Animating

[stownshend]

This isn't a question specifically about JPCT-AE and more about GLSurfaceView.

I have a 5x5 grid of tiles. If I touch one of the tiles on screen the camera re-adjusts so that it is centered on that tile. I am trying to animate this process so that it is a smooth transition rather than instant.

To do this I've set up two sets of co-ordinates:

1) The destination x, y, and z co-ords.
2) The current camera co-ordinates

I'm only looking at the x axis currently. In the onDrawFrame() method I do a check. If the current camera X position is not (roughly) equal to the destination X position, then I increment/decrement the current camera X co-ordinate by some small amount (0.1 units for example) to bring it closer to the destination.

My thinking is that it will continue to increment or decrement itself until it is equal to the destination X position, in which case we've reached our destination and no more animation is required.

My problem is:

- If I have the increment amount to something small (cameraX = cameraX + 0.001) then the animation is smooth but extremely SLOW.
- If I have the increment amount to something bigger (cameraX = cameraX + 1) then the animation is fast enough but extremely CHUNKY.

Is my approach valid? How do I implement smooth camera movement animation?

Any help would be much appreciated.

FYI my animation code is below. The modifier is either +1 or -1 depending if the destination is to the left or the right of the current position.

Code Select Expand


public void onDrawFrame(GL10 gl) {

if ( cameraX < destinationX-0.1 || cameraX > destinationX+0.1 )
{
Float xModifier = 1f;

if ( cameraX > destinationX )
{
xModifier = -1f;
}

cameraX = cameraX + (1f * xModifier);
}

camera.setPosition(cameraX,cameraY,cameraZ-10);

...


In my AVD I'm getting only 9 FPS on average. It's a Mac laptop (I'm away on holiday). Not sure if this is related to the chunkiness.

[EgonOlsen]

9fps is very low and the emulator sucks anyway. You can't get a smooth animation with 9fps. I suggest to make the animation speed independent from framerate, i.e. don't translate by 0.x but by 0.x*"elapsed time since the last animation step". That way, you will get chunky but fast animation on slow devices and smooth and fast animation on faster ones.

[stownshend]

Cheers for your suggestion - it seems to have improved the smoothness of the animation already. I'll be able to better see how it goes when I get home to my desktop next week. It usually runs at 20-30 fps on that.

A snippet of my code just confirm I am actually implementing what you suggested:

Code Select Expand


/**
* This method is used for animation - this is the event loop.
*/
public void onDrawFrame(GL10 gl) {

Calendar now = Calendar.getInstance();

if ( previousFrameTime < 0 )
{
previousFrameTime = now.getTimeInMillis();
}
else
{
if ( cameraX < destinationX-1 || cameraX > destinationX+1 )
{
long millisecondsPassed = now.getTimeInMillis() - previousFrameTime;

Float xModifier = 1f;

if ( cameraX > destinationX )
{
xModifier = -1f;
}

cameraX = cameraX + (0.01f * xModifier * millisecondsPassed);
}
previousFrameTime = now.getTimeInMillis();
}

camera.setPosition(cameraX,cameraY,cameraZ-10);