New Humanoid Physics Controller - Beta

[kleptonaut]

The character physics controller suite is released!!
Releasing Character Physics Controllers

It’s been a long journey, and it’s still only the beginning of our Avatar improvements. Thanks everyone for your testing and feedback, I’m glad we were able to collaborate so much.

As mentioned in a previous reply, remember that in our released version the “Parent ControllerManager to Humanoid” behavior is gone. All configuration and initialization needs to be done manually via Lua scripts. This was to ensure developers have as much control as possible and we avoid adding more hard-coded character logic.

The post linked above should provide enough info to get started with this new version! And of course we’ll continue to receive your feedback in that thread.

Past Updates...

Controller Beta Update - v0.3

What a year! We have another set of Controller updates and fixes releasing today that address more of your bugs and feedback.

• AirController.CancelAirMomenum replaced with AirController.MaintainLinearMomentum and AirController.MaintainAngularMomenum to allow you to separately toggle whether you keep your angular and/or linear momentum when transitioning to this Controller.
• ControllerManager input properties now replicate from client to server, so the player will maintain control of their character if it becomes owned by the server.
• Using certain Constraints with the Controllers no longer causes the character to explode. (thanks @MikesDSL)
• Character no longer maintains their pre-jump ground speed after freefalling and changing direction in the air. (thanks @JoyfulFlowerMary)
• General stability improvements to the GroundController. Character no longer tips over when running into walls. We encourage you to disable RigidityEnabled again and experiment with balance torques!
• Other small bug fixes for ControllerManager initialization.

Known Issues

• There are still issues with GroundController acceleration/deceleration, such as being able to continue accelerating by running back and forth.
• Certain stair configurations can still be a bit buggy.

Thanks again for feedback and keep it coming! This is the last update of the year, so see you next year!

Controller Beta Update - v0.2

Hello developers! I again want to thank everyone for their feedback and bug reports. It’s very important to us and we’ll continue to take everything into account so this system is perfect.

Here’s some changes that we enabled today that address some of your concerns:

• Deleting a Controller while running no longer results in crash
• Turning towards your FacingDirection now always rotates with the shortest distance rather than sometimes rotating over 180 degrees.
• GroundController now decelerates from your current speed rather than the top speed. This should address everyone’s running acceleration/deceleration concerns.
• The AirController.VectorForce value on the default JumpController should now better match the behavior with Humanoid.JumpPower.
  • We still do not have support for configuring your jump height. As a workaround, you can view conversions between JumpPower and JumpHeight values based on your gravity setting from Game Settings > World.
• Increased internal friction limits so walking up very steep slopes is possible (like on the old controller)
  • This unfortunately caused a new bug where tipping over from running into a wall is significantly easier. You can work around this by setting RigidityEnabled = true on the RunningController. Alternatively you can lower Friction.

Also, here’s a list of existing known issues and requests that are being worked on now:

• The aforementioned tipping over bug. We are also looking into how to make this more stable and customizable. This should also address issues
• Adding the ability to disable linear and angular momentum preservation in the air independently.
• Issues related to particular constraint combinations used in combination with the new controller.
• Fixing buggy stair climbing and swimming.
  [/quote]

v0.1

Our first step in Humanoid Componentization (more info coming soon) begins with a new physics controller. We’ve rebuilt it from the ground up using the same internal objects and constraints that make up the rest of our physics engine. This should provide a more robust and physically accurate controller, open up more customization options, and simplify optimizations down the road.

Additionally, our goal is to fix outstanding bugs, eliminate mysterious extreme forces, and maintain the same feel as the legacy controller. This beta will give you a chance to experiment with the new controller and work with us to achieve this.

Key Behavior Changes:

• Standing and ground movement are more collision-like. The force on the ground is equal to the weight of the character’s body when at rest, and movement is bounded by friction.
  

• Air control when jumping conserves momentum by default for a better experience when jumping between moving Parts.
  

• Climbing constrains you to the Parts you are climbing, meaning you will remain climbing on ladders that are moving.
  

How To Get Started:

THIS IS OUTDATED AND DOES NOT WORK

SEE RELEASE POST LINKED ABOVE FOR INFO

Enable the Beta Feature:

The new controller system is handled by several new instances. At the top of it all is the ControllerManager. This instance dictates which movement controller to activate, and what the characters desired velocities are.

Parenting a ControllerManager to a Humanoid will override the legacy controller and use our new movement controller. For now, there’s only one way to achieve this:

Parent a StarterHumanoid to StarterPlayer, then parent a ControllerManager to your Humanoid. Trying to insert the ControllerManager to a Humanoid at runtime will not work as expected.

Beyond the ControllerManager, we have four types of ControllerBase instances. They are all intended to live as children of a ControllerManager and do nothing elsewhere. These instances are the different movement modes your character can perform:

GroundController
Handles grounded movement along a BasePart floor.

AirController
Handles jumping and lateral movement/freefalling through the air.

ClimbController
Handles vertical movement up and down along a BasePart (ladder).

SwimController
Handles swimming movement in all directions.

For now, the ControllerManager will automatically create these ControllerBase instances and internally map them to Humanoid states. Controllers of the same type are given different names.

• Freefall→ AirController “AirController”
• Climbing→ ClimbController “ClimbController”
• GettingUp → GroundController “GettingUpController”
• Jumping→ AirController “JumpController”
• Running and Landed→ GroundController “RunningController”
• Swimming→ SwimController “SwimController”

When following the steps above, your character’s Humanoid will look like this after loading into the world:

From here, you can select the different Controllers and edit their properties at runtime.

If you want to set the default properties the character will load with, you can insert a Controller of the correct type and matching name as the one above, and it will be used instead. This is just like the typical workflow of defining a StarterHumanoid.

What Now:

In this early beta version, customization beyond the default state-mapped controllers is limited. For now, we just want you to experiment. Some questions to think about:

• What significant inconsistencies have you found compared to the old controller?
• Do the default property values on the ControllerBase instances seem reasonable?
• Are there enough properties to tune the character movement to your liking?
• Was there a particular way you wanted to have the character move that you weren’t able to achieve?

In this early phase, the API is still fluid. We can make changes to names based on your feedback, and that is what we’ll focus on for now while still in beta.

Once we feel things are settled, we’ll exit the beta and allow you to use the new controller in live experiences. It will continue as an opt-in choice while we continue to work with developers on bringing it to everyone’s standard.

Once we’ve reached that point, this will fully replace the controller for all characters.

Known Issues:

• Crashes and general instabilities are still present. Use at your own risk.
• A couple of properties on the Controllers are not functional yet. While they exist in the API, they are hidden from the Properties window. We will announce when they are functional.
• Animations for deceleration aren’t correct, as they show you sliding (as if you had low friction). In the future, this will show you slowing the run animation.
• The default jump height is a bit higher than the old controller. We will fix this so it matches. For now, you can lower the JumpController.VectorForce to reduce the jump height.
• There are some other known minor inconsistencies with the legacy controller that we are aware of. We will use your feedback to judge their severity and focus on getting the new one to match.

Looking Ahead:

We have multiple planned updates that improve the flexibility of this new API. First, we will make the ActiveController property writable. This will let you choose what Controller to activate, whenever you want, for whatever reason. Then, we’ll open up the ability to use a ControllerManager on any Part/Model, not just a Humanoid.

FAQ:

FAQ

Thank you everyone that’s provided feedback so far! It’s very important to us to fit everyone’s needs, and everything from tiny nit-picky tweaks to fundamental changes will be considered.

For those that are excited but haven’t given it a shot yet, I want to encourage you to do so! I believe that by spending some time you can really get a totally unique movement style that can be really satisfying to play with.

Remember, this will eventually replace the existing controller , so the more feedback we can get now to fix things the better.

I’m now going to reply to all the feedback, questions, and requests so far. Some questions were asked by several developers, so I paraphrased them and tagged those that asked. If it looks like I skipped your question, it may be because it’s already answered by someone else or in the main post! Or if it seems like I may have skipped it by mistake or misunderstood, feel free to ask again. I may also reach out to some of you directly to get more details on a specific bug.

@OutlookG

How does performance of these new controllers compare to current humanoid performance?

The performance should be about the same.
Another key difference with the new controller is that the underlying systems are the same as our Constraint system. That means in our physics step, there’s no longer a separate “Humanoid simulation” and an “everything else simulation”. So, as we make general performance improvements to our physics simulation, they will also impact the controllers.

@Maxi130TV

Is a more secure movement system planned? Like a system that still does movement on the client but also does it on the server and checks if the client is the same as the server.

Yes we are looking into this. Due to what I mentioned above, any general solution we have to simulation security will also apply the the controllers.

@BronzedMocha @qwertyexpert

Will we be able to create our own controllers? Will I have control over when and how different states occur with Lua?

Short answer: yes. More news on this coming very soon.

@qwertyexpert @Professor_Boxtrot @2xA_Imagineer95

I want a controller that will do this particular kind of movement. “Hover” controller? “Flying” controller? What about climbing side-to-side?

Our first goal is to get this new controller to fully recreate our existing movement behavior. Once that’s done, we absolutely will start adding to the Controller instances to enable additional movement options (and if needed, add entirely new types).

The best way to give feedback on this now, would be to try and achieve the movement you want with what’s available now, then request a particular thing you want to adjust once you get stuck. I totally expect that there are ways to tune the current controller suite to achieve various vehicle-like movement.

Hover: I expect you should be able to use the GroundController to configure this. You can adjust the “GroundOffset” property in real time to adjust how far off the ground you are. We also plan to have other properties that will allow you to adjust how fast/how much force is used to tune how quickly that changes. (StandForce/StandSpeed may do this now, but aren’t working how we want right now and thus are hidden in the Explorer)

Flying: Yes, I’m thinking we can get the AirController to a place where you can comfortably enable full 3D movement through air with it, like swimming.

Climbing side-to-side: Yes, will also be adding this

@PeZsmistic @opplo

I’d also love to see better customization over swimming mechanics and some improvements to the SwimController.

Yep also agreed, I have mostly the same answer to your post as I do for above. Fixing things like Spacebar not working, and orientation glitches, the diagonal movement are the first priority. Then, we can start exploring how this controller can be made more flexible (control up/down speed separately, etc)

@blobbyblob @nezuo @EternalEthel @Cartoon_Corpze

I want to control the align direction of the character. Let me walk around planets.

This is also planned! The current thinking is to start, we will add an UpDirection property. Right now it’s always set to (0,1,0).

@Zhoutai189 @Maxwell_Edison

Does this change how the Humanoid floor/ladder detection works?

No, we are using the same floor/ladder detection as before. However, we are working on moving this to its own customizable system.

@swatj1an @jujujuujuu @CountMyBands @nidbahn

Does the momentum conservation work with CFramed/Tweened Parts?

No, since moving parts this way has no velocity, there’s no momentum to conserve. There’s 2 ways to address this:

1. Move parts physically, so they have velocity (ie PrismaticConstraint, AlignPosition)
2. Set an AssemblyLinearVelocity on the anchored Part you’re CFraming/Tweening.

@IGOBOOM123 @hunterk1241 @theGoodpancake

Jumping is inconsistent. / The AirController.VectorForce property doesn’t seem like a reliable way to configure jumping. / I want to set the Jump height instead of the Jump “power”

Agreed, I’m going to rethink how to handle jumping. Expect this API/Property to change.

@Scopetag

I’ve removed one of the underlying controller instances that gave me an immediate crash

Ah! That shouldn’t happen. Will fix.

@TheCrypticRunner

Jumping at a wall can make you “glued” to the wall in midair and fling you to the distortion point.

I’m going to reach out about some of the bugs in your post. I want to explain this one here though:

This is happening because the MaxForce allowed for movement during FreeFall (AirController) is greater than gravity. So you can fix this by lowering the AirController.MoveMaxForce, and we probably want a lower default value for this.

@SepiaSpinda

the FallingDown state triggers way too much. Landing while having a large velocity will pretty much always trigger it.

Going to reach out for more info on the rest of your post, but wanted give some general tips on FallingDown and keeping upright

Right now, the FallingDown state is triggered when your character tilts past a certain angle (this will become customizable in the future)

With the new Controllers however, you can tune the “AlignTorque” and “AlignSpeed” on the GroundController that’s used to keep you upright. Right now, it’s a bit lower by default than before. This is so behaviors like getting smacked in the face with a beam look a bit more realistic. But you can adjust this so that you wobble around as much as you choose.

You can also use enable RigidityEnabled to really force you upright. The behavior of this should be identical to an AlignOrientation. You may notice that the “GettingUpController” (which is also a GroundController) has RigidityEnabled. This is so you always can get back up on your feet! But you can also disable this, forcing you to get up much slower if you choose.

@lankles @JoyfulFlowerMary

General acceleration concerns. Deceleration seems to always start from my max speed.

Thanks for the feedback here. We will take the time to get it right, and I may reach out for more input later.

[ffrostfall]

Now this is an amazing update. I’ve been tempted to make my own character controller for games where performance doesn’t matter, but I might actually just consider using humanoids. Amazing update, can’t wait for more.

Definitely going to be sharing and spreading this around- one of the main limitations with humanoids has been lifted.

[kingerman88]

This is revolutionary, a new age of roblox games is on the horizon. I can’t wait to see obbies redefined and games take off!!!

[mrfIuffywaffles (Mustang)]

this is really cool, what an update

this will make so many games more interactive and enjoyable

[Inconcludable]

I can’t believe it’s finally here (even if it’s in beta)! I’ve been really annoyed with how restrictive humanoids have been in relation to physics in the past (but unable to use anything else because of the default networking). One of my main complaints was the random slowdown effect that would happen in air, so I am ridiculously happy to hear this:

@kleptonaut

Air control when jumping conserves momentum by default for a better experience when jumping between moving Parts.

This not only makes applying forces to humanoids more consistent, but also makes the whole process of CFraming humanoids to keep them on a surface not necessary. This will make using humanoids much more fluid in the future, and I hope to see even more elements of developing continue in this same trajectory of customization and better developer interaction.

[PeZsmistic]

Climbing MOVING ladders, now that is revolutionary, we are in the future.

Trying to insert the ControllerManager to a Humanoid at runtime will not work as expected.

With respect to this, can we get more information about why / what’s happening in the background here? I have custom characters that I build at runtime and allow the player to choose them at will during gameplay. These are defined via a metadata folder that contains all of the setup information, models, etc. Can I define the controllers and set up the properties in Studio and then later at runtime, copy this tree of controller instances into the humanoid in the character before I assign Player.Character without any problems?

[OutlookG (Outlook)]

How does performance of these new controllers compare to current humanoid performance? Is it faster, slower and how come? Can we expect further performance improvements?

[Moleza]

i love this

i think no longer will be necessary to add:
body mover or constraint, since now the player will move with the part at the same time

[12mrcool (NorthernCanuck)]

This is really cool, when I seen the climbing gif on the rotating object that honestly made me excited, that said I am not sure what itv was like before, but this will help a lot if before it was more rough. Definitely something my future game could benefit from… if I ever can start

[kleptonaut]

Yes this particular workflow is more or less temporary while we are in a stage of carefully recreating the old controller with the new instances. It should only get more flexible from here.

If you define the Controllers with the same names/types as shown above and put them on the Humanoid as you insert it, things should still work out fine. You could also do this to initialize an NPC with the new controllers.

[Great_Bird]

Wow, I am loving these rapid-fire announcements today lol
Many much-needed, much-appreciated features, especially THIS. Been waiting for the new humanoid physics controllers for a while now

TYSM roblox, I was planning on making a platformer soon

[Water_Script]

Would you happen to have any insight into if the workflow will remain centered around instance or be through something else?

[CreepyPikaCow]

This looks really cool!!!

[okayendo (Endo)]

finally! new truss part that can be properly scaled when

[TheCrypticRunner (Cryptic)]

Today is an amazing day, Roblox is finally bringing so many wanted updates! I really love how it generally feels
Here’s some issues I’ve noticed:

• Falling animation doesn’t exist, instead the last played animation is looped when falling

• Walking up stairs is very bumpy

• Landing sometimes has some janky physics, pushing the player in random directions/rotations at high speeds and the player is EXTREMELY fragile to the point that landing from a fall the size of 2 players puts you into that PlatformStand mode

• Dying just PlatformStands you instead of making you fall into pieces/ragdoll (honestly hoping that there could be a basic Active Ragdoll type thing that blends in with various animations like flailing and staggering to increase immersion and to compete with AAA game ragdolls)

• As said before, the player is extremely “fragile”; basic actions like jumping under a rotated part can PlatformStand you, sometimes even flinging you to the distortion point.

• Jumping at a wall can make you “glued” to the wall in midair and fling you to the distortion point.
  

  

• Jumping on a climbable object increases your climbing speed to ridiculous amounts.

[RoyallyFlushed (Royal)]

I love to see improvements made to core parts of the engine. I hope the testing stages go well and we can see this new tech live as soon as possible.

Conservation of momentum when jumping is probably my favourite thing added here! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on a moving object only to jump and be yeeted into the void.

[PeZsmistic]

One thing missing that I would like to tweak is the speed of the character rising/falling when swimming. I do not want the character to automatically swim upwards the majority of the time I have significant water areas.

Also if you toggle rigidity enabled on the swim controller, you break the character self-righting itself, but I guess this is the same reason why we shouldn’t modify the controller at runtime lol.

Another thing to note is that after inserting the controller manager and letting the defaults fill, jumping is broken, at least for my character. There does not seem to be enough force and I cannot find the setting for it.

[nezuo]

Here’s an issue I ran into:

In the video you can see that changing directions shifts the character slightly which doesn’t feel great. At the end it doesn’t shift the character, it seems to depend on the direction you are going.

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It would be awesome if the new character controller supported a rotated HumanoidRootPart. It’s currently impossible to use an upright cylinder because it’s not the default rotation.

[hunterk1241 (HunterDaFloofer)]

I love this update a lot and will definitely be experimenting with it. I only have one issue with it; you cannot use JumpHeight with the controllers when I tested it. That’s something I use on all humanoids