2D Collision Avoidance & Smoothly rotating game object

Questions & Answers
1

Hello,

Looking for a little help here. Thanks for reading!

The Problem: I’ve set up basic obstacle avoidance for characters using raycast. Rapid changes in direction as a result of avoiding obstacles is making the characters oscillate between a variety of directions. Need some way to smooth the rotation.

Info on Game: 2D top down on x/z. Using sprite sheets for graphics.

Code to orientate characters to target

targetHeading = targetPosition - transform.position;
targetDirection = targetHeading.normalized;

Collision Avoidance Code

There are three rays being cast. This is the code for the center one.

// Declare RayCastHit
RaycastHit hit;
			
// Raycast forward from transform, to a distance of 2
if(Physics.Raycast(transform.position, transform.forward, out hit, 4f))
{
	// Make sure ray is not hitting itself
	if(hit.transform != transform) 
	{
		if(hit.collider.gameObject.tag == "Enemy" || hit.collider.gameObject.tag == "Player")
		{
			Debug.Log("EnemyScript.FindAIInput: RayHit on " + hit.collider.gameObject.tag);
						
			// Add direction from hit face, times how much force to repel by
			targetDirection += hit.normal * 100;
		}
	}}

Code for moving and rotating Gameobject

rigidbody.AddForce (targetDirection.normalized * moveSpeed * Time.deltaTime);
		
// Rotate to targetDirection
transform.rotation = Quaternion.LookRotation(targetDirection); // Converts target direction vector to Quaternion
transform.eulerAngles = new Vector3(0, transform.eulerAngles.y, 0); 
		
// Set the position
transform.position = new Vector3(transform.position.x, 0, transform.position.z);

Thanks again! Let me know if you need any more information!

2

Kind of obvious, but disabling rotation in the update dramatically improved the stuttering. Here’s the code incase it’s of use to someone else.

if(rayhit == false)
		{
			// Add force along targetHeading
			//rigidbody.AddForce (targetHeading.normalized * moveSpeed * Time.deltaTime);
			rigidbody.AddForce (targetDirection.normalized * moveSpeed * Time.deltaTime);
		
			// Rotate to targetDirection
			transform.rotation = Quaternion.LookRotation(targetDirection); // Converts target direction vector to Quaternion
			transform.eulerAngles = new Vector3(0, transform.eulerAngles.y, 0); 
		
			// Set the position
			transform.position = new Vector3(transform.position.x, 0, transform.position.z);
		}
		
		else
		{
			rigidbody.AddForce (targetDirection.normalized * moveSpeed * Time.deltaTime);
			transform.position = new Vector3(transform.position.x, 0, transform.position.z);
			
			rayhit = false;
		}