Learning Climbing Controllers for Physics-Based Characters

Despite the growing demand for capturing diverse motions, collecting climbing motion data remains challenging due to difficulties in tracking obscured markers and scanning climbing structures. Additionally, preparing varied routes further adds to the complexities of the data collection process. To address these challenges, this paper introduces a physics-based climbing controller for synthesizing climbing motions. The proposed method consists of two learning stages. In the first stage, a hanging policy is trained to naturally grasp holds. This policy is then used to generate a dataset containing hold positions, postures, and grip states, forming favourable initial poses. In the second stage, a climbing policy is trained using this dataset to perform actual climbing movements. The episode begins in a state close to the reference climbing motion, enabling the exploration of more natural climbing style states. This policy enables the character to reach the target position while utilizing its limbs more evenly. The experiments demonstrate that the proposed method effectively identifies good climbing postures and enhances limb coordination across environments with varying slopes and hold patterns.