Develop Reference

Changing direction while moving

I am making a game with a space ship that rotates when the left and right keys are pressed and moves forward when the up key is pressed.
Currently the ship can rotate while its moving forward but it will continue in the same direction that it is going in.
How would i make it so that the ship can change the direction its is moving while the up key is being held down?
This is the update method for the SpaceShip class:
public void update(){
radians += ri;
System.out.println(radians);
if(radians < 0){
radians = 2 * Math.PI;
}if(radians > (2 * Math.PI)){
radians = 0;
}
x += xx;
y += yy;
}
this is the right event:
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
if(pressed){
Board.getShip().setRI(0.05);
}else{
Board.getShip().setRI(0);
}
}
and this is the up event:
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
if(pressed){
Board.getShip().setXX(Math.cos(Board.getShip().getRadians()) * Board.getShip().getSpeed());
Board.getShip().setYY(Math.sin(Board.getShip().getRadians()) * Board.getShip().getSpeed());
}else{
Board.getShip().setXX(0);
Board.getShip().setYY(0);
}
}

Rockets
A rocket defined as
// pseudo code
rocket = {
mass : 1000,
position : { // world coordinate position
x : 0,
y : 0,
},
deltaPos : { // the change in position per frame
x : 0,
y : 0,
},
direction : 0, // where the front points in radians
thrust: 100, // the force applied by the rockets
velocity : ?, // this is calculated
}
The formula for movement is
deltaVelocity = mass / thrust;
The direction of the thrust is along the direction the ship is pointing. As there are two components to the change in position per frame and that thrust changes the deltas the way to apply thrust is;
// deltaV could be a constant but I like to use mass so when I add stuff
// or upgrade rockets it has a better feel.
float deltaV = this.mass / this.thrust;
this.deltaPos.x += Math.sin(this.direction) * deltaV;
this.deltaPos.y += Math.cos(this.direction) * deltaV;
As the thrust delta is added to the position deltas the result is acceleration in the direction the ship is pointing.
Each frame you then update the position by the delta pos.
this.position.x += this.deltaPos.x;
this.position.y += this.deltaPos.y;
You may want to add some drag to slow the ship over time. You can add a simple drag coefficient
rocket.drag = 0.99; // 1 no drag 0 100% drag as soon as you stop thrust the ship will stop.
To apply the drag
this.deltaPos.x *= this.drag;
this.deltaPos.y *= this.drag;
To get the current velocity, though not needed in the caculations.
this.velocity = Math.sqrt( this.deltaPos.x * this.deltaPos.x + this.deltaPos.y * this.deltaPos.y);
This will produce rocket behaviour that is the same as in the game Asteroids. If you want behaviour that is more like a boat on water, or car (ie the changing direction changes the deltas to match the direction) let me know as it is a simple modification of the above.

LibGDX - Map Boundaries

Synopsis
Well, I'm making a little top-down JRPG and today I was like 'Yeah, I'm gonna bust out this whole map collision thing!'. I failed.
Problem
So I went on the internet and looked up 'LibGDX Tiled Map Collision Detection' and found a really neat post about Map Objects so I added in a map object layer and did all that biz and came out with this little method to ensure the player can move freely around the map but at the same time can't exit it but each time I've tried it ends up with a horrible result such as the player moving off the screen. The latest error is that the player gets stuck doing a walk animation and can't move anywhere else!
Code
package com.darkbyte.games.tfa.game.entity.entities;
import com.badlogic.gdx.Gdx;
import com.badlogic.gdx.Input.Keys;
import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.g2d.Animation;
import com.badlogic.gdx.graphics.g2d.TextureRegion;
import com.badlogic.gdx.maps.objects.RectangleMapObject;
import com.badlogic.gdx.math.Rectangle;
import com.darkbyte.games.tfa.game.entity.Entity;
import com.darkbyte.games.tfa.game.entity.SpriteSheet;
import com.darkbyte.games.tfa.game.world.map.MapManager;
import com.darkbyte.games.tfa.render.Batch;
import com.darkbyte.games.tfa.render.Camera;
public class Player extends Entity {
// The constructor for the player class
public Player(String name, SpriteSheet spriteSheet) {
super(name, spriteSheet);
direction = Direction.DOWN;
collisionBox = new Rectangle(x, y, 64, 64);
}
// A flag to see if the player is moving
private boolean isMoving;
// The variable that holds the state time
private float stateTime;
// The player's walking animations
private Animation[] walkAnimations = {
spriteSheet.getAnimation(8, 8, 1 / 16f),
spriteSheet.getAnimation(9, 8, 1 / 16f),
spriteSheet.getAnimation(10, 8, 1 / 16f),
spriteSheet.getAnimation(11, 8, 1 / 16f) };
// The player's static frames
private TextureRegion[] staticFrames = {
spriteSheet.getTexture(8, 0),
spriteSheet.getTexture(9, 0),
spriteSheet.getTexture(10, 0),
spriteSheet.getTexture(11, 0) };
// The render code for the player
#Override
public void render() {
// Makes the camera follow the player
Camera.setCameraPosition(x, y);
Batch.getGameBatch().setProjectionMatrix(Camera.getCamera().combined);
// Updates the state time
stateTime += Gdx.graphics.getDeltaTime();
// Gets the player's direction, if the player's moving, it sets the
// current frame to the frame that would be played at the current moment
// based on the state time
// If the player isn't moving, it sets the current frame to the static
// frame associated to the direction
switch (direction) {
case UP:
if(isMoving) {
currentFrame = walkAnimations[0].getKeyFrame(stateTime, true);
} else
currentFrame = staticFrames[0];
break;
case LEFT:
if(isMoving) {
currentFrame = walkAnimations[1].getKeyFrame(stateTime, true);
} else
currentFrame = staticFrames[1];
break;
case DOWN:
if(isMoving) {
currentFrame = walkAnimations[2].getKeyFrame(stateTime, true);
} else
currentFrame = staticFrames[2];
break;
case RIGHT:
if(isMoving) {
currentFrame = walkAnimations[3].getKeyFrame(stateTime, true);
} else
currentFrame = staticFrames[3];
break;
}
}
// The tick code for the player
#Override
public void tick() {
// The object to represent the bounds of the land on the map
RectangleMapObject land = (RectangleMapObject) MapManager.getCurrentMap().getMap().getLayers().get("collision").getObjects().get("land");
// Checks if the player is within the bounds of the map
if(land.getRectangle().contains(collisionBox)) {
// If the player is moving but the arrow keys aren't pressed, sets isMoving to false
isMoving = (isMoving && (Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.W) || Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.UP)
|| Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.A) || Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.LEFT)
|| Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.S) || Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.DOWN)
|| Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.D) || Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.RIGHT)));
// Checks to see if the arrow / WASD keys are pressed and moves the
// player in the correct direction at the speed of 1.5 pixels/tick
// (45/second)
// It also sets the players state to moving and corresponds it's
// direction to the key pressed
// Doesn't move if opposing keys are pressed
if(Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.W) || Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.UP)) {
if(!(Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.S) || Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.DOWN))) {
direction = Direction.UP;
y += 1.5f;
isMoving = true;
}
}
if(Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.A) || Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.LEFT)) {
if(!(Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.D) || Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.RIGHT))) {
direction = Direction.LEFT;
isMoving = true;
x -= 1.5f;
}
}
if(Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.S) || Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.DOWN)) {
if(!(Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.W) || Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.UP))) {
direction = Direction.DOWN;
y -= 1.5f;
isMoving = true;
}
}
if(Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.D) || Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.RIGHT)) {
if(!(Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.A) || Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.LEFT))) {
direction = Direction.RIGHT;
x += 1.5f;
isMoving = true;
}
}
} else {
if(!isMoving) {
// If the player's just spawned puts the player to the map's spawn point
x = MapManager.getCurrentMap().getPlayerSpawnX();
y = MapManager.getCurrentMap().getPlayerSpawnY();
} else { // If not, it just moves them back till they're no longer out of the map
if(x > (land.getRectangle().getX() + land.getRectangle().getWidth())) x -= 1.5;
if(y > (land.getRectangle().getY() + land.getRectangle().getHeight())) y -= 1.5;
}
}
// Synchronises the collision box with the player's x and y position
collisionBox.x = x;
collisionBox.y = y;
}
// Returns if the player is moving
public boolean isMoving() {
return isMoving;
}
}
Can you guys make it so that when he reaches the border that he stops but he can still keep moving in other directions instead of staying static!
Thanks for reading!

At the moment it sounds you just copy/pasted it and you need to familiarize yourself with it first. If you don't know what it does then you should learn or stop the project imho.
Anyway, from what I can tell it's just a player class that handles the animation frames based on which direction it is moving. Nothing to do with collision detection at all. It does update some kind of collisionBox but functionality for this is handled elsewhere, perhaps in the parent class Entity?
My guess is that this is a tile map and units are restricted to the grid. It's pretty easy to detect if A tile exists or not.
private boolean tileExists(int tileX, int tileY, tile[][] map)
{
return tileX >= 0 && tileY >= 0 &&
tileX < map.length && tileY < map[0].length;
}
Now whenever a entity requests a move you should check if the destination is within the map bounds.
private void moveRequest(int destinationX, int destinationY, Tile[][] map)
{
//Just return if the tile is outside of the map
if (!tileExists(destinationX, destinationY, map) return;
//Same goes for your other checks...
//Return if the tile is not walkable
if (!tileIsWalkable(destinationX, destinationY, map) return;
//Return if the tile is already occupied
if (tileIsOccupied(destinationX, destinationY, otherEntities) return;
//etc..
//Now the move is valid and you can set it's state to moving in that direction.
}
Tile maps are not very hard to understand. I will make an attempt to give you some better insight into tile maps. You have a 2D array where you store your tiles in. Tiles have a width and a height and from that you can make your own tile engine:
//Find out which tiles to draw based on the camera position and viewport size.
int startX = (int)(camera.position.x - camera.viewportWidth / 2) / tileWidth;
int startY = (int)(camera.position.y - camera.viewportHeight / 2) / tileHeight;
int endX = (int)(startX + camera.viewportWidth / tileWidth) + 1;
int endY = (int)(startY + camera.viewportHeight / tileHeight) + 1;
//Loop using this data as boundaries
for (int y = startY; y < endY; y++)
{
for (int x = startX; x < endX; x++)
{
//If out of bounds continue to next tile.
if (!tileExists(x, y, map) continue;
//Now all we need to draw the on screen tiles properly:
//x == tile position x in array
//y == tile position y in array
//World position of this tile:
//worldX = x * tileWidth;
//worldY = y * tileHeight;
//Let's draw:
batch.draw(map[x][y].getTexture, worldX, worldY,
tileWidth, tileHeight)
}
}
There really is no magic involved here at all. Drawing only what is on screen like in the above example is very important for larger maps. Other then that you should draw thing in the back first. You have several options to do this, the easiest but least versatile is just a separate the ground from the objects that can obscure things and draw this later.
Characters, creatures or other entities can just use a world position and be easily converted back to tile position.
tileX = worldX / tileWidth;
tileY = worldY / tileHeight;
So if you want to move something with the world position calculate it's tile position first using the aforementioned method. Then lookup if this tile is valid to move to. Then block that tile for other and move to it.

Java Android 2D Game - Issue with virtual borders

I'm a computer scientist student and I'm new to programming. To challenge myself, I decided to try my hand at creating a simple 2D android game.
The issue I'm having is related to the borders. I have a player character who can move left and right along the X-axis, although the character is not supposed to go outside of the screen. This works for the most part, but holding the button that sends your characters towards left/right will make the character go through the border.
What I have in terms of code is essentially an if statement in the update() method that checks if the x value of the player character is < 0 (for the left border) and if that statement is true then it prevents the player from clicking the left button again until the right button has been clicked (player's x value is again greater than 0).
How do I solve this? My first idea was that I could have something that checks the gamestate every 5 ms or something and if the player's x value is equal to or less than 0, then set the movement speed to 0 until the right button has been clicked, but I do not know how to implement this check.
Do you have any idea how this could be implemented or if there is a better solution? Thank you very much!
Here's the relevant code:
//In class GamePanel
public void update() {
if (player.getX() <= 4) {
player.setTooFarLeft(true);
MOVESPEED = 0;
}
}
#Override
public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
final float scaleFactorX = getWidth() / (WIDTH * 1.f);
final float scaleFactorY = getHeight() / (HEIGHT * 1.f);
Rect right = new Rect((int) ((WIDTH * scaleFactorX) / 3 + (int) (WIDTH * scaleFactorX) / 3), 0, (int) (WIDTH * scaleFactorX), (int) (HEIGHT * scaleFactorY));
Rect left = new Rect(0, 0, (int) (WIDTH * scaleFactorX / 3), (int) (HEIGHT * scaleFactorY));
int x = (int) event.getX();
int y = (int) event.getY();
//Same for right
if (left.contains(x, y) && player.getTooFarLeft()==false) {
if (!player.getPlaying()) {
player.setPlaying(true);
} else {
player.setMovement(4);
player.setLeft(true);
final Handler handler = new Handler();
handler.postDelayed(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
player.setMovement(8);
}
}, 1000);
}
return true;
}

do if player's x is less than 0, set his x cordinates to 3.

Object not moving in correct direction

Alright, I'm trying to do some simple object moving in the direction of where you touched the screen.
If I touch directly northwest of the object, it'll kind of move into the direction of the touch position. If I touch directly southeast of the object, it will kind of move into the direction of the touch position as well. However, if I touch directly northeast of the object, it'll move into the opposite direction towards the southwest. If I touch directly southwest of the object, it'll also move to the opposite direction towards northeast.
Also, if I touch north of the object, but just a little to the west, it will go straight west with a little to the north. Same with touching west of the object with a little bit to the north, it'll go straight north with a little bit to the west. Same thing for other directions.
Really, all the directions are from somewhat to obviously incorrect. I've been doing some paper calculations as well and I've seemed to be getting some correct angles, but at this point I'm completely stumped.
Does anyone know what the problem may be?
package com.badlogic.androidgames.texasholdem;
import java.util.List;
import android.util.FloatMath;
import com.badlogic.androidgames.framework.Game;
import com.badlogic.androidgames.framework.Graphics;
import com.badlogic.androidgames.framework.Input.TouchEvent;
import com.badlogic.androidgames.framework.Screen;
public class MainMenuScreen extends Screen {
public static float TO_RADIANS = (1 / 180.0f) * (float) Math.PI;
public static float TO_DEGREES = (1 / (float) Math.PI) * 180;
float num_x = 0; // Position of object on X axis
float num_y = 0; // Position of object on Y axis
float angle = 0;
public MainMenuScreen(Game game) {
super(game);
}
public void update(float deltaTime) {
Graphics g = game.getGraphics();
List<TouchEvent> touchEvents = game.getInput().getTouchEvents();
game.getInput().getKeyEvents();
int len = touchEvents.size();
for(int i = 0; i < len; i++) {
TouchEvent event = touchEvents.get(i);
if(event.type == TouchEvent.TOUCH_UP) {
if(inBounds(event, 0, 0, g.getWidth(), g.getHeight()) ) {
// Calculate the angle of the direction between two points
angle = (float) Math.atan2(event.x - num_x, event.y - num_y) * TO_DEGREES;
if (angle < 0)
angle += 360;
// This is just to give me numbers on the Math.atan2 result, angle, to/from X position, and to/from Y position
System.out.println("Pressed! - ATAN: " + Math.atan2(event.x - num_x, event.y - num_y)
+ " - ANGLE:" + angle + " - POS: " + event.x + "tx/"
+ (int)num_x + "fx " + event.y + "ty/" + (int)num_y + "fy");
}
}
}
// Moving object in direction at 1f speed
num_x += (1f * (float) Math.cos(angle * TO_RADIANS));
num_y += (1f * (float) Math.sin(angle * TO_RADIANS));
}
private boolean inBounds(TouchEvent event, int x, int y, int width, int height) {
if(event.x > x && event.x < x + width - 1 &&
event.y > y && event.y < y + height - 1)
return true;
else
return false;
}
public void present(float deltaTime) {
Graphics g = game.getGraphics();
g.drawPixmap(Assets.background, 0, 0);
g.drawPixmap(Assets.backcard, (int)num_x, (int)num_y);
}
public void pause() {
Settings.save(game.getFileIO());
}
public void resume() {
}
public void dispose() {
}
}

if event x> x then x must be positive to move toward event.x
the problem here is that when event.x< x then your moving x must be negative
int dx,dy;
dx = (1f * (float) Math.cos(angle * TO_RADIANS));
dy = (1f * (float) Math.sin(angle * TO_RADIANS));
if(event.x<x){
dx=-dx;}
if(event.y<y){
dy=-dy;}
num_x+=dx;
num_y+=dy;
this way is simpler but less precise....
public void update(){
//(find dif between item x, and touch x)
float xdif=destx-x;
float ydif=desty-y;
if(x<destx){
dx=xdif/8;
}
else if(x>destx){
//we devide both x and y differences by the same number
dx=xdif/8;
}
else if(x==destx){
dx=0;
}
if(y<desty){
dy=ydif/5;
}
else if(y>desty){
dy=ydif/5;
}
else if(y==desty){
dy=0;
}
x+=dx;
y+=dy;
there u go, pathing in a straight line between two points, item.x and touch x.

Firstly, the math - I think the problem is that, for example, tan(135deg) = tan (-45deg) = -1. Therefore, atan has return values ranging between -90deg and 90deg as a resolution to ambiguity (look at its graph here). I think La5t5tarfighter's solution - negating the x movement in some cases - is on the right track, but you need to negate the y component in those cases as well. You could try that, but it would be much simpler if you used libGDX's Vector2 class. This is how I'd do it:
move.set(touchX, touchY); // y should be through flipping or unproject() before this
move.sub(objectPos); // move now points from object to where you touched
move.nor(); // now 1 unit long
move.scl(SPEED*deltaTime); // multiplied by a constant and delta - framerate-independent
objectPos.add(move);
You could even chain it into just one line if you want:
objectPos.add(move.set(x,y).sub(objectPos).nor().scl(SPEED*deltaTime));
Secondly, you're not using a Camera. I'm not completely sure what the default coordinate system is, but I believe the y axis points up which is not the same as the one used for inputs - Input.getY() is given with an y axis pointing down from the top left corner. If you had a Camera, you'd do this:
cam.unproject(someVector.set(Gdx.input.getX(), Gdx.input.getY(), 0));
Lacking that, you might need to flip the y axis:
event.y = Gdx.graphics.getHeight() - event.y;
Still, this could be wrong. Try drawing the object right at the touch position - if I'm right in this, it'll seem mirrored vertically. If it draws correctly where you touch, ignore this part.

getting unnecessary touch events from LIBGDX

In order to build a tic-tac-toe game for testing, I have following routine. But problem is that I am getting too many events for just one touch. I suspect isTouched() returns all of down, up, and move. Is there any way to just get up event?
UPDATE: Resolved the issue by employing justTouched() instead.
#Override
public void render() {
// we update the game state so things move.
updateGame();
// First we clear the screen
GL10 gl = Gdx.graphics.getGL10();
gl.glViewport(0, 0, width, height);
gl.glClear(GL10.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
// Next we update the camera and set the camera matrix
camera.update();
camera.apply(Gdx.gl10);
...
}
private void updateGame() {
// the delta time so we can do frame independant time based movement
float deltaTime = Gdx.graphics.getDeltaTime();
// Has the user touched the screen? then position the paddle
if (Gdx.input.isTouched() && !isProcess) {
// get the touch coordinates and translate them
// to the game coordinate system.
isProcess=true;
int width = Gdx.graphics.getWidth();
int height = Gdx.graphics.getHeight();
int offx=-width/2;
int offy=-height/2;
float x = Gdx.input.getX();
float y = Gdx.input.getY();
float touchX = 480 * (x
/ (float) width - 0.5f);
float touchY = 320 * (0.5f - y
/ (float) height);
for(int i=0;i<3;i++) {
for(int j=0;j<3;j++)
{
if(touchX >= offx+i*width/3 && touchX < offx+(i+1)*width/3 &&
touchY >= offy+j*height/3 && touchY < offy+(j+1)*height/3)
{
if(isCurrentO)
data[i][j]=CellStatus.O;
else
data[i][j]=CellStatus.X;
isCurrentO=!isCurrentO;
break;
}
}
}
isProcess=false;
}
}

An alternative to using justTouched is to implement the InputProcessor interface, as it has a touchUp(x,y,pointer,button) which gives you greater control over the input. There are several classes that implement this or you can have your class implement it.

You can create a board for example (with hash map) and each object in your game wants to be clickable add itself to that board if an object was touched and was in board it will catch the event. If not it will not catch the event. So easy! :)