Develop Reference

Constrain rigidbody movement to spline at high speeds / sharp curves

I have a 2.5d platformer game. The character is using rigidbody movement on a spline (using the curvy splines asset) which curves into 3d space in all sorts of ways, while the camera stays fixed to the side so that you see the path and background turning, but maintain a 2d side scrolling perspective.
I'm essentially creating a look rotation based on the spline, then moving the player using that forward vector, and making sure to remove any velocity perpendicular to the path so that the player stays centered on the path even when curving. I'm removing the velocity on that vector instead of projecting all the velocity in the direction of the path so that the player can still jump and fall like normal.
void SetLookRotation()
{
// get nearest TF and point on spline
Vector3 p;
mTF = Spline.GetNearestPointTF(transform.localPosition, out p);
// Get forward and up vectors of point on spline
_localHorizontal = Spline.GetTangentFast(mTF);
_localVertical = Spline.GetOrientationUpFast(mTF);
// Set look rotation to path
transform.rotation = Quaternion.LookRotation(Vector3.Cross(_localHorizontal, _localVertical), _localVertical);
}
void Movement()
{
Vector3 m = transform.right * groundAcceleration * moveInput;
rb.AddForce(RemoveCrossVelocity(m));
rb.velocity = RemoveCrossVelocity(rb.velocity);
Vector3 localVelocity = transform.InverseTransformDirection(rb.velocity);
localVelocity.z = 0;
rb.velocity = transform.TransformDirection(localVelocity);
}
Vector3 RemoveCrossVelocity(Vector3 v)
{
// get magnitude going in the cross product / perpindicular of localHorizontal and localVertical vector
// (essentially the magnitude on "local Z" or to the sides of the player)
Vector3 crossVelocity = Vector3.Project(v, Vector3.Cross(transform.right, transform.up));
// and remove it from the vector
return v -= crossVelocity;
}
The first 2 functions are happening in FixedUpdate() in the order shown.
The problem is, when hitting sharp corners at high speeds, some inertia causes the player to deviate off the center of the path still just ever so slightly, and a lot of that momentum turns into upward momentum, launching the player upwards. Eventually the player can fall off the path completely (I do have a custom gravity acting towards the spline though). It works perfectly at lower speeds though, even when dealing with sharp corners. At least as far as I can tell.
I tried a bit of code from https://answers.unity.com/questions/205406/constraining-rigidbody-to-spline.html too but no luck.
Is there a way I could constrain the player rigidbody on a vector that is not one of the global x/y/z axes? I've tried a host of other solutions like setting the transform of the player towards at the center of the spline but I can't seem to get it without feeling very jerky. Using forces makes the player "rubber band" towards and past the center back and forth. Maybe there is something in my math wrong. In any case, I'm hoping someone could help me make sure that the player will always stay on the center of the spline but only on the vector to the sides of the player's face direction, so that it doesn't mess with jumping. Thank you very much in advance!

For potential future visitors, I have figured this out. There are a few components (and a lot more if you're trying to do full spline based physics, but just to start with movement...)
First we must orient our character, so that our local coordinate system can be referenced with transform.right etc. Luckily this package provides these functions which return useful vectors. I'm sure there is math beyond me to do this otherwise if you are building your own spline system.
void SetLookRotation()
{
// get nearest TF and point on spline
Vector3 p;
playerTF = currentSpline.GetNearestPointTF(transform.localPosition, out p);
// Get forward and up vectors of point on spline
_localHorizontal = currentSpline.GetTangentFast(playerTF);
_localVertical = currentSpline.GetOrientationUpFast(playerTF);
// Set look rotation to path
transform.rotation = Quaternion.LookRotation(Vector3.Cross(_localHorizontal, _localVertical), _localVertical);
}
Here I am setting a velocity directly but if you're using forces it's the same principle.
if (Mathf.Abs(localVelocityAs_X) <= maxDashSpeed * Mathf.Abs(moveInput))
{
Vector3 m = transform.right * maxDashSpeed * moveInput;
rb.velocity = RemoveCrossVelocity(m);
}
localVelocityAs_X is defined as (ran in fixedUpdate/ physics step):
float currLocalVelocityX = (playerTF - prevPositionX) / Time.deltaTime;
localVelocityAs_X = Mathf.Lerp(localVelocityAs_X, currLocalVelocityX, 0.5f);
prevPositionX = playerTF;
Where playerTF is your position on a spline (in this case, using the curvy spline package from the unity asset store. Those spline positions return very small floats so in my case I multiplied playerTF by around 10,000 to make it a more easily readable metric). This is essentially just manually calculating velocity of the player each frame by comparing current position on the spline to last frame's.
RemoveCrossVelocity is the same as above. Comment explanations should suffice.
Vector3 RemoveCrossVelocity(Vector3 v)
{
// get magnitude going in the cross product / perpendicular of local horizontal and local vertical vectors
// (essentially the magnitude on "local Z" of the player)
Vector3 crossVelocity = Vector3.Project(v, Vector3.Cross(transform.right, transform.up));
// and remove it from the vector
return v -= crossVelocity;
}
Finally the solution to the drift. My crude fix was essentially to just adjust the player to the center of the spline every frame. Horizontally, there is no change because it grabs the closest spline point which is calculated by this package to be sort of a float clamped between the start and end of the spline. Vertically, we are being set to the distance the player is from the spline in the local up direction - a fancy way of saying we're not moving vertically at all. The reason this must be done is to avoid the spline vertical position overwriting the players, and we obviously can't set this vector back to playerPos.y in our local coordinate space, so we must resort to using a direction vector * the distance from our everchanging floor. This isn't absolutely ideal at the end of the day, but it works, and there isn't any extra jitter from it (interpolate on your player's rigidbody and some camera dampening helps). All in all these together combine to make a player able to accelerate quickly around sharp corners of a spline with physics and intertia will never cause the player to fly off or drift from the center. Take that, rocket physics!
void ResetPlayerToSpline()
{
Vector3 P; //closest spline point to player
float pTf = currentSpline.GetNearestPointTF(transform.position, out P);
playerHeight = Vector3.Distance(transform.position, P);
transform.position = P + (transform.up * Vector3.Distance(transform.position, P));
}
Ultimately for those possibly looking to do some kind of implementation in the future, the biggest thing you'll run into is a lack of cardinal direction, global oriented axis-based functions and properties normally provided by a game engine. For a primer, here are a few I would use (not including gravity, which is simply opposite your up vector times whatever magnitude):
This one allows you to create a vector using x and y like normal (and z in theory) and run this function to convert it when you actually use the vector in a local space. That way, you don't have to try and think in directions without names. You can still think of things in terms of x and y:
Vector3 ConvertWorldToLocalVector(Vector3 v)
{
Vector3 c;
c = transform.right * v.x + transform.up * v.y;
return c;
}
This is basically the same as what is happening in RemoveCrossVelocity(), but it's important to reiterate this is how you set velocity in a direction to 0. The second part shows how to get velocity in a certain vector.
void Velocity_ZeroY()
{
rb.velocity -= GetLocalVerticalVelocity();
}
public Vector3 GetLocalVerticalVelocity()
{
return Vector3.Project(rb.velocity, _localVertical);
}
Getting height, since you cannot just compare y positions:
height = Vector3.Distance(transform.position, P);
I think that's all the good stuff I can think of. I noticed a severe lack of resources for created spline based physics movement in games, and I'm guessing now it's based on the fact that this was quite an undertaking. It has since been brought to my attention that the game "Pandemonium"(1996) is a curvy 3d spline based sidescrolling platformer - just like mine! The main difference seems to be that it isn't at all based on physics, and I'm not sure from what I can tell if it has pitch changes and gravity to compliment. Hope this helps someone someday, and thank you to those who contributed to the discussion.

Projectile Trajectory : Reaching specific coordinates

I am trying to implement a function in my game which will auto-lock a target and throw a projectile so that it lands perfectly on it.
I did the maths to calculate a parabola from Player 1 -> Target wherever their positions are but realised I wanted to use Unity's physics system rather than having the ball follow a path.
The throw velocity is constant, Player 1 and Target are moving objects but their positions will be registered once only to calculate the initial angle of the throw.
I believe this is the formula I need to use:
But how can I apply it for my Player and Target both having 3D coordinates?
Here is the pseudo-code of what I tried to write in Unity to make more easily readable.
float velocity = 100f;
float g = Physics.gravity;
Transform x = Target.position.x - Player.position.x;
Transform y = Target.position.z - Player.position.z;
double theta;
theta = **big formula using the values above**
And after that I do not know how to use this value to add force to the projectile.
I wanted to use AddForce(x,y,z, ForceMode.Impulse); but I clearly cannot use an initial angle here, only an x and y value.
Using RigidBody.velocity = Vector3(vx, vy, vz); gives me the same problem.
I believe I am missing something trivial but I really am stuck on this. Would anyone be able to help?

Unity C# Firing a projectile at a target rotating around moving axis

I'm developing a 3D spacegame where the camera is in a constant 2D (top down) state. I am able to fire a projectile of speed (s) at a target moving at a given velocity and hit it every time. Great! Okay so what if that target has an angular velocity around a parent? I noticed that if the target has a parent object that is rotating, my projection isn't correct since it doesn't account for the angular velocity.
My initial code was built around the assumption that:
Position_target + Velocity_target * t = Position_shooter + Velocity_shooter * t + Bulletspeed * t
I assume that the shooter is stationary (or potentially moving) and needs to fire a bullet with a constant magnitude.
I simplify the above to this
Delta_Position = Position_target - Position_shooter
Delta_Velocity = Velocity_target - Velocity_shooter
Delta_Position + Delta_Velocity * t = BulletSpeed * t
Squaring both sides I come to a quadratic equation where I can solve for t given determinant outcomes or zeros. This works perfect. I return a t value and then project the target's position and current velocity out to that t, and then I have turret scripts that rotate at a given angular velocity towards that point. If the turret says its looking at that point within 1% on all axis, it fires the bullet at speed(s) and its a 100% hit if the target doesn't alter its course or velocity.
I started adding components on my ships / asteroids that were a child of the parent object, like a turret attached to a ship where the turret itself is a target. If the ship is rotating around an axis (for example Y axis) and the turret is not at x=0 and z=0 my projection no longer works. I thought that using r * sin ( theta + omega * t) as the angular velocity component for the X position and r * cos ( theta + omega * t) for the Z position could work. Theta is the current rotation (with respect to world coordinates) and the omega is the eulerAngle rotation around the y axis.
I've quickly realized this only works with rotating around the y axis, and I can't put the sin into a quadratic equation because I can't extract the t from it so I can't really project this appropriately. I tried using hyperbolics but it was the same situation. I can create an arbitrary t, let's say t=2, and calculate where the object will be in 2 seconds. But I am struggling to find a way to implement the bullet speed projection with this.
Position_targetparent + Velocity_targetparent * t + [ANGULAR VELOCITY COMPONENT] = Position_shooter + Velocity_shooter * t + Bulletspeed * t
Delta_Position_X + Delta_Velocity_X * t + S * t = r * sin (theta + Omegay * t)
Delta_Position_Z + Delta_Velocity_Z * t + S * t = r * cos (theta + Omegay * t)
From here I have been spinning my wheels endlessly trying to figure out a workable solution for this. I am using the eulerAngle.y for the omega which works well. Ultimately I just need that instantaneous point in space that I should fire at which is a product of the speed of the bullet and the distance of the projection, and then my turrets aiming scripts will take care of the rest.
I have been looking at a spherical coordinate system based around the parents position (the center of the rotation)
Vector3 deltaPosition = target.transform.position - target.transform.root.position;
r = deltaPosition .magnitude;
float theta = Mathf.Acos(deltaPosition.z / r);
float phi = Mathf.Atan2(deltaPosition.y,deltaPosition.x);
float xPos = r * Mathf.Sin(theta) * Mathf.Cos(phi)
float yPos = r * Mathf.Sin(theta) * Mathf.Sin(phi)
float zPos = r * Mathf.Cos(theta)
Vector3 currentRotation = transform.root.gameObject.transform.rotation.eulerAngles * Mathf.Deg2Rad;
Vector3 angularVelocity = transform.root.gameObject.GetComponent<Rigidbody>().angularVelocity;
I can calculate the position of the object given these angles ... but I am struggling to turn this into something I can use with the omega * t (angular velocity) approach.
I am wondering if there is a more elegant approach to this problem, or if someone can point me in the right direction of a formula to help me think this through? I am not the best with Quaternions and EulerAngles but I am learning them slowly. Maybe there's something clever I can do with those?

Although the math is likely still tough, I suspect you can simplify the math substantially by having the "target" calculate its future position in local space. And then having it call that location to its parent, have that calculate it in local space, and so on up the hierarchy until you reach world space. Once you have its future position in world space you can aim your turret at that target.
For example an orbiting ship should be able to calculate its future orbit easily. This is an equation for an ellipse. Which can then send that local position to its parent (planet) which is presumably also orbiting and calculate that position relative to itself. The planet will then send this local position to its own parent (Star) and so on. Until you get to world space.
You can further simplify this math by making the bullet's travel time constant (flexible speed), so you can simplify figuring out the future position at a specific time. Depending on the scale of your game, the actual difference in speed might not be that different.
Another idea: Instead of doing all the calculations from brute force, you could "simulate" the target object forward in time. Make sure all the code that affects is position can be run separate from your actual update loop. Simply advance the clock way ahead, and see its future position without actually moving it. Then go back to the present and fire the gun at its future position.

I suggest to solve this problem approximately.
If you can describe the position of your target by a function over time, f(t), then you can approximate it using an divide and conquer strategy like this:
Algorithm (pseudo code):
Let f(t:float):Vector3 be a function that calculates the position of the target at time t
Let g(p:Vector3):float be a function that calculates how long the bullet would need to reach p
float begin = 0 // Lower bound of bullet travel time to hit the target
float end = g(target.position) // Upper bound
// Find an upper bound so that the bullet can hit the target between begin and end time
while g(f(end)) > end:
begin = end
end = end * 2 // Exponential growth for fast convergence
// Add break condition in case the target can't be hit (faster than bullet)
end
// Narrow down the possible aim target, doubling the precision in every step
for i = 1...[precision]:
float center = begin + (end - begin) / 2
float travelTime = g(f(center))
if travelTime > center: // Bullet can't reach target
begin = center
else // Bullet overtook target
end = center
end
end
float finalTravelTime = begin + (end - begin) / 2
Vector3 aimPosition = f(finalTravelTime) // You should aim here...
You need to experiment with the value for [precision]. It should be as small as possible, but large enough for the bullet to always hit the target.
You can also use another break condition, like restricting the absolute error (distance of the bullet to the target at the finalTravelTime).
In case that the target can travel faster than the bullet, you need to add a break condition on the upper bounds loop, otherwise it can become an infinite loop.
Why this is useful:
Instead of calculating a complex equality function to determine the time of impact, you can approximate it with a rather simple position function and this method.
This algorithm is independent of the actual position function, thus works with various enemy movements, as long as the future position can be calculated.
Downsides:
This function calculates f(t) many times, this can be CPU intensive for a complex f(t).
Also it is only an approximation, where the precision of the result gets worse the further the travel time is.
Note:
I wrote this algorithm from the top of my head.
I don't guarantee the correctness of the pseudo code, but the algorithm should work.

XNA - 3D Rotation about local (changing) ship axes - What am I missing?

I'm developing a 3D spaceshooter in XNA as a school project (basically Asteroids in 3D with power-ups), and have been working to implement roll, pitch, and yaw with respect to the ship's local axes. (I should emphasize: the rotation is not with respect to the absolute/world x, y, and z axes.) Sadly, I've been struggling with this for the last few weeks. Google and my neolithic monkey brain have failed me; maybe you folks can help!
Here's my setup:
Via keyboard input, I have the following variables ready to go:
yawRadians, which stores the desired yaw away from the ship's initial
position
pitchRadians, which stores the desired pitch away from the
ship's initial position
rollRadians, which stores the desired roll
away from the ship's initial position
The ship also maintains its own Front, Back, Right, Left, Top and Bottom unit vectors, which are used both for the rotations and also for propulsion. (Different keys will propel the ship toward the Front, Back, etc. This part is working great.)
Ultimately, I generate the rotation matrix mShipRotation, representing all of the ship's rotations, which is passed to the ship's draw method.
The problem I have is with the rotations themselves. Different solutions I've tried have had differing results. Here's what I've gone with so far:
Method 1 – Yaw, Pitch, and Roll relative to the absolute/world x, y, and z axes
At first, I naively tried using the following in my ship's Update method:
qYawPitchRoll = Quaternion.CreateFromYawPitchRoll(yawRadians, pitchRadians, rollRadians);
vFront = Vector3.Transform(vOriginalFront, qYawPitchRoll);
vBack = -1 * vFront;
vRight = Vector3.Transform(vOriginalRight, qYawPitchRoll);
vLeft = -1 * vRight;
vTop = Vector3.Transform(vOriginalTop, qYawPitchRoll);
vBottom = -1 * vTop;
mShipRotation = Matrix.CreateFromQuaternion(qYawPitchRoll);
(vOriginalFront, vOriginalRight, and vOriginalTop just store the ship's initial orientation.)
The above actually works without any errors, except that the rotations are always with respect to the x, y, and z axes, and not with respect to the ship's Front/Back/Right/Left/Top/Bottom vectors. This results in the ship not always yawing and pitching as expected. (Specifically, yawing degenerates to rolling if you have pitched up so the ship is pointing to the top. This makes sense, as yawing in this solution is just rotating about the world up axis.)
I heard about the Quarternion.CreateFromAxisAngle method, which sounded perfect. I could just combine three Quaternion rotations, one around each of the ship's local axis. What could go wrong?
Method 2 – Quaternion.CreateFromAxisAngle
Here's the second code snippet I used in my ship's Update method:
qPitch = Quaternion.CreateFromAxisAngle(vRight, pitchRadians);
qYaw = Quaternion.CreateFromAxisAngle(vTop, yawRadians);
qRoll = Quaternion.CreateFromAxisAngle(vFront, rollRadians);
qPitchYawAndRoll = Quaternion.Concatenate(Quaternion.Concatenate(qPitch, qYaw), qRoll);
vFront = Vector3.Normalize(Vector3.Transform(vOriginalFront, qPitchYawAndRoll));
vBack = -1 * vFront;
vRight = Vector3.Normalize(Vector3.Transform(vOriginalRight, qPitchYawAndRoll));
vLeft = -1 * vRight;
vTop = Vector3.Normalize(Vector3.Transform(vOriginalTop, qPitchYawAndRoll));
vBottom = -1 * vTop;
mShipRotation = Matrix.CreateFromQuaternion(qPitchYawAndRoll);
The above works perfectly if I only do one rotation at a time (yaw, pitch, or roll), but if I combine more than one rotation simultaneously, the ship begins to wildly spin and point in many different directions, getting more and more warped until it disappears entirely.
I've tried variants of the above where I first apply the Pitch to all the vectors, then the Yaw, then the Roll, but no luck.
I also tried it using Matrices directly, despite concerns of Gimbal Lock:
Method 3: Matrices
mShipRotation = Matrix.Identity;
mShipRotation *= Matrix.CreateFromAxisAngle(vRight, pitchRadians);
mShipRotation *= Matrix.CreateFromAxisAngle(vFront, rollRadians);
mShipRotation *= Matrix.CreateFromAxisAngle(vTop, yawRadians);
vFront = Vector3.Normalize(Vector3.Transform(vOriginalFront, mShipRotation));
vBack = -1 * vFront;
vRight = Vector3.Normalize(Vector3.Transform(vOriginalRight, mShipRotation));
vLeft = -1 * vRight;
vTop = Vector3.Normalize(Vector3.Transform(vOriginalTop, mShipRotation));
vBottom = -1 * vTop;
No luck; I got the same behavior. One rotation at a time is okay, but rotating about multiple axes resulted in the same bizarre spinning behavior.
After some brilliant debugging (read as: blindly outputting variables to the console), I noticed that the Front/Right/Top vectors were slowly, over time, becoming less orthogonal to one another. I added Normalization to vectors basically every step of the way, and also tried computing new vectors based on cross products, to try to ensure that they always remained perpendicular to one another, but even then they were not perfectly orthogonal. I'm guessing this is due to floating point math not being perfectly precise.
Note that I regenerate the mShipRotation matrix every Update method, so it cannot be accumulating drift or inaccuracies directly. I think that applying multiple Quarternion rotations may be accumulating error (as I can do one rotation just fine), but my attempts to fix it have not worked.
In short:
I can pitch/roll/yaw relative to the world axes x, y, and z just
fine. It's just not what the player would expect to happen as the
rolling/pitching/yawing is not relative to the ship, but to the
world.
I can roll, pitch, or yaw around the ship's local axes (Front/Back/Top/Bottom/Left/Right) just fine, but only one at a time. Any combination of them will cause the ship to spiral and deform rapidly.
I've tried Quaternions and Matrices. I've tried suggestions I've found in various forums, but ultimately do not wind up with a working solution. Often people recommend using Quaternion.CreateFromYawPitchRoll, not really realizing that the intent is to have a ship rotate about its own (constantly changing) axes, and not the (fixed) world axes.
Any ideas? Given a situation where you are given the roll, pitch, and yaw about a ship's front, right, and top vectors, how would you go about creating the rotation matrix?

You seem to be applying your overall angles (yawRadians, pitchRadians, rollRadians) to your local axis in your methods 2 & 3. These values are married to the world axis and have no meaning in local space. The root of your problem is wanting to hang onto the 3 angles.
In local space, use an angular amount that is the amount you want to rotate between frames. If you only pitched up 0.002f radians since the last frame, that would be what you would use when you rotate around the vRight axis.
This will screw with your overall angle values (yawRadians, pitchRadians, & rollRadians) and render them useless but most folks who stick with 3d programming quickly drop the angle approach to storing the orientation anyway.
Simply rotate your matrix or quaternion little by little each frame around your local axis and store the orientation in that structure (the quat or matrix) instead of the 3 angles.
There is no worries about gimbal lock when you are rotating a matrix about local axis like this. You would have to have 90 degree rotations between frames to bring that into the picture.
If you want to avoid error accumulation use a quat to store the orientation and normalize it each frame. Then the matrix you send to the effect will be made each frame from the quat and will be ortho-normal. Even if you didn't use a quat and stored your orientation in a matrix it would take hours or days to accumulate enough error to be visually noticeable.
This blog might help: http://stevehazen.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/matrix-basics-how-to-step-away-from-storing-an-orientation-as-3-angles/

I think this might be what you're looking for:
http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/33807.aspx
I'm pretty sure that CreateFromAxisAngle is the way to go.

How to Lerp between 2 Z-Axis points in Unity, and Scale a Component accordingly

I'm working with Unity 3 and my total level size will be just a quadrilateral area with a wall on each side. Within this will be two additional walls that create an enclosure that restricts the player to a portion of the level that gradually expands.
I call these two walls ZBoundary and XBoundary, and so far for a prototype have mapped their movement to some keyboard keys. What I want to do is when one moves, the other grows in length so they are always joined at a perpendicular angle, so I want to be able to linearly interpolate between, for example, the ZBoundary's Z-coordinate and the Z-coordinate of the Xboundary so that they always meet and create a join. This creates a problem as well, because I don't know how to change the size of a GameComponent programmatically, and keep getting errors.
I know Vector3.lerp may help but I'm drowning in transforms and different scales and so would appreciate the help.

I'm halfway there by now getting the XBoundary to adjust its position in order to always lock to the ZBoundary at 90degrees
ZBoundaryRef.transform.Translate((-1 * distancePerZMovement), 0, 0, Space.World);
// using Space.World so transforms are using the global coordinate system!
// what I've done here is say, move the XBoundary Z-CoOrd so that it aligns with the ZBoundary Z-CoOrd.
// the origin of an object is at it's centre point so we need to take this in to account to ensure they join at the corners, not in a Tshape!
float difference = (ZBoundaryRef.transform.position.x - XBoundaryRef.transform.position.x);
float adjustment = difference + (ZBoundaryRef.transform.localScale.x/2);
XBoundaryRef.transform.Translate(adjustment,0,0,Space.World);