Determine dash animation based on direction

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#1

I want to choose 1 out of 4 dash animations based on the dash direction, but I can’t come up with the math needed for it. I have looked on the developer forum but all the solutions I found basically boiled down to getting which key (from W, S, A and D) is pressed which is not ideal.

I have 4 animations:

  • Dash Forward
  • Dash Back
  • Dash Left
  • Dash Right

I want to pick one of them based on the desired_direction I have in the script below:

-- ...
-- Get camera
local camera = workspace.CurrentCamera

-- Calculating direction
local desired_direction = camera.CFrame.LookVector * -1
if UserInputService:IsKeyDown(Enum.KeyCode.W) or UserInputService:IsKeyDown(Enum.KeyCode.S) or UserInputService:IsKeyDown(Enum.KeyCode.A) or UserInputService:IsKeyDown(Enum.KeyCode.D) then
	desired_direction = humanoid.MoveDirection
end

-- 0 out the Y axis to make it impossible to dash up
desired_direction = Vector3.new(desired_direction.X, 0, desired_direction.Z).Unit
-- ...

This is how I want to determine the animations (the black dot is the player, the red lines show the “ranges” in which the animation will be played):
image

I basically need to determine in which range the direction falls into (get the angle between the player position and the direction?)

Hopefully I explained it good enough, if not please ask follow up questions

1 Like
#2

I dont really know how to do this myself but I think it is possible by getting the direction they are gonna dash to and their camera angle/ direction they are looking at. Again not sure how but hope it gives you a starting point

#3

Intersting. I figured out one of the ways. I required ControlModule and called GetMoveVector, which returns the unit vector regardless of the device (at least applies to keyboard and mobile devices).

On a PC the situation is very simple: [Z] -1 → forward, 1 → backward; [X] -1 → left, 1 → right.

On mobile devices, the thumbstick can point in any direction, which is why I get the longer axis of the move vector and then see if it’s less or more than 0.

local player = game:GetService("Players").LocalPlayer
local character = player.Character or player.CharacterAdded:Wait()
local humanoid = character:WaitForChild("Humanoid")

local playerScripts = player:WaitForChild("PlayerScripts")
local Controls = require(playerScripts:WaitForChild("PlayerModule"):WaitForChild("ControlModule"))

while true do
	task.wait()
	local moveVector = Controls:GetMoveVector()
	if moveVector:Dot(moveVector) == 0 then continue; end	
	
	if math.abs(moveVector.X) > math.abs(moveVector.Z) then
		local direction = moveVector.X > 0 and "Right" or "Left"
		print(direction)
	else
		local direction = moveVector.Z > 0 and "Backward" or "Forward"
		print(direction)
	end
end
#4

That’s basically what I have right now in desired_direction
I think I need to use :vectorToWorldSpace on the direction but not sure how to get the angle after that.

#5

Hey thanks for the reply, unfortunately this won’t work for me as I’m trying to use the desired_direction variable and it is not relative to the HumanoidRootPart (I didn’t test your code but if it works then I assume Controls:GetMoveVector() is)

I modified the code a bit based on this image:
image

and this is what came out (this is right after desired_direction is calculated):

-- Convert desired direction to world space based on root position
local temp_dir = root.CFrame:VectorToWorldSpace(desired_direction)

local direction = "Couldn't determine"
if temp_dir.X > root.CFrame.Position.X and temp_dir.Z > root.CFrame.Position.Z then
	direction = "Forward"
elseif temp_dir.X > root.CFrame.Position.X and temp_dir.Z < root.CFrame.Position.Z then
	direction = "Back"
elseif temp_dir.X < root.CFrame.Position.X and temp_dir.Z > root.CFrame.Position.Z then
	direction = "Left"
elseif temp_dir.X < root.CFrame.Position.X and temp_dir.Z < root.CFrame.Position.Z then
	direction = "Right"
end
print("Direction:", direction)

The issue with this is that this seems to give the result based on the root’s position relative to the (0,0,0) position in the world. And I might be stupid but I don’t understand why

edit:
VectorToWorldSpace doesn’t seem to be doing what I thought it’s supposed to do

#6

Can you please elaborate again on the expected result. I appreciate the image, but I’m not quite sure how the player and camera are positioned at the time a particular animation should be applied. So you are trying to get the direction relative to the humanoid root part?

:GetMoveVectors() method isn’t affected by character’s orientation. Depends on WASD/thumbstick/gamepad(?).

These values apply regardless of the relative space (world, object). The world’s -1 z is also root part’s -1 z.