I’m working on a project where I have a semi-physical character who needs to be able to pick up and carry boxes. I want the interaction to feel physically challenging - meaning the boxes should be difficult to control and could fall from the character’s hands under certain physical conditions (like applying too much force, moving too quickly, etc.).
My requirements:
Both my playable character and other in-game characters should be able to physically grab boxes
The grabbed objects should respond to physics while being held
Boxes should drop from the character’s hands under specific physical conditions
The whole system should feel somewhat “janky” by design (difficult to control precisely)
I’ve tried multiple approaches but can’t get it working properly as I’m not very experienced with Blueprints. Could you recommend the best method to implement this? Which nodes should I be using?
Hey there @faithcure! Welcome back to the community! It sounds like you want to either work with a physically simulated character or just physical animation in general. When you mentioned semi-physical, I assume you just want to blend physical animation with a mostly standard character. This is going to mean you will have to tie in the weight of the object carried and a way to shift the objects based on movement factors.
You’ve already likely come across these resources:
Disclaimer: One or more of these links are unaffiliated with Epic Games. Epic Games is not liable for anything that may occur outside of this Unreal Engine domain. Please exercise your best judgment when following links outside of the forums.
Thank you. This is a good education for me. I learned more about the physical entity window. But I think I will need to touch/learn both animation, rigid body and many nodes to achieve what I want.
No problem! Depending on how far you want to take your physical animation, you’ll start working less with animation and more physical constraints and physics handles. Understanding where you want the animation portion to end and the mechanical portion to start is one of the most important distinctions. If you want the game to play like Exanima or Fall Guys, you’ll be almost entirely physically based movement and animations. If you want more of a controlled gameplay, basic overlaid physical animation like the video above would be more to your use case.
