Area3D gravity doesn't seem to affect CogitoPlayer

[5ucur]

Cogito and Godot Engine Version:
Cogito 1.1, Godot 4.5 stable

Description:
Custom direction of gravity set by Area3D does not apply to CogitoPlayer. While a simple RigidBody object, with or without a cogito_object script attached, will fall towards the gravity direction, the CogitoPlayer does not.

Reproduction steps:

1. Add Area3D to scene (e.g. the demo Lobby scene).
2. Add CollisionShape3D to the Area3D and set its shape.
3. Set the Area3D space override, under Gravity, to anything other than disabled.
4. Set the gravity direction vector on the Area3D to anything different from (0,-1,0).
5. Run the game and walk into the area.

No errors, warnings, etc pop up.

Expected behavior:
The player starts being pulled by the Area3D's gravity in the previously set direction.

Screenshots:
N/A

[Phazorknight]

I'm not super-familiar with using gravity overrides in Area3D.
That being said: Are you able to get the expected behavior with a more standard CharacterBody3D?

I've tried setting this up in a Godot demo project, and it seems like CharacterBody3Ds aren't affected by default.
If so, this is not a Cogito-specific issue.

[5ucur]

I had it working in another project from before discovering Cogito, so I decided to make a quick minimal example. That project used a more complex player script, so I took a simpler one from another repo. But while making the example, I came across the same issue as you. I looked at that older project's code, the Godot documentation, and the CogitoPlayer code.

The documentation says:

CharacterBody3D
A 3D physics body specialized for characters moved by script [...] not affected by physics at all

So, the code is responsible for making the CharacterBody3D behave in response to gravity, input, etc.

The code I took for the minimal example, as well as cogito_player.gd, both get the gravity at the top of the code, only once, as so:
var gravity = ProjectSettings.get_setting("physics/3d/default_gravity").

PhysicsBody3D, from which CharacterBody3D inherits, has the following method:

get_gravity
"Returns the gravity vector computed from all sources that can affect the body, including all gravity overrides from Area3D nodes and the global world gravity."

Of course, it needs to be polled regularly. It returns a Vector3, unlike the current code that returns a float. So, a reimplementation of gravity code would not be a simple change & repositioning of the line. I got upwards gravity working easily. I tried also to make it react to sideways gravity, before I realised I should reply first and experiment later.

Well, now that I learnt how to at least get Area3D to affect the CharacterBody3D, I'll play around with the cogito_player.gd code and see if I can't implement something that works for my project.

As for this issue, it's up to you, if you feel that this is something that should be a Cogito feature, or something that each dev should implement on their own if they want it. Either way is fine with me.

Here's the minimal example.

[Phazorknight]

I might take a peek at this but looks like this could potentially be offloaded into the Area3D with a script.
Using body enter and body exit signals, the custom gravity could be applied to the CogitoPlayer as long as they are within the Area3D.

[5ucur]

Area3D already applies the gravity to a PhysicsBody3D (and thus a CharacterBody3D, too), and it's polled by get_gravity(). The signals method could definitely work (and I have done that in the past), I just don't see the need for a workaround when it's already implemented in the engine ^^"

In both cases, the CharacterBody3D won't react to physics on its own, but needs its attached script to tell it what to do. Honestly I would be working on an implementation if I were better acquainted with the engine (and your codebase). But I'm not, which is why I chose to use Cogito, over making everything from scratch.

[Phazorknight]

Yeah, you're right, makes more sense to have this on the player. It's not the highest prio on my end at the moment, but I'll leave this open as a reminder to get this implemented.

[Phazorknight]

So I gave this a (quick) shot after reading up a bit more about local gravity overrides.
You can see my attempt in this PR when visiting the GRAVITY ZONE in the Laboratory: #494

As you discovered, the tricky part is overriding and then adding the proper behavior on the Character3D controller. I think it works good enough when entereing the zone, but exiting the zone still feels less than ideal, but it might be a good starting-off point to add your own tweaks.