Move forward based on the direction the player is facing

Questions & Answers
1

Hi! I’ve been at this for a few days now, learning about how to get a character controller working properly. Everything works as expected now, except for the fact that my character won’t move forward based on the current rotation, that is, based on the direction the rotated player is facing (see image further down).

When I press ‘w’ and ‘s’, the character always moves in the same direction, forwards or backwards according to how they were positioner at start. ‘a’ and ‘d’ are used for rotating the character.

This is the Script I’ve cooked up so far, it is the result of a combination of 2-3 tutorials. (HorizontalL and VerticalL are named like that on purpose).

using UnityEngine;

public class MovementControllerMedium : MonoBehaviour
{
    // Grund koden för basic movement kommer medium, Adam Davis.
    [SerializeField] private float speed = 5f;
    [SerializeField] private float jumpHeight = 15f;
    [SerializeField] private float gravity = 0.5f;
    [SerializeField] private float rotationSpeed = 180f;

    private CharacterController controller;
    private float yVelocity;

    private Vector3 rotation;

    // Start is called before the first frame update
    void Start()
    {
        controller = GetComponent<CharacterController>();
    }

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

        rotation = new Vector3(0, Input.GetAxisRaw("HorizontalL") * rotationSpeed * Time.deltaTime, 0);

        Vector3 direction = new Vector3(0, 0, verticalInput);
        Vector3 velocity = direction * speed;

        if (controller.isGrounded)
        {
            if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space))
            {
                yVelocity = jumpHeight;
            }
        }
        else
        {
            if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space))
            {
                yVelocity += jumpHeight;
            }

            yVelocity -= gravity;
        }

        velocity.y = yVelocity;

        controller.Move(velocity * Time.deltaTime);
        transform.Rotate(rotation);

    }
}

From what I understand, I have to use transform.forward in some way in order to get the result I want, but I have no clue how.

The black arrow is the direction the cylinder is moving when pressing down ‘w’, the red arrow is the direction the cylinder is facing as a result of pressing down the ‘d’ key, the direction I want the player to move towards.

200745-unity.png
200745-unity.png966×710 116 KB

Any and all help is appreciated, but I would rather have a solution that works with the code I already got. I feel like it should be very simple, but that I am missing something.

2

Anytime your character(or object) only moves in one direction, is because of the way you programmed it. So, trying to put this in a nut shell, most given commands to objects in game space is:

if (Input.GetKey(Keycode.W))
{
     transform.Translate(0, 0, moveSpeed);
}

So while coding this, you are telling the object to move within it’s forward vector, at a speed of what you declare. If the overall object(or parent in most cases) isn’t properly rotated, that objects forward will never change from which it was originally placed. So you need to verify which object you are rotating, and also where it’s forward is truly directed.

In most cases, it’s best to make an overall root position(empty gameObject) that is the parent of all you wish to include. Then it’s position, and rotation are handled, moving along with it all the children(player object, items, effects, etc…).

This is all assuming, that you asking the object itself to move along it’s forward axis, and not just declaring:

myObject.position += myObject.position + new Vector3(0, 0, moveSpeed);

In which this would only move your object up or north, according to game world space.