How to track the orientation of a part?

Help and Feedback Scripting Support
#1

So I am trying to make a fully controllable rocket in Roblox and I want to make a gimbal system for the engines to keep the rocket upright. However for this I need to track the rockets orientation so I added a part to the rocket and named it the gyroscope. My question today is, is there any good method of tracking the orientation/rotation of the part? I have tried checking the orientation value of the part but that doesn’t get updated when the rocket is flying. The only way I can think of is using CFrames but I’m not very experienced with those, so can anyone help me or give me a efficient way of checking if the rocket is tilting in a certain axis?

#2

U sure it doesn’t get updated?

#3

Yeah, it’s a cylinder and the orientation remains 0,0,90 throughout the whole thing

#4

Well that’s weird. Can I check the script that u used?

#5

Why not use a BodyGyro or AlignOrientation instead?

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#6

I checked it in the explorer, I also used the .changed function on the part itself and wasn’t printing anything

#7

I want to make it as realistic as possible and for bodygyro I will need to track the position of the part to know how to rotate the rocket

#8

The properties panel doesn’t update the properties caused by physics in realtime. Same with .Changed or :GetPropertyChangedSignal()

U must use Heartbeat or Stepped

#9

So I should just put it in a while wait() do loop and have it print the orientation?

#10

I said to use Heartbeat or Stepped since they run every frame

#11

Have you considered CFrame.Angles?

CFrame.new(CFrame.Angles(88,88,88)) --> [0,0,0,88,88,88, *rotation matrix follows*]

#12

Ok I will try it
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#13

I don’t want to make a new CFrame, I want the track the orientation/rotation of a part

#14

If the orientation isn’t changing, that means there’s an issue with the underlying script. What are you doing with the part in the first place

#15

You don’t need to. Angles is a property of all CFrames that points to the Angles of each CFrame.

I used CFrame.new so that you could just paste my example into the command bar and see the result.

#16

I have some cylinders as engines and they are welded to the main rocket, then I apply a body thrust force to each of them

#17

So print(part.CFrame.Angles)?
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#18

Yes. Keep in mind this returns a LookVector which points to the forward vector of the part, not the upward vector. Trying to use Angles on a part immediately after creation should result in a CFrame reading [0,0,0,90,0,90...]

If you want the upVector you will need to deal with some rotation matrix processing.

You also can’t directly write Angles because it’s only a property of CFrame – you would want to multiply CFrame.Angles with a blank CFrame.new if you want a writable value, or hack it into a Vector3 with this headache inducing lua:

Vector3.new(part.Cframe.Angles.X,part.Cframe.Angles.Y,part.Cframe.Angles.Z) -- results in a Vector3 angle which can be directly written to a part's orientation value

(Though if you’re using Cylinder parts that won’t matter because you have to turn the lookVector upwards in order to stand a cylinder vertically.)

#19

You mentioned using heartbeat and stepped, will they both work on a server script? I have used the runservice before a bit and I don’t believe it works on server scripts

#20

They do. Only RenderStepped doesn’t work. Also, control scripts should be done in the client with the rocket’s network ownership set to the controlling player for instant feedback