Friday Facts #425 - Behind the legs

[Shadow_Man]

I think I agree that the old Spidertron movement looks better. Works great for the Pentapods, doesn't look nearly as good on a robot. It's kind of twitchy and jerky. It's lost some of what made mechanical and cool.

Exactly! It is the loss of the even rhythmic mechanical movement of the Spidertron that is most upsetting.

[Amarula]

Peeking behind the scenes has always been my favourite part of the FFF and peeking behind the scenes of delivering behind the scenes is twice the delight!

[The Phoenixian]

It does feel like the spidertron leg visuals aren't really meant for the new "hip-first" procedural walk animation. I can't pin my finger on exactly why, but the second set from the bottom especially looks like it's having trouble with the new animation rules. Maybe something with the angle it's hitting the ground being too shallow and looking like it's not actually supporting the weight above properly in comparison to the others?

With the comparison the spring pistons in the thigh portion of the legs also feel like they were clearly modeled to serve as an explanation for the old animations and don't serve nearly as much of a place in the primary walk cycle of the new.

[scarhoof]

Do the pathfinding changes mean that Spidertrons will now be able to find their way around larger bodies of water, when remotely controlled?

I really hope so. Especially since they are giving us the RTS tool. To me that implies 1. More RTS-like commands and movement expectations from your troops (I.e. pathfinding around obstacles) and 2. More than just the Spidertron to control.

[Hares]

I really hope so. Especially since they are giving us the RTS tool. To me that implies 1. More RTS-like commands and movement expectations from your troops (I.e. pathfinding around obstacles) and 2. More than just the Spidertron to control.

"Unit reporting." "Moving out."

[FasterJump]

I'm okay with the new spidertron animation, even though I seem to be in the minority.

It's lifting it's knees now, unlike before. It's surprising at first because we're used to the old animation, but I don't see anything wrong with the new one. It does looks less artificial because the knees are no longer hovering perfectly horizontally.

EDIT: I can see now that the bending is excessive (up to 180° when walking on solid ground), and the fixed video posted by the devs below looks better.

[Tertius]

I can't resist wisecracking about insect legwork. May be you remember biology school classes but forgot about it.

Insects have exactly 6 legs for a reason. The legs are organized in 2 groups. Each group is the center leg on one side and the 2 outer legs of the other side, forming a triangle this way. The insect moves by lifting all legs of one group and moving them forward. The legs of the other group, forming a triangle, prevent the body from touching the ground. Once the forward moved legs touch the ground, the body moves and the other group of legs is lifted and moved forward.

This concept needs no vestibular system for walking balance and no leg coordination, so this is the earliest walking style in evolution. Always having 3 legs on the ground as triangle is crucial: it requires no coordination and no brain to avoid tipping over. Just a little hardwired nerves.

Spiders are evolved insects, and the rear 6 legs are operating as above. The front 2 legs are converted from antennae, and they're added to the 2 groups as well: all legs are alternated.

To investigate the spider walk, see this nice video (be careful, it's a real spider): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE2QPYKju04

[Avalanche]

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=104637 TLDR: there is no built in "sway" it's simple byproduct of how spidertrons move with legs and not something that can just be turned off.

Thanks for the response and the link. I'd not seen that topic before. It seems very much that the screen movement is a consequence of the fundamental way the spidertron has been created. But is the screen movement considered good/bad/indifferent? The thread from 2023 highlighted some people having the same problems as mine, but it seems the result (overshoots, swaying back and forth before stopping, misclicks, etc) is just something that happens. Is there a possibility of creating a work around though? As the movement before stopping actively interferes with playing the game, due to the camera moving back and forth, stopping players (only some?) from clicking accurately. I stress, not a motion sickness issue. Trying to click things in the spidertron is hampered.

[adam_bise]

I like the new spidey animations. Looks Edward Scissorhandy.

Since you were able to work out Thumper leg stretch and a nicer scan algorithm, perhaps the same could somehow be applied to pumps to relax the fluid wagon alignment tolerance? Not a huge deal, I already fixed it with a mod anyway, but lost the arm animation in doing so.

[MeduSalem]

I'm okay with the new spidertron animation, even though I seem to be in the minority.

Me too. I am also fine with the newer animation. ^^

[RocketManChronicles]

I love the new Spidertron movement! It looks more fluent in movement while keeping a bit of the mechanical aspect of its nature. Good Work!

[redplasticstraw]

the animations for the pentapods look fantastic, but applying those animations to the spidertron is just not it. the vertical movement looks fine, but the horizontal movement really looks like a prototype more than a finished product. i think the knees on the spidertron should remain a little stiffer to better contrast the mechanical nature of the spidertron when up against pentapods. i really do think the old spidertron animations should stay in this case.

it is quite funny to me how frustrating the creation process was for that video, where just changing one little thing could throw it off so much. but im still impressed by all the work done here.

[Mycroft4114]

My take on the new animation: Looks great on the pentapods, with their more fixed anatomy. Looks a little wild on the spidertron.

In the old animation, the spidertron relies heavily on the "stretch" of its upper legs for movement, and doesn't bend its knees much. It flexes at the hip and stretches. The new animation bends at the knees much more and seems to stretch much less. I think adjusting the weights on these actions in the animation to have a bit more stretch and a bit less bend would restore the artificial impression of them and differentiate from the pentapods. The current "extend and retract, don't bend" system is closer to current real life industrial walkers that value stability and ability to move a lot of weight.

[linktothepast83]

With all these optimisations for the fluid system and the spidertrons now, feeling spoiled i want to point out one that is missing up until now and it hitted me harder than others, which is the fog.
I loved building large nuclear plants and every time if i didn't disable fog i faced serious performance issues. Out of curiosity i checked the statistics and saw a spamming of sprite generation from a couple of thousand to more than a hundred thousand if i remember correctly over the plants. And whenever a question was asked about fog the answer was well it is difficult and we don't want to touch it. Hopefully with the new expansion the answer has changed and a touch on it's serious performance issues has been made. Just my spoiled wishful thinking here...

[Terry]

I like the new animation. Although I can imagine it triggering arachnophobia.

[Tedstrom]

I like both spidertron animations, but for different reasons. The original seems to fit a bit better when the spidertron is moving more slowly. The new animation looks like it is sorta scrambling at a higher speed. Perhaps the animation that is used could be changed based on how many of the movement upgrade modules it has?

[Hanakocz]

I find a limit of one pollution type per surface as very limiting. It means that we cannot make mixed enemies planet, as some of the enemies would ignore local pollution completely (because it isn't their type). And re-adding each enemy 10 times just to have different sniff technique isn't a thing I want to do either for it to work....


Also, there is a problem with even this pathfinder. If you just make 15 tile wide wall, it will just block it. In reality, the wall should be in pathfinder recognised as destructible and pentapods should just stomp over it anyways. Searching in those cases for only empty space is not good and can easily block enemies from ever finding a path, when they are supposed to just make a path if there is no "easy" path.

Stompers should stomp the walls, not avoid them.

[StrangePan]

I think I agree that the old Spidertron movement looks better. Works great for the Pentapods, doesn't look nearly as good on a robot. It's kind of twitchy and jerky. It's lost some of what made mechanical and cool.

So regarding the twitching/jerking: that's my bad. The video I uploaded to FFF actually contained a bug that was later fixed, but I had forgotten this fact at time of writing. If you're curious what the Spidertron movement looks like now, I uploaded it here: https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blo ... smooth.mp4

[adam_bise]

Trying to click things in the spidertron is hampered.

If you look closely at the last few seconds of the video, you see this was actually improved a bit.

[adam_bise]

I think I agree that the old Spidertron movement looks better. Works great for the Pentapods, doesn't look nearly as good on a robot. It's kind of twitchy and jerky. It's lost some of what made mechanical and cool.

So regarding the twitching/jerking: that's my bad. The video I uploaded to FFF actually contained a bug that was later fixed, but I had forgotten this fact at time of writing. If you're curious what the Spidertron movement looks like now, I uploaded it here: https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blo ... smooth.mp4

Yea that looks waay better