Projectile Boomerang

Questions & Answers
1

Anyone got any good ideas for a projectile to have a boomerang effect? I’ve thought of creating an empty game object with a box collider attached and when the projectile collides with the empty game object it will return back to its instantiated position and then disappear. But then I have to calculate arc too… seems like the physics could present some problems for me as it’s not a strong point of mine. Regardless maybe someone has some suggestions or has done something similar to this? Thanks for any tips or suggestions!

2

Supposing all you want is the projectile to blindly follow a boomerang-like-path, you can simply set the math for an ellipsoid interpolation under Update. Here I modified the example on Slerp (even though I don’t quite understand it myself). It’s only half the path, but it works just with copy and paste:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class BoomerangEffect : MonoBehaviour {
	public float duration = 1; // in seconds
	
	public Vector3 beginPoint = new Vector3(0, 0, 0);
	public Vector3 finalPoint = new Vector3(0, 0, 30);
	public Vector3 farPoint = new Vector3(0, 0, 0);
	
	public bool startAgain = false;
	
	private float startTime;
	
	void Start () {
		startTime = Time.time;
	}
	
	void Update () {
		if (startAgain) Start();
		
		Vector3 center = (beginPoint + finalPoint) * 0.5F;
		center -= farPoint;
		
		Vector3 riseRelCenter = beginPoint - center;
		Vector3 setRelCenter = finalPoint - center;
		
		transform.position = Vector3.Slerp(riseRelCenter, setRelCenter, (Time.time - startTime) / duration);
		transform.position += center;
	}
}
3

Thanks for the tip. I was actually looking at the Slerp example too and studying the physics of boomerangs and got stuck trying to find a way to convert the equations to code. this will definately help tho appreciate it :slight_smile: on a side note… i found a very easy way to make this work. I animated the projectile’s path in a 3d modeling program and instantiate the object and it’s associated animation at the release point for the weapon. I attached a box collider to the boomerang and just wrote a script that if my player collides with it then the death sequence will start. haha… i know it’s a cheap way of making it work… but i’ve done that for now :slight_smile: regardless appreciate this code… will definately look into it