Character doesn't move when keys are pressed

Hello, I’ve been following a tutorial on how to move and animate movements and I’m not sure whether it’s a scripting issue or something external to the code. The script should make my character move, but it doesn’t. It animates okay and rotates in the direction I want but no matter what line of code I seem to change, it never seems to want to move in that direction.

Here’s my stuff outside the code just in case it’s anything in there.

And here’s my code:

using UnityEngine;

public class Move : MonoBehaviour
{

    public float speed;

    [SerializeField]
    private float rotationSpeed;

    [SerializeField]
    private float jumpSpeed;

    [SerializeField]
    private float jumpButtonGracePeriod;

    [SerializeField]
    private float jumpHorizontalSpeed;

    [SerializeField]
    private Transform cameraTransform;

    private Animator animator;
    private CharacterController characterController;
    private float ySpeed;
    private float originalStepOffset;
    private float? lastGroundedTime;
    private float? jumpButtonPressedTime;
    private bool isJumping;
    private bool isGrounded;

    // Start is called before the first frame update
    void Start()
    {
        animator = GetComponent<Animator>();
        characterController = GetComponent<CharacterController>();
        originalStepOffset = characterController.stepOffset;
    }

    // Update is called once per frame
    void Update()
    {
        float horizontalInput = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");
        float verticalInput = Input.GetAxis("Vertical");

        Vector3 movementDirection = new Vector3(horizontalInput, 0, verticalInput);
        float inputMagnitude = Mathf.Clamp01(movementDirection.magnitude);
        movementDirection.Normalize();       

        if (Input.GetKey(KeyCode.LeftShift) || Input.GetKey(KeyCode.RightShift))
        {
            inputMagnitude /= 2;
        }

        animator.SetFloat("Input Magnitude", inputMagnitude, 0.05f, Time.deltaTime);

        movementDirection = Quaternion.AngleAxis(cameraTransform.rotation.eulerAngles.y, Vector3.up) * movementDirection;
        movementDirection.Normalize();

        ySpeed += Physics.gravity.y * Time.deltaTime;

        if (characterController.isGrounded)
        {
            lastGroundedTime = Time.time;
        }

        if (Input.GetButtonDown("Jump"))
        {
            jumpButtonPressedTime = Time.time;
        }

        if (Time.time - lastGroundedTime <= jumpButtonGracePeriod)
        {
            characterController.stepOffset = originalStepOffset;
            ySpeed = -0.5f;
            animator.SetBool("isGrounded", true);
            isGrounded = true;
            animator.SetBool("isJumping", false);
            isJumping = false;
            animator.SetBool("isFalling", false);

            if (Time.time - jumpButtonPressedTime <= jumpButtonGracePeriod)
            {
                ySpeed = jumpSpeed;
                animator.SetBool("isJumping", true);
                isJumping = true;
                jumpButtonPressedTime = null;
                lastGroundedTime = null;
            }
        }
        else
        {
            characterController.stepOffset = 0;
            animator.SetBool("isGrounded", false);
            isGrounded = false;

            if ((isJumping && ySpeed < 0) || ySpeed < -2)
            {
                animator.SetBool("isFalling", true);
            }
        }

        if (movementDirection != Vector3.zero)
        {
            animator.SetBool("isSkating", true);

            Quaternion toRotation = Quaternion.LookRotation(movementDirection, Vector3.up);

            transform.rotation = Quaternion.RotateTowards(transform.rotation, toRotation, rotationSpeed * Time.deltaTime);
        }
        else
        {
            animator.SetBool("isSkating", false);
        }

        if (isGrounded == false)
        {
            Vector3 velocity = movementDirection * inputMagnitude * jumpHorizontalSpeed;
            velocity.y = ySpeed;

            characterController.Move(velocity * Time.deltaTime);
        }
    }

    private void OnAnimatorMove()
    {
        if (isGrounded)
        {
            Vector3 velocity = animator.deltaPosition;
            velocity.y = ySpeed * Time.deltaTime;

            characterController.Move(velocity);
        }
    }

    private void OnApplicationFocus(bool focus)
    {
        if (focus)
        {
            Cursor.lockState = CursorLockMode.Locked;
        }
        else
        {
            Cursor.lockState = CursorLockMode.None;
        }
    }
}

Welcome to debugging! Here’s how to get started:

You must find a way to get the information you need in order to reason about what the problem is.

Once you understand what the problem is, you may begin to reason about a solution to the problem.

What is often happening in these cases is one of the following:

  • the code you think is executing is not actually executing at all
  • the code is executing far EARLIER or LATER than you think
  • the code is executing far LESS OFTEN than you think
  • the code is executing far MORE OFTEN than you think
  • the code is executing on another GameObject than you think it is
  • you’re getting an error or warning and you haven’t noticed it in the console window

To help gain more insight into your problem, I recommend liberally sprinkling Debug.Log() statements through your code to display information in realtime.

Doing this should help you answer these types of questions:

  • is this code even running? which parts are running? how often does it run? what order does it run in?
  • what are the values of the variables involved? Are they initialized? Are the values reasonable?
  • are you meeting ALL the requirements to receive callbacks such as triggers / colliders (review the documentation)

Knowing this information will help you reason about the behavior you are seeing.

You can also supply a second argument to Debug.Log() and when you click the message, it will highlight the object in scene, such as Debug.Log("Problem!",this);

If your problem would benefit from in-scene or in-game visualization, Debug.DrawRay() or Debug.DrawLine() can help you visualize things like rays (used in raycasting) or distances.

You can also call Debug.Break() to pause the Editor when certain interesting pieces of code run, and then study the scene manually, looking for all the parts, where they are, what scripts are on them, etc.

You can also call GameObject.CreatePrimitive() to emplace debug-marker-ish objects in the scene at runtime.

You could also just display various important quantities in UI Text elements to watch them change as you play the game.

If you are running a mobile device you can also view the console output. Google for how on your particular mobile target, such as this answer or iOS: How To - Capturing Device Logs on iOS or this answer for Android: How To - Capturing Device Logs on Android

If you are working in VR, it might be useful to make your on onscreen log output, or integrate one from the asset store, so you can see what is happening as you operate your software.

Another useful approach is to temporarily strip out everything besides what is necessary to prove your issue. This can simplify and isolate compounding effects of other items in your scene or prefab.

Here’s an example of putting in a laser-focused Debug.Log() and how that can save you a TON of time wallowing around speculating what might be going wrong:

When in doubt, print it out!™

Note: the print() function is an alias for Debug.Log() provided by the MonoBehaviour class.

Another thing is that you probably don’t want to have that capsule collider on there. You already have a CharacterController and that has it’s own collider. They may interfere with each other.

1 Like

This ^ ^ ^ ^ The CharacterController actually IS a Collider (look at the class ancestry) so don’t have another collider on it.

If you wanna reinvent the wheel and make your own CC, by all means tinker with this stuff.

But if you just want a simple fairly full-featured here is a super-basic starter prototype FPS based on Character Controller (BasicFPCC):

https://discussions.unity.com/t/855344

That one has run, walk, jump, slide, crouch… it’s crazy-nutty!!

I’ve actually tried straight up removing that collider with no luck. My character still doesn’t move.