[Solved] Smooth 2D joystick rotation

Unity Engine
1

I’m attempting to make an xbox controller smoothly rotate a 2D object on its z axis. I have achieved rotation in a multitude of ways, but it’s never smooth. It visibly jumps from 0 to 45 to 90 and so forth. This is running from FixedUpdate. Here are two different attempt examples. What am I doing wrong?

float horizontal = Input.GetAxis ("Horizontal Joystick 2") * Time.deltaTime * 1;
float vertical = Input.GetAxis ("Vertical Joystick 2") * Time.deltaTime * 1;
float angle = Mathf.Atan2 (horizontal, vertical) * Mathf.Rad2Deg;
thisTransform.rotation = Quaternion.Euler (new Vector3 (0, 0, angle));

float currentAngle = thisTransform.eulerAngles.z;
float newAngle = Mathf.Atan2 (CrossPlatformInputManager.GetAxis ("Vertical Joystick 2"), CrossPlatformInputManager.GetAxis ("Horizontal Joystick 2")) * 180 / Mathf.PI;
float angle = Mathf.LerpAngle (currentAngle, newAngle, Time.time);
thisTransform.eulerAngles = new Vector3 (0, 0, angle);
2

The problem is not in the code above. Most likely you have something set in the input manager to quantize each axis’ input to -1, 0 or 1.

To test this, print out the raw float values you get back from the Input system. If they do not traverse smoothly from -1 through 0 to 1, that’s the problem, go check settings on whatever input system you’re using.

Debug.Log() should always be the first thing you reach for: start printing out data so you know.

3

Thanks for the response. It turned out the issue was that I was using Time.time in the second example instead of Time.deltaTime. Time.deltaTime * 6 gave the joystick a nice smooth rotation.

1 Like