Unity Camera Rotation Bug when Enabling/Disabling Scripts

Unity Engine
,
1

Description:

I’m facing a peculiar issue in Unity related to camera rotation when enabling and disabling scripts. I’ve encountered a bug, and I’m looking for some guidance on how to resolve it.

Problem:

I have two scripts that control camera rotation. The first script rotates the camera in one way, and the second script is designed to rotate it differently. However, when I disable the first script to activate the second one, and then re-enable the first script, the camera instantly jumps back to its previous rotation state from before the first script was disabled.

Expected Behavior:

I would expect the camera to smoothly transition between the two rotation states without any abrupt changes when enabling or disabling the scripts.

Details:

  • The camera rotation is not directly controlled but is modified using a separate component (e.g., a Transform).
  • I’ve tried to ensure that the new script takes into account the current camera rotation when enabled and resets it if necessary.
  • I’m using variables to store the camera’s rotation state for reference in both scripts.
  • I’ve reviewed the functions like transform.Rotate() to ensure they work as intended.

I’m seeking advice and insights from the Unity community on how to tackle this issue. Has anyone encountered a similar problem, and what solutions or best practices can you recommend to ensure smooth camera rotation transitions when enabling and disabling scripts?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

2

anyone know a fix?

3

Create two very basic scripts that demonstrate the issue and then post them on the forum and then somebody will be able to say “Yeah, line 4 is the issue.” and you’ll be able to say “Thanks!”. Life will then be good and the sun shall come out again…

4

Camera stuff is pretty tricky… you may wish to consider using Cinemachine from the Unity Package Manager.

There’s even a dedicated forum: Unity Engine - Unity Discussions

If you insist on making your own camera controller, the simplest way to do it is to think in terms of two Vector3 points in space: where the camera is LOCATED and where the camera is LOOKING.

private Vector3 WhereMyCameraIsLocated;
private Vector3 WhatMyCameraIsLookingAt;

void LateUpdate()
{
  cam.transform.position = WhereMyCameraIsLocated;
  cam.transform.LookAt( WhatMyCameraIsLookingAt);
}

Then you just need to update the above two points based on your GameObjects, no need to fiddle with rotations.

Otherwise, sounds like you wrote a bug. That can only mean it is…

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:

If you are looking for how to attach an actual debugger to Unity: Unity - Manual: Debugging C# code in Unity

“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.

5

Cinemachine doesn’t make miracles…have to work on it and, most of time, add some code…

This said, is it necessery to use two scripts to make your camera behave differently ? if you use Awake,
Note that the Awake method runs for active gameObjects even if the attached script is disabled…