problem

The user interface, generally speaking, is totally, aesthetically, and functionally out of sync with the rest of the game
The UI elements, functionality, robustness, and just general aesthetics are out greatly out of sync with rest of game, and becomes more so with each addition to game play art and mechanics.

Potential Solution(s)

Effectively, a redesign/overhaul is perhaps in order.

Redesign Main Menu

The main menu is horridly out of touch with the rest of the game, and has scaling issues and just generally needs to be completely overhauled to match the rest of the (current state of) game.

Add an ocean at the end of the level.

Environmental Sound Effects

Add environmental sound effects such as ambient noise, blowing wind, etc, on top of sound effects for things like crunching snow

Standing-up Animation

When penguin is lying down and in moving to standing state, it should have an animation for standing itself up from the ground.

No 60 foot penguin (due to bad planning - lol!) - so get all the parts of the test scene working with 1000 PPU and 1000 pixels = 1 meter.

Should have parallax scrolling (ie things further in the backdrop stay on screen longer than those closer), inability to move the character backwards (like in mario).

Sliding On-belly Animation

When penguin is sliding on its belly (ie moving while in onbelly state) it should move its flippers in a way that it looks like its propelling it self with them on the ground, while bobbing its head.

Add ice, snow, rock, with various properties like friction.

Rigging: Create and configure 2d skeletal animation rig for penguin sprite

Should of made an issue for this earlier, but I didn't do to how much I've had to pivot in the development from the original classic-sprite-based approach I had originally planned for.

Simulate sun-like directed light.

Level Design: Checkpoints and Spawning System

Basically need systems for keeping track of progress, spawns, etc.

Add ability to have friction by material.

Basic Environmental Art

Art assets for background mountains, platforms, and stuff. Just a bare minimum to start with is good enough.

Get more-or-less to parity with the original model prefab.

Game Introductory Cut-scene and Tutorial

Should have an introduction detailing the backstory, setting the scene, and have some popups or something summarizing the key controls.

Smooth transitions when switching between grounded/midair motions

Basically need to make jump/falls more smooth with respect to fitting in with the rest of the penguin movement.
In short, this entails more explicit handling of changing between grounded/midair conditions.

Possible steps

• Add blended transitions for when isGrounded becomes false
• Add some variables for controlling the 'softness' or 'hardness' of landing/takeoffs
• Expand the animator/controller logic for how midair/jump states are handled
• How do we want to deal with falling off platforms? (ie handle like a jump without an impulse force/launch motion, etc?)

Constantly Diminishing Health Bar

Since this penguin is low on food/energy and its alone in the cold, harsh antarctic, its health/energy is perpetually decreasing (at least until it reaches the coastline and finds fish).

Immersive Atmosphere

The environment - sounds, visuals, backgrounds, particle effects, etc - should all combine to give a really nice immersive experience in the sense of feeling a lot more like a snowy, cold, (ant-)arctic environment.

Get more-or-less to parity with the original idle animation.

Mechanics: Initial Implementation for handling and alignment with inclined surfaces

Character with need to have its controls and animations take slopes, inclines, and friction into account.

A side panel style menu with things like settings and controls.

Snow and ice visual effects

Give more of a snow and ice atmospheric feeling to the game visually.

Camera: Implement a robust follow cam

Should not just follow the player, but ensure the penguin is always inside the screen, provide ample in-editor tools for things like offsets, and camera speeds, sensitivity, and smoothness.

Animation: Lying down on ground

When penguin is standing and in moving to sliding state (for more than a second maybe?) it should have an animation for lying itself onto the ground.

Render various particle effects.

User Interface: Redesign Pause Menu Remove antiquated pause menu

The pause menu should have some other features like settings and controls included in the button dropdown. Not to mention that like the main menu, it has some scaling issues (though not nearly as bad) and just generally needs to be completely overhauled to match the rest of the (current state of) game. Maybe not as much overhaul is needed as the main menu, though.

Momentum, meaning can launch off of hills and stuff.