Player Character walking off screen, then snapping back to border after switch to new input system

Hello,

I’m making a game using the 2D Beat Em Up Template by Osarion with a team. We’ve customized a few things so far but we wanted to use the new Unity Input System since it will be easier for our combat design to use that.

The problem is, the movement ended up resulting in strange behavior after this. The player character now can walk off of the screen while holding a movement key, and no longer stops based on the code in the KeepPlayerInCameraView() function, even though when debugging the function, it’s clear that this is purely aesthetic because the players position is not logged to go past the screen edge.

Further, when you stop holding the movement button, the player will snap back to the edge of the screen. Which means the code is working, just not… totally?

Anyway, I’ve spent like 4 hours on this issue and I can’t figure out what’s wrong. Can anyone help?

Code for Input (mine)

    public void OnMove(InputValue value)
    {
        if (playerState.currentState != PLAYERSTATE.KNOCKDOWN && !isDead)
        {
            v = value.Get<Vector2>();
            v = new Vector2(v.x, v.y * .7f);
            Move(v * walkSpeed);
      
        }
    }

Code For Movement: (came with the package)

    public void Move(Vector3 vector) {
        if (playerState.currentState != PLAYERSTATE.JUMPING && playerState.currentState != PLAYERSTATE.JUMPKICK) {

            //removes any existing y offset
            if(isGrounded) GFX.transform.localPosition = Vector3.zero;

            //move player
            if(rb != null)    rb.velocity = vector;

            //play walk or idle animation
            if (Mathf.Abs (vector.x + vector.y) > 0) {

                //calculate current direction
                int i = Mathf.Clamp (Mathf.RoundToInt (vector.x), -1, 1); //change direction based on the current movement vector
                if(i == 0) i = Mathf.RoundToInt(GFX.transform.localScale.x); //stay in the same direction while going up or down

                currentDirection = (DIRECTION)i;
                animator.Walk();

            } else {
                animator.Idle ();
            }
            LookToDir (currentDirection);
            isGrounded = true;
        }
        KeepPlayerInCameraView();
    }

Code for keeping player in camera view: (Came with the package)

    public void KeepPlayerInCameraView(){
   
        Vector2 playerPosScreen = Camera.main.WorldToScreenPoint(transform.position);
        Debug.Log(playerPosScreen);
        if(playerPosScreen.x + screenEdgeHorizontal > Mathf.Abs(Screen.width) && (playerPosScreen.y - screenEdgeVertical < 0)){
            transform.position = Camera.main.ScreenToWorldPoint(new Vector3(Mathf.Abs(Screen.width)-screenEdgeHorizontal, screenEdgeVertical, transform.position.z - Camera.main.transform.position.z));
           
        } else if(playerPosScreen.x + screenEdgeHorizontal > Mathf.Abs(Screen.width))
        {
            transform.position = Camera.main.ScreenToWorldPoint(new Vector3(Mathf.Abs(Screen.width)-screenEdgeHorizontal, playerPosScreen.y, transform.position.z - Camera.main.transform.position.z));
           
        } else if(playerPosScreen.x - screenEdgeHorizontal < 0f && (playerPosScreen.y - screenEdgeVertical < 0)){
            transform.position = Camera.main.ScreenToWorldPoint(new Vector3(screenEdgeHorizontal, screenEdgeVertical, transform.position.z - Camera.main.transform.position.z));
      
        } else if(playerPosScreen.x - screenEdgeHorizontal < 0f){
            transform.position = Camera.main.ScreenToWorldPoint( new Vector3(screenEdgeHorizontal, playerPosScreen.y, transform.position.z - Camera.main.transform.position.z));

        } else if((playerPosScreen.y - screenEdgeVertical < 0) && (playerPosScreen.x + screenEdgeHorizontal > Mathf.Abs(Screen.width))){
            transform.position = Camera.main.ScreenToWorldPoint(new Vector3(Screen.width-screenEdgeHorizontal, screenEdgeVertical, transform.position.z - Camera.main.transform.position.z));

        } else if((playerPosScreen.y - screenEdgeVertical < 0) && (playerPosScreen.x - screenEdgeHorizontal < 0f)){
            transform.position = Camera.main.ScreenToWorldPoint(new Vector3(screenEdgeHorizontal, screenEdgeVertical, transform.position.z - Camera.main.transform.position.z));

        } else if(playerPosScreen.y - screenEdgeVertical < 0){
            transform.position = Camera.main.ScreenToWorldPoint(new Vector3(playerPosScreen.x, screenEdgeVertical, transform.position.z - Camera.main.transform.position.z));
        }
    }

In order to debug this you should first isolate your input gathering from the logic.

Otherwise this is going to be really hard to debug, especially with those massively-long crazy lines of code!!

If you want an example of what I mean, check out this project:

Note the input variables around line 80

This gathers input: void UpdateGatherInput()

After that it is processed.

That way when / if I change out the input source, nothing about my logic changes as long as I get the identical input state from a given put intent from the player.

If you have more than one or two dots (.) in a single statement, you’re just being mean to yourself.

Putting it all one one line DOES NOT make it faster. That’s not how compiled code works.

How to break down hairy lines of code:

http://plbm.com/?p=248

Break it up, practice social distancing in your code, one thing per line please.

“Programming is hard enough without making it harder for ourselves.” - angrypenguin on Unity3D forums

“Combining a bunch of stuff into one line always feels satisfying, but it’s always a PITA to debug.” - StarManta on the Unity3D forums

Time to start debugging! Here is how you can begin your exciting new debugging adventures:

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 names of the GameObjects or Components involved?
  • 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.

Visit Google for how to see console output from builds. 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 for 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.

If your problem is with OnCollision-type functions, print the name of what is passed in!

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!™” - Kurt Dekker (and many others)

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

1 Like

I don’t know if it’ll help but here’s a simpler method for keeping an object in view:

   void KeepPlayerInCameraView()
   {
      Vector3 p=Camera.main.WorldToScreenPoint(transform.position);
      p=Vector3.Max(p,new Vector3(0,0,p.z));
      p=Vector3.Min(p,new Vector3(Screen.width,Screen.height,p.z));
      p=Camera.main.ScreenToWorldPoint(p);
      transform.position=p;
   }
1 Like

So, I actually figured it out with a help from someone on Discord.

All I needed to do was move the KeepPlayerInCameraView() call to FixedUpdate, since my movement function was using the rigidbody.

That’s literally I needed to do. I feel so dumb.

Thank you for all of your help!

Thank you. Just to be clear (it probably wasn’t in that post – the input logic is separate from the movement logic).

Just to be clear, if that was true, then you don’t need to even look in the above logic.

You need to focus on the input gathering logic, and that’s just simple debugging.

Go fix the input gathering logic so that whatever USED to set local variables with the OLD input system, now correctly sets the SAME values with the NEW input system.

It does that, I found the fix, it was about the KeepPlayerInCameraView call, not the input nor movement logic.

I appreciate your help though, have a great weekend :slight_smile: