I'm going off grid next week, holidaying down in Dorset so no internet for a week or so.
I intend to return with a fully functional Moose, currently he is sort of staggering around like a short sighted drunk (like me in other words) but I have had a brain wave ... gone are any ideas of generalising and modularising for other mechs, I'm just going for a bespoke Moose only solution.
Before I go could you possibly have a go at splitting the shin and thigh pieces into two with one piece fitting inside the other as if they are hydraulic? Also could you replicate the hip connection shape at the knee end, if you get what I mean, so the knee is curved as well? I think with those changes I can get him to sit down on his haunches realistically and also make the steps smoother. I may only need the shin 'hydraulic' if the knee is curved enough so the body of the two pieces don't collide when folded more than 45 degree angle.
The basic walking gate would be; lift foot whilst hydraulic part moves upwards, swing foot back whilst knee rises and hip rotates outwards if turning, shin swings forward whilst hydraulic part extends and knee moves down until foot makes contact. This foot now becomes 'fixed', other foot is raised whilst 'fixed' leg fully extends whilst rotating at the hip only and non-fixed leg then goes through the same sequence unit foot contact, rinsed repeat. The tricky part is that the free leg rotates at the hip to turn then when it becomes 'fixed' the hip rotates and moves back until the angular change is cancelled out, this makes the entire top half plus other leg rotate around leading to a much smoother and more natural movement. Everything will be controlled relative to the fixed foot which if you think about it is exactly how your own legs work.
Collision detection is then limited to the free foot which makes more sense as the fixed foot cannot collide with anything as it isn't moving, currently I have both feet trying to control things which leads to strange jerky movement.
Edited to add: I just read that back and didn't understand it myself, oh well trust me it will look awesome.
Been there, done that, got all the T-Shirts!
