2D NPC Direction

2D
1

I am making a 2D Game and I use the AStar pathfinding(A* Pathfinding Project) to move my NPC’s around the screen. Problem is I cannot tell which direction the NPC is moving in to update their sprite. Anyone know how I could solve this issue?

Thanks

2

You could store their previous position and compare it to their current position each frame to determine the direction they have moved in.

private Vector3 prevPosition;
public Vector3 MovementDirection { get; private set;}

void Update()
{
     MovementDirection = transform.position - prevPosition;     
     MovementDirection.Normalize();

     prevPostition = transform.position;
}
1 Like
3

Thank you so much! It worked, this is the following code I used in case anyone else has any issues. I get my sprite animations based on a X/Y float.

        movementDirection = transform.position - prevPosition;
        movementDirection.Normalize();
        if (anim)
        {
            anim.SetFloat("X", Mathf.Clamp(Mathf.Round(movementDirection.x), -1, 1));
            anim.SetFloat("Y", Mathf.Clamp(Mathf.Round(movementDirection.y), -1, 1));
        }

        prevPosition = transform.position;
4

You could just use Mathf.Sign() instead of Clamp(). Doesn’t work correctly with 0, though.