Creating a 2D Platformer 'Rail' System

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#1

Greetings everyone,

I am currently working on a 2D platformer esque game that uses some simple code to achieve a 2D locked camera effect. Don’t get me wrong, it works just as intended and I could continue working on the prototype from there, however I thought of a way I could ‘one-up’ that approach by adding bends to the path. The player would hold ‘A’ or ‘D’ to walk in that direction, and when approaching a curve in the path the player would slowly adjust their rotation to walk on that curve perfectly and would adjust the position and yaw (angle) of the camera accordingly. I thought that the best way to accomplish this would be to create an invisible ‘rail’ that I would hand trace throughout the map, and then program the character to follow that rail back and forth matching the player’s ‘A’ and ‘D’ inputs! However only being a novice (intermediate if you’re being generous) Lua scripter, I am unsure of the best route to take. So I would like to hear your thoughts on what I should do. Having this come to my head I absolutley want to achieve it as it could really add some immersion to the project down the line, rather than just a straight-forward map.

I’ll attach my current code below along with a video so you can take a look at what I am using right now and feel free to snag it for your own projects!

This is a local script inside of starter character scripts.


--: Services
local playerService = game:GetService("Players")
local contextActionService = game:GetService("ContextActionService")
local runService = game:GetService("RunService")

--: Variables
local player = playerService.LocalPlayer
local camera = workspace.CurrentCamera

--: On-Startup
contextActionService:UnbindAction("moveBackwardAction")
contextActionService:UnbindAction("moveForwardAction")
camera.CameraType = Enum.CameraType.Scriptable
camera.FieldOfView = 80 --: Default "70"

--: Wait for Character Generation
local character = player.Character
local humRoot =  character:WaitForChild("HumanoidRootPart")

--: Lock Camera to HumRoot
function onFramePassed()
    camera.CFrame = CFrame.new(humRoot.Position) * CFrame.new(0,5.5,12) * CFrame.Angles(math.rad(-28),math.rad(0),math.rad(0))
end

--: Run Each Frame
runService.RenderStepped:Connect(onFramePassed)

(My apologies for the low FPS video)
robloxapp-20200606-2007391.wmv (1.0 MB)

1 Like
#2

I just wanted to add a small side note, many people have been replying to me via Discord and saying I could use camera nodes to have the camera follow the path. However I am more focused on getting the character to follow that path rather than the camera. To be honest I would be okay with using a static camera angle however I really do want to accomplish this whole bending path ‘rail’ system with the character.

If you have any thoughts that could help me make this a reality, don’t hesitate to drop them down below!

#3

I’ve been searching through different methods of completing this and have come up with nothing, please reply if you know anything that could help me out!

#4

Try this: