issues with smooth rotation towards 3rd person camera direction

ScheisseMan

I've been trying to make a starfighter and have been having trouble setting up camera controls. more specifically, getting the to rotate past +90° or -90°x. the weird thing is that y is fine with no difference in code. once it goes above/below 90° it has a spaz attack with the intensity increasing with distence.

im useing the rotate_toward() method and i tried the lerp() method since they are basically the same but no dice.

relavent code:
`

func _unhandled_input(event: InputEvent) -> void:
	if event is InputEventMouseMotion and Input.MOUSE_MODE_CAPTURED:
	
		# camera rotation
		camera.rotation.y -= event.relative.x * sensitivity
		camera.rotation.x -= event.relative.y * sensitivity`

func _physics_process(delta: float) -> void:

	var aim_target = camera.get_rotation()
	rotation.y = rotate_toward(rotation.y, aim_target.y, MANUVERABILITY * delta)
	rotation.x = rotate_toward(rotation.x, aim_target.x, MANUVERABILITY * delta)
	print(aim_target)`

any ideas?

alexgamedevgr

ScheisseMan

I read your post carefully, and I have the picture that the problem is not an issue with rotate_toward() but Euler angle problem.
Note that from the best of my knowledge in Godot, rotation.x/y/z are rotation angles. When the pitch (x) approaches ±90°,Godot may start flipping the values internally between equivalent rotations. This cause an effect, where you may observe, sudden spinning, jittering, or snapping and the further past 90° you go, the worse it gets.
Now in terms of print(aim_target) it is highly possible that you observe values suddenly jumping between things like:Vector3(1.57, 0, 0) and Vector3(1.57, 3.14, 3.14) as well. Though these are mathematically equivalent orientations, rotate_toward() sees a huge difference and the result is that it is trying interpolate between them. Consequentially, the result is that print(aim_target) looks very weird…

In your case I would not interpolate Euler components independently and I would use quaternions/basis(because from your saying you want a spacecraft that can freely pitch through 360°).

Below,is the code I would use to interpolate the whole orientation:

var target_quat = Quaternion(camera.global_basis)
var current_quat = Quaternion(global_basis)

var result = current_quat.slerp(
    target_quat,
    MANUVERABILITY * delta
)

global_basis = Basis(result)

Hope this helps,

Alex