transform.right doesn't work, but transform.up works for Dash script

Unity Engine
1

Hello. I have following code for handling player walking, jumping & dashing:

public class PlayerMovement : MonoBehaviour
{
   [HideInInspector]public Rigidbody2D rb;
   public float runSpeed = 5f;
   public float jumpSpeed = 3f;
   public Joystick joystickRun;

   [HideInInspector]public float moveInputH;
   [HideInInspector]public float moveInputV;
   public float dashSpeed;
  
    void Start()
    {
        rb = GetComponent<Rigidbody2D>();
    }

    private void FixedUpdate() {
        if(joystickRun.Horizontal >= .2f){
            moveInputH = runSpeed;
            transform.eulerAngles = new Vector3(0,0,0);           
        }
        else if(joystickRun.Horizontal <= -.2f){
            moveInputH = -runSpeed;
            transform.eulerAngles = new Vector3(0,180,0);      
        }
        else{
            moveInputH = 0f;
        }
        rb.velocity = new Vector2(moveInputH, rb.velocity.y);
    }
    void Update()
    {    
        if(Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space)){
           Jump();          
       }

        if(Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.M) ){
            Dash();          
        }
    }
  
    void Jump(){
        rb.velocity = Vector2.up * jumpSpeed;
    }
    void Dash(){
        rb.velocity = transform.right * (runSpeed * 6);
        Debug.Log("Dash worked...");
    }
}

The problem is that in Dash() method transform.right doesn’t work at all, but if I replace it with transform.up, it works and Player dashes upwards. I tried using rb.AddForce(transform.right * dashSpeed * 400); Instead of transform.right, but the result is different → Player literally teleports instead of dashing, that’s why I stopped using it.
Do you have any ideas, why transform.up works, but transform.right doesn’t work?

2

Line 30 is ALWAYS setting the velocity, so Dash and Jump will do nothing (or almost nothing, perhaps just for a single frame).

You are also mixing and matching doing physics in Update() and FixedUpdate(). It is a GOOD thing you are doing GetKeyDown() in Update() (in fact it is required!), but you should set flags that these inputs happened, then act upon them in FixedUpdate().

1 Like
3

As Kurt is saying, your issue is you overwrite velocity all over the place instead of modifying velocity. On line 30 you are overwriting the X velocity with the contents of moveInputH, while keeping the Y velocity. So everywhere else you set velocity will always lose its X component.

This is one reason Unity warns against setting velocity directly instead of just adding forces. You can easily end up in issues like this.