C#: How to add dampening to Pan, zoom, orbit camera?

Unity Engine
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1

Hi!

I’m very new to Unity and C# and I’m trying to create a camera that can pan, zoom, and orbit around the scene.

  • I managed to get all the functions working with the script below, but only the zoom is nicely dampened. The pan and orbit are very abrupt…

  • How can I add dampening to the pan and orbit part of the script?

Thanks in advance!

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;

public class MainCam : MonoBehaviour
{
public Transform target;

public Vector3 targetOffset;
public float distance = 5.0f;
public float orbit = 0f;

public float maxDistance = 200f;
public float minDistance = 100f;

public float xSpeed = 200.0f;
public float ySpeed = 200.0f;

public int yMinLimit = -80;
public int yMaxLimit = 80;

public int zoomRate = 40;

public float panSpeed = 5f;

//DAMPENING
public float MouseSensitivity = 4f;
public float zoomDampening = 5.0f;
public float ScrollSensitvity = 2f;

private float xDeg = 0.0f;
private float yDeg = 0.0f;
private float currentDistance;
private float desiredDistance;

void Start()
{
Vector3 angles = transform.eulerAngles;
xDeg = angles.x;
yDeg = angles.y;

currentDistance = distance;
desiredDistance = distance;
}

// Camera logic on LateUpdate to only update after all character movement logic has been handled.

void LateUpdate()
{
// Don’t do anything if target is not defined
if (!target)
return;

// Left mouse down ORBIT
else if (Input.GetMouseButton(0))
{
// xDeg += Input.GetAxis(“Mouse X”) * xSpeed * 0.02f;
// yDeg -= Input.GetAxis(“Mouse Y”) * ySpeed * 0.02f;

xDeg += Input.GetAxis(“Mouse X”) * MouseSensitivity;
yDeg -= Input.GetAxis(“Mouse Y”) * MouseSensitivity;

}
// Middle mouse down PAN
else if (Input.GetMouseButton(2))
{
//grab the rotation of the camera
target.rotation = transform.rotation;
target.Translate(Vector3.right * -Input.GetAxis(“Mouse X”) * panSpeed);
target.Translate(transform.up * -Input.GetAxis(“Mouse Y”) * panSpeed, Space.World);
}

// affect the desired Zoom distance if we roll the scrollwheel
desiredDistance -= Input.GetAxis(“Mouse ScrollWheel”) * Time.deltaTime * zoomRate * Mathf.Abs(desiredDistance);

//clamp the zoom min/max
desiredDistance = Mathf.Clamp(desiredDistance, minDistance, maxDistance);

//Clamp the vertical axis for the orbit
yDeg = ClampAngle(yDeg, yMinLimit, yMaxLimit);

// set camera rotation
Quaternion rotation = Quaternion.Euler(yDeg, xDeg, 0);

// For smoothing of the zoom, lerp distance
currentDistance = Mathf.Lerp(currentDistance, desiredDistance, Time.deltaTime * zoomDampening);

// keep within legal limits
currentDistance = Mathf.Clamp(currentDistance, minDistance, maxDistance);

// calculate position based on the new currentDistance
Vector3 position = target.position - (rotation * Vector3.forward * currentDistance + targetOffset);

transform.rotation = rotation;
transform.position = position;
}

private static float ClampAngle(float angle, float min, float max)
{
if (angle < -360)
angle += 360;
if (angle > 360)
angle -= 360;
return Mathf.Clamp(angle, min, max);
}
}

2

Camera stuff is pretty tricky… you may wish to consider using Cinemachine from the Unity Package Manager.

There’s even a dedicated forum: Unity Engine - Unity Discussions

If you insist on wrangling your own camera code, you’ll need to learn how to use code tags: Using code tags properly

and how to report your problem productively in the Unity3D forums:

http://plbm.com/?p=220

This is the bare minimum of information to report:

  • what you want
  • what you tried
  • what you expected to happen
  • what actually happened, especially any errors you see
  • links to documentation you used to cross-check your work (CRITICAL!!!)
1 Like
3

Never use camera manual manipulation if you’re doing anything even slightly more complicated than simple translation. Even then Cinemachine should be the go-to solution. I discovered it very recently and was blown away by how many dev hours I realized it could’ve spared me from, should I’ve discovered it sooner (9y dev here)

1 Like