How to make ship rotate based on mouse distance from center of screen.

Unity Engine
1

I am trying to make my spaceship constantly smoothly rotate based on mouse pointer position from screen center. The further it is from center the faster ship should turn (up to a maximum angle speed).

The code below does what I need but its instant and not smooth.

transform.Rotate(rotateX, 0f, 0f, Space.Self);
transform.Rotate(0f, rotateY, 0f, Space.World);

Then I tried to play around transform.Rotate but could not get further. At some point it worked, but jerky.

I then tried following code:

var direction = new Vector3(Input.mousePosition.x * 2 / Screen.width - 1, Input.mousePosition.y * 2 / Screen.height - 1, 1f);
var stepRotate = Vector3.RotateTowards(transform.forward, direction, 0.5f * Time.fixedDeltaTime, 0f);
transform.rotation = Quaternion.LookRotation(stepRotate);

It works smoothly but I can not make a 360 turn this way. And also it looks to complicated for such task.

Code below should work if completed right way. But I have no idea how to calculate Quaternions :(.
And also it slows down turning when I put some test value to Quaternion2 (starts turning fast and slows down close to the targeted angle).

transform.rotation = Quaternion.RotateTowards(transform.rotation, Quaternion2, 1);

thank you in advance

2

I enclose one of the micro games in my Kurt Arcade game, which has a missile steadily turning towards you.

Substitute the delta direction for your own mouse-to-ship, and then choose some kind of scaling to convert distance to the maximum rate of turn term.

This is the relevant function from within the package:

    private void UpdateMissile()
    {
        // cartesian distance to player
        Vector3 delta = Player.transform.position - Missile.transform.position;

        // TODO: convert your distance to a turn rate, perhaps with an AnimationCurve
        // MissileTurnRate = develop your function here...

        // what heading is that?
        float DesiredHeadingToPlayer = Mathf.Atan2(delta.y, delta.x) * Mathf.Rad2Deg;

        // are we good enough?
        float AngleError = Mathf.DeltaAngle(DesiredHeadingToPlayer, CurrentMissileHeading);

        // nope, then turn!
        if (Mathf.Abs( AngleError) > AcceptableAngleError)
        {
            CurrentMissileHeading = Mathf.MoveTowardsAngle(CurrentMissileHeading, DesiredHeadingToPlayer, MissileTurnRate * Time.deltaTime);
        }

        // missile turns
        Missile.transform.rotation = Quaternion.Euler(0, 0, CurrentMissileHeading);

        // missile moves
        Missile.transform.position += Missile.transform.right * MissileSpeed * Time.deltaTime;
    }

6041018–652844–MissileTurnTowards.unitypackage (11.3 KB)

3

Thank you! The problem is its 3d game. Is function above could handle it if completed for 3d?

4

Good question… I imagine if it does work, then the angle would come from Vector3.Angle(), and you would use Quaternion.RotateToward() in place of the Mathf.MoveTowardsAngle

5

For some reason Quaternion.RotateToward() does not work as it should. Description says it should rotate by fixed degree (maxDegreesDelta) while it slowes down in the end
transform.rotation = Quaternion.RotateTowards(transform.rotation, q, speed * Time.fixedDeltaTime);

6

Looks like Quaternion.RotateToward() is working fine. The problem with it slowing down at the end of the move is I used random numbers less then 1 put to q (for example 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0,5). If I set q as transform.rotation of some object it works fine.