Player Gravity Questions

Question

I've made it so that all entities have complex box colliders for hit detection purposes. These entities also have character controllers on them. The problem? Gravity, or lack thereof. When the character controller is of a certain size, gravity doesn't work. However, if you set it to a bigger size, one way too big to be usable, suddenly gravity works as expected.

I'm looking for one of two things: either a way to make character controllers work, or a way to replace character controllers and everything that they're dictating (movement, as well as gravity.) I've looked into using Rigidbodies, but the character falls to the ground (woo) and flops about on the floor on its back (not such a woo moment.)

I'm open to using Rigidbodies if that's the only alternative, but if you could point me to a good guide on how exactly to use them for players, I would appreciate it.

Answer 1

I'm not sure how you are getting the behavior you are getting with Character Controllers and gravity. By default, there is no concept of "gravity" with a character controller. This is something that must be implemented through code.

To work with a Character Controller, you should use the CharacterController.SimpleMove or the CharacterController.Move methods of the character controller. A good example of this comes straight from the Unity documentation for CharacterController here:

http://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/CharacterController.Move.html

This will also cover setting up gravity for a CharacterController.

As far as CharacterController versus Rigidbody characters, it really depends on what kind of game you are trying to build. A CharacterController is good for nice tight movement and controls. These are often used in FPS shooter games. RigidBody's for characters are used if you want the physics engine to interact with your character. This is done by applying forces to the character.

There are a few helpful links that will show you when and why you would use a CharacterController versus a RigidBody on a character:

http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/7671/guidelines-for-using-rigidbody-collider-characterc.html

There is also a Youtube video that goes into more depth about this. Search for "Unity 3D - Rigidbody VS CharacterController [UnityQuickTips]" on youtube.