What are some good uses for math.clamp?

[sp00kface]

So I’m just getting into coding math related stuff (i absolutely suck at it) and I was just curious on what the purpose of math.clamp is. I understand what it does, but I cant really think of a practical way to use it.

Can someone give me some examples?

[Ethanaut]

This post claims constraining rotation on an axis is a useful application. Basically constraining a value to a specific range while using the max and min and everything inbetween.

Math.clamp explanation?

Hi, I recently came over math.clamp, but I did not really understand it. Could someone kindly explain what it does, how to use it and what it can do? Thanks, (yes i did read the math.clamp devforum post by the gamer101)

[MysteryX2076 (DrMystery)]

It makes sure that a number given is between a min number and max number supplied eg. if you supply 10 to a math.clamp(10,1,20) it will return 10. If the value is less than 1 it will return 1 and if it’s more than 20 it will return 20. It’s a good way to make sure you are returned a number between the ranges you want

[dthecoolest]

For a more practical use case I have used it in my CFrame turret module.

TurretController - CFrame based Joint Instance mover

Hello there, it’s me again with a small resource that I see lacking on the forum with many,unsolved, or ones that have the general idea but incomplete scripting support questions. Credits @sleitnick, PID Controller from AeroGameFramework, works great but semi modified to accommodate Vector3 variables. @ThanksRoBama, Great tutorial on PID Controllers which had excellent yet simple explanation along with great examples. Never knew it was possible to just work with P alone. Summary What …

Code snippet:

--In some runservice loop or while loop.
--baseCFrame is the world CFrame of any part where the turret is mounted on and serves as the XYZ axis of the turret. Hence objectspace.
	local lookAtWorld = CFrame.lookAt(turretPosition,lookAtPosition,baseCFrame.UpVector)--goal LookAt CFrame
	if self.Constraints then
		local turretRelativeCF = baseCFrame:ToObjectSpace(lookAtWorld)
		local x , y , z = turretRelativeCF:ToOrientation()
		--print(math.deg(x),math.deg(y),math.deg(z))
		local constrainedX , constrainedY = self:EulerClampXY(x,y)

		--Detect quadrant of lookAt position
		local jointPosition = currentJointMotor6D.Part0.CFrame*originalC0Position
		local quadrantLookAtFromJointPosition = CFrame.lookAt(jointPosition,lookAtPosition,baseCFrame.UpVector)	
		local baseRelative = baseCFrame:ToObjectSpace(quadrantLookAtFromJointPosition)
		local _,y, _ = baseRelative:ToOrientation()
		constrainedY = math.abs(constrainedY)*math.sign(y)--use the quadrants of the lookAtFromJoint
		--print(math.deg(constrainedX),math.deg(constrainedY))
		--print(math.deg(constrainedY))
		goalCFrame = relativeToWorld*baseCFrame*CFrame.fromOrientation(constrainedX,constrainedY,z)*turretCFrameRotationOffset
	else

--Euler clamp function
function TurretController:EulerClampXY(x,y)
	local Constraints =  self.Constraints
	--there is an issue when y is between -179 to 180 degrees
	local degY = math.deg(y)
	local degX = math.deg(x)
	local newY = math.clamp(degY,-Constraints.YawRight,Constraints.YawLeft)
	local newX = math.clamp(degX,-Constraints.DepressionAngle, Constraints.ElevationAngle)

	local hasBeenClamped = false
	local yawEdgeClamped = false
	local elevationEdgeClamped = false

	if degY < -Constraints.YawRight or degY > Constraints.YawLeft then
		hasBeenClamped = true
		yawEdgeClamped = true
	end
	if degX < -Constraints.DepressionAngle or degX > Constraints.ElevationAngle then
		hasBeenClamped = true
		elevationEdgeClamped = true
	end

	self.YawEdgeClamped = yawEdgeClamped
	self.ElevationEdgeClamped = elevationEdgeClamped
	self.HasBeenClamped = hasBeenClamped

	return math.rad(newX), math.rad(newY)
end

[UnderpaidClownfish (fish)]

I mainly use math.clamp for equations that use y = mx + b.