[Unreal] - What is the 'best' locomotion system for using/integrating right now?

[nirurin]

So I've seen that there's a bunch out there... TNT, VMM, UWM, ALS, ALC...

TNT seems to include a lot of interesting features, though I'm not sure how easy it is to implement.

All the rest seem to have a pretty similar feature set to each other, but they all implement in slightly different ways.

Has anyone actually tested a bunch of them and come to any conclusions? Such as "this one is the easiest to implement" (which for me is probably the most important factor haha).

I'm currently messing around with the Lyra project, picking and choosing handy components. Would be nice to add some of the advanced motion features/animations to it.

 

[Tea_Addict]

none of them are using real root motion data except for VMM but it is bugged and bogged to bother working with

(no root motion system = mobile looking game becomes really apparent with AI) sure ALS looks good from a distance but have fun integrating it into a real project with custom skeletons, there is a reason creator made it free and has 0 documentation and tutorials (its the best solution for mobile type games)

the best one I have worked with is Kai Locomotion System, it looks great on character players but looks real basic on the AI

AI needs to have their own type of locomotion system that understands what root motion animation to use based on the path length / corners / turns and speed, (pretty sure GTA is using something like this) which is a real pain in the balls so better to write something that just displaces IK bones based on ratios of speed working in conjunction with where the foot step might land... still a pain in the balls but with such system it is possible to use ZERO animations for movement meaning OPTIMIZATION + Adaptive locomotion system that can have layering for profiling

 

[Tea_Addict]

until such system is out there (maybe late 2024 hopefully), Kai Locomotion System is the best there is

 

[Methuselas]

none of them are using real root motion data except for VMM but it is bugged and bogged to bother working with

(no root motion system = mobile looking game becomes really apparent with AI) sure ALS looks good from a distance but have fun integrating it into a real project with custom skeletons, there is a reason creator made it free and has 0 documentation and tutorials (its the best solution for mobile type games)

the best one I have worked with is Kai Locomotion System, it looks great on character players but looks real basic on the AI

AI needs to have their own type of locomotion system that understands what root motion animation to use based on the path length / corners / turns and speed, (pretty sure GTA is using something like this) which is a real pain in the balls so better to write something that just displaces IK bones based on ratios of speed working in conjunction with where the foot step might land... still a pain in the balls but with such system it is possible to use ZERO animations for movement meaning OPTIMIZATION + Adaptive locomotion system that can have layering for profiling

Appreciate the review. Kiddo's game classes have only started, but when he completes them all, he'll spend his entire senior year working on his portfolio demo. I want him to be used to integrating assets by other developers to speed up pipelines and locomotion systems is something better handled by someone who was focused solely on the locomotion systems development, instead of stats, abilities, quests, balance, etc. I'll be sure to check this Kai Locomotion System.

 

[ownsky]

I worked some time with MoveIt! and it's robust, lightweight and easy to implement in any project. It features some neat AnimGraph nodes like procedural strafe/turn in place so you don't need tons of custom animations.
If you don't care so much about the animation system / you want to make a competitive multiplayer game / want to get rid of the character class + movement component trash setup, Advanced Movement Component is probably the way to go.