Climb (bird)

The climb of the game cycles for birds: the wings beat hard and the feet grip in turn, the body tipped up, looping every 0.8 seconds for as long as a game has the bird climbing.

A cartoon person and a dog with arms swept back hard, body tipped up, mid-climb.

Use it in a cartoon Open it in the block editor The pack file (JSON)

What it is for

Climb (bird) is the climb of the nine game cycles, written for the bird set: beating its wings hard and gripping with its feet in turn, its body tipped up, rather than reaching hand over hand the way Climb does. Like the upright climb, it keeps no foot-planting math at all, since there is no floor to plant against while climbing.

The principle it shows: secondary action

The wings beating hard, twice a second, are the main action. The legs gripping in turn, at half that speed, and the tail swinging at the wings' own faster rhythm, are secondary actions layered on top, each doing its own small part rather than moving in lockstep with the wings.

The program, line by line

settings: h = 540, leg = 0.05
when it starts
  show the side view
  set left arm -110, right arm 110, torso 10, head 10, left leg 18, right leg 18, left foot -18, right foot -18, dy (-0.04*h)
  sin wave on left arm · every 0.4 s · amp -36
  sin wave on right arm · every 0.4 s · amp 36
  sin wave on left leg · every 0.8 s · amp 18
  sin wave on right leg · every 0.8 s · amp 18 · phase 3.141592653589793
  sin wave on tail · every 0.4 s · amp 8

show the side view — the move is drawn in profile.
set left arm -110, right arm 110, torso 10, head 10, left leg 18, right leg 18, left foot -18, right foot -18, dy (-0.04*h) — the base climbing pose: the wings thrown back, the body tipped up and the legs gripping, lifted a little.
sin wave on left arm · every 0.4 s · amp -36, sin wave on right arm · every 0.4 s · amp 36 — both wings beat hard, opposite each other.
sin wave on left leg · every 0.8 s · amp 18, sin wave on right leg · every 0.8 s · amp 18 · phase 3.14 — both legs grip and release in turn, half the wings' speed.
sin wave on tail · every 0.4 s · amp 8 — the tail swings at the wings' own faster rhythm.

Try this

Reach the head 25 degrees up instead of 10. The bird strains much further upward with each climbing beat.
In the program: set · to.part:head 10 → 25
Swing the tail 16 degrees each way instead of 8. The tail reads as actively helping balance the climb rather than just trailing along.
In the program: wave · amp 8 → 16

How it differs from Climb and Swim (bird)

Climb is the same idea pulling hand over hand against a surface rather than beating wings. Swim (bird) is the other cycle written for this body with no foot-planting math, paddling through water rather than climbing.

Works on

Worked out by the build: it plays the move in the engine on each body and checks what moves on screen. Nobody types this table.
Body	Moves?	What moves
2 legs (a person)	yes	whole body, turns, body, head, arms, legs
4 legs (a dog)	yes	whole body, body, head, front legs, back legs, tail, ears
no legs (the monster with no legs)	yes	whole body, turns, body, arms, tail, ears

c4c:beh:cycle_climb_bird · version 1.0.0 · c4c-free · by Jabbertoon