CharacterController on Moving Surface

The CharacterController needs to get on and off translating and rotating surfaces without parenting, which does not work without messing with the hierarchy. I can get a collided objects hit point, the offset of that from its axis and the position and rotation of the controller. It updates on FixedUpdate(). However, I cannot figure out the proper use or combination of Vector3 or Quaternion or transform.rotation.eulerAngles to get the controller to behave like it is on a moving (translating) object that may be turning, tilting or rotating as well. It would seem to e to be a very useful piece of code for most game style and should probably be integrated wherever it is best (console kept telling me it didn't like where I was putting these vars) as a built in method "RideOnObject". I would post the code I am playing with but it will change ten minutes from now. If I strike it rich I will post the javascript.

edit:I checked the scripts out from answer 694. The last one threw too many errors in the console to even start debugging and rearranging the code. I have set up the first simpler script with appropriate inputs but am looking at the var calculatedMove which I have yet to assign a value to because I am wondering if I can retrieve that value somehow from the CharacterController script or the FPSWalker script and whether the MouseLook value should be incorporated. Or should I write my own move calculation? As well, I noted that when you add a script it automatically goes underneath the ones there and you cannot change order. If they fire off from top to bottom the does the bottom script translation and rotation of the CharacterController override the values from the script higher up the Inspector list?

Thanks for the meat of the answer.I was doing very similar routines but the quaternion versus Vector3 and how to get them to play together flipping from world to local and translating that back to world after updating the tracked local point position of collision was kicking my butt. I now have all that and am digging into how to control the Move. I then assign that value to calculatedMove and I can then test on any number of tagged objects. What's the trick here?

Best Regards and TIA

See Question 694 for several solutions.

Here is my script I can drop on a CharacterController or select one from the dropdown list in the inspector. I have done rudimentary testing on a rotating platform as I figured that was more of a trick than just a translating platform. To use it tag those surfaces with a "MovingSurface" tag so the OnCharacterColliderHit can find the name of the tag and implement the algorithm if the hitObject tag == "MovingSurface". Thanks to those I stood on the shoulders of to finally get this. Now for coffee.

var myCharacterController : CharacterController;
private var activePlatform : Transform;
private var hit : ControllerColliderHit;
private var activeGlobalPlatformPoint : Vector3;
private var activeLocalPlatformPoint : Vector3;
private var activeGlobalPlatformRotation : Quaternion;
private var activeLocalPlatformRotation : Quaternion;
var tagName : String;
private var moveDirection = Vector3.zero;
private var grounded : boolean = false;

function FixedUpdate () {
    if (tagName != "MovingSurface") 
    {
    	activePlatform = null;
    	lastPlatformVelocity = Vector3.zero;
    }
    if (tagName == "MovingSurface") 
    	{
    	if (grounded) {
    		// We are grounded on a Moving Surface, so recalculate move direction directly from axes
    		moveDirection = new Vector3(Input.GetAxis("Horizontal"), 0, Input.GetAxis("Vertical"));
    		moveDirection = transform.TransformDirection(moveDirection);// Move the controller
    		var controller : CharacterController = GetComponent(CharacterController);
    		var flags = controller.Move(moveDirection * Time.deltaTime);
    		grounded = (flags & CollisionFlags.CollidedBelow) != 0;
    		//Keep moving (?) by getting the spped var from the FPSWalker CC script or whatever you are using 
    		moveDirection *= FPSWalker.speed;

    	}
    var calculatedMovement = moveDirection * Time.deltaTime;
    	// Moving platform support
    	if (activePlatform != null) {
    		var newGlobalPlatformPoint = activePlatform.TransformPoint(activeLocalPlatformPoint);
    		var moveDistance = (newGlobalPlatformPoint - activeGlobalPlatformPoint);
    		transform.position = transform.position + moveDistance;
    		lastPlatformVelocity = (newGlobalPlatformPoint - activeGlobalPlatformPoint) / Time.deltaTime;
    		// If you want to support moving platform rotation as well:
    		var newGlobalPlatformRotation = activePlatform.rotation * activeLocalPlatformRotation;
    		var rotationDiff = newGlobalPlatformRotation * Quaternion.Inverse(activeGlobalPlatformRotation);
    		transform.rotation = rotationDiff * transform.rotation;
    		}
    		else
    		{
    			lastPlatformVelocity = Vector3.zero;
    		}
    		//Controller Move  takes place here 
    		collisionFlags = myCharacterController.Move (calculatedMovement);
    		// Moving platforms support
    	if (activePlatform != null) {
    		activeGlobalPlatformPoint = transform.position;
    		activeLocalPlatformPoint = activePlatform.InverseTransformPoint (transform.position);
    		// If you want to support moving platform rotation as well:
    		activeGlobalPlatformRotation = transform.rotation;
    		activeLocalPlatformRotation = Quaternion.Inverse(activePlatform.rotation) * transform.rotation;
    		}
    }
}

function OnControllerColliderHit (hit : ControllerColliderHit) {
    // Make sure we are really standing on a straight platform
    // Not on the underside of one and not falling down from it either!
    if (hit.moveDirection.y < -0.9 && hit.normal.y > 0.5) {
        activePlatform = hit.collider.transform;
        tagName = hit.collider.tag;
    }
}

A real naive yet effective and convincing approach is to re-parent the transform of your character to the platform below you using a simple raycast firing straight down. This works, but may need optimizations.

Your solution work but it’s quite illisible…
here is my solution in C#
my CharacterController is in multiple modules so I will just expose the code for my module PlayerGround

[System.Serializable]
public class PlayerGround : PlayerAttribute {

    private bool    m_grounded;
    private bool    m_prevGrounded;
    private Vector3 m_groundNormal;

    public bool    Grounded     { get { return m_grounded;     } }
    public bool    PrevGrounded { get { return m_prevGrounded; } }
    public Vector3 GroundNormal { get { return m_groundNormal; } }

    // attributes to check the platform
    private Transform m_platform;

    private Vector3 m_globalPoint;
    private Vector3 m_localPoint;

    private Quaternion m_globalRotation;
    private Quaternion m_localRotation;

    /* INIT METHOD */
    //public override void Init(PlayerController controller) { base.Init(controller); }

    /* UPDATE METHOD */
    public override void Update() {
        // we update the state of the player
        GroundCheck();

        //Vector3 lastVelocity = Vector3.zero;

        // if we are on a platform
        if ( m_platform != null ) {
            // we calculate the movement of the platform since the last update
            Vector3 newGlobalPoint = m_platform.TransformPoint(m_localPoint);
            Vector3 moveDistance = newGlobalPoint - m_globalPoint;
            // we apply the movement to the player
            m_ctrl.transform.position += moveDistance;

            // we calculate the rotation of the platform since the last update
            Quaternion newGlobalRotation = m_platform.rotation * m_localRotation;
            Quaternion rotationDiff = newGlobalRotation * Quaternion.Inverse(m_globalRotation);
            // we apply the rotation to the player
            m_ctrl.transform.rotation = rotationDiff * m_ctrl.transform.rotation;
            // Quaternion multiplication is not commutative !
        }
	}

    // allow to keep track of the position and rotation of the platform
    public void UpdatePlatform() {
        if ( m_platform != null ) {
            // we recover the position of the platform for the next update
            m_globalPoint = m_ctrl.transform.position;
            m_localPoint = m_platform.InverseTransformPoint(m_ctrl.transform.position);
            // we recover the rotation of the platform for the next update
            m_globalRotation = m_ctrl.transform.rotation;
            m_localRotation = Quaternion.Inverse(m_platform.rotation) * m_ctrl.transform.rotation;
        }
    }

    // we check if the player is on the ground
    public void GroundCheck() {
        RaycastHit hitInfo;
        m_prevGrounded = m_grounded;
        // if the player has a ground beneath his feet
        if (Physics.SphereCast(
            m_ctrl.transform.position,
            m_ctrl.Collider.radius,
            Vector3.down,
            out hitInfo,
            ((m_ctrl.Collider.height / 2f) - m_ctrl.Collider.radius) + 0.01f)
        ) {
            // he is grounded
            m_grounded = true;
            m_groundNormal = hitInfo.normal;
            
            // we check if we changed of platform
            bool platformChange = m_platform != hitInfo.transform;
            // we recover the platform on which the player is standing
            m_platform = hitInfo.transform;
            // if we just changed of platform
            if ( platformChange ) {
                // we update the position of the platform once
                UpdatePlatform();
            }
        } else {
            // he is not grounded
            m_grounded = false;
            m_groundNormal = Vector3.up;
            // the player is not on a platform
            m_platform = null;
        }
        // if the player just leave the ground without jumping
        if (!m_prevGrounded && m_grounded && m_ctrl.Move.Jumping) {
            // he is not jumping
            m_ctrl.Move.Jumping = false;
        }
    }

    // we fix the player to the ground
    public void StickToGround() {
        // if the ground under the feet of the player is not too much steep
        if (Mathf.Abs(Vector3.Angle(m_groundNormal, Vector3.up)) < 85f) {
            // we stick the player to the ground
            m_ctrl.Body.velocity = Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(m_ctrl.Body.velocity, m_groundNormal);
        }
    }
}

Then in my the update function of my PlayerController,
I call PlayerGround.Update();
then I move the character based on player’s inputs
then I call PlayerGround.UpdatePlatform();