Tracking Rotating Sprite - c#

I am messing about in XNA and have run into a problem. I have a 48 * 48 sprite that I can keep track of its location in the game world by the top left corner of the sprite.
I want to be able to rotate the square and still keep track of the same point. For instance if I rotate 90degrees clockwise and the orginal X position was 200 the new X position should be 200 + 48(the size of the width of the image). Its fine for 90 degrees I am able to work that out in my head but each one in between is the problem!
I know there is probably some kind of formula to work this out.
Any help would be great! Oh the square is rotating on its center.
I'm just using spriteBatch.Draw()
spriteBatch.Draw( animations[currentAnimation].Texture,
Camera.WorldToScreen(WorldRectangle),
animations[currentAnimation].FrameRectangle,
color, rotationScale , new Vector2((float)frameHeight/2, (float)frameWidth/2), effect, TileMap.characterDepth);

If you have to keep track of a moving rotating sprite you can't use the top left corner, but its centroid. You already draw your sprite using the centroid to rotate it.
The problem is that the second parameter of your Draw call is a Rectangle, you sholud use a Vector2 position, instead.

You're building your application on top of a 3D graphics library. 3D graphics libraries are very good at solving this kind of problem! Break it down into smaller operations and let the library do the work for you.
First: it's easiest to think about these kinds of questions when you're working in model space rather than world space. In other words: you don't need to worry about where the rotating point is in absolute terms, you only need to worry about where it is relative to the untransformed model (in this case, your sprite without any rotation or translation).
So where is that? Simple:
var pt = new Vector3(-frameWidth / 2f, -frameHeight / 2f, 0f);
Your point of origin is the center of your sprite, so the center of your sprite in model space is (0, 0). This means that the top left corner of your sprite is half the width of the sprite in the negative x direction, and half the height of the sprite along the negative y direction.
Now create an object that represents the desired transformation. You can do this by creating a rotation matrix using XNA's built-in methods:
var transformation = Matrix.CreateRotationZ(MathHelper.ToRadians(90f));
Now apply the transformation to your original point:
var transformedPt = Vector3.Transform(pt, transformation);
This is still in model space, remember, so to get world coordinates you'll need to transform it into world space:
var transformedWorldX = transformedPt.X + spritePosition.X;
var transformedWorldY = transformedPt.Y + spritePosition.Y;
And there you go.

Related

Force an AR object to always stand upright in Unity / Vuforia

I have a Unity AR project using Vuforia engine. What I am trying to achieve is to have the AR object always stand upright in the view whether the image target is horizontal on a table or or vertical on a wall.
Currently the object is sitting on the image target no matter which orientation
Hope that makes sense,
Thanks
I always use Vector3.ProjectOnPlane for this and then you can simply assign axis directions to Transform.up and Transform.right (below I explain why right and not maybe forward)
public void AlignObject(Transform obj, Transform imageTarget)
{
obj.position = imageTarget.position;
// Get your targets right vector in world space
var right = imageTarget.right;
// If not anyway the case ensure that your objects up vector equals the world up vector
obj.up = Vector3.up;
// Align your objects right vector with the image target's right vector
// projected down onto the global XZ plane => erasing its Y component
obj.right = Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(right, Vector3.up);
}
The assumption for this is: The target is usually never rotated in the Z axis. If you want it upright on a wall you would usually rotate it around its X axis.
Therefore we can assume the the image target will never be rotated more then 90° on the Z axis (in which case the mapped vector would flip about 180°) and thus if we map the right vector down onto the global XZ plane it always still points in the correct direction regardless of any rotations in Y and X axes.
If we would use the forward instead we take the risk that due to tracking inaccuracies the vertical targets forward vector actually points a tiny little bit towards us so when we map it down onto the XZ plane it points backwards not forwards and the object is flipped by 180°.
So using right works for a horizontal and a vertical target.

Position object on screen in different resolutions / aspect ratios (orthographic)

To be honest I am quite lost with world, screen and viewport coordinates in Unity.
My question is rather simple: in a 2d game how do I place an object in bottom left corner no matter what the resolution and screen aspect ratio is?
It is a little vague your description, but I think your talking about this:
Vector3 screenPos = new Vector3(x,y,z);
camera.ScreenToWorldPoint(screenPos);
As a side note, there are specific algorithms for 2D Unity, search for that also.
For Orthographic check this unity space which might help you:
http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/501893/calculating-2d-camera-bounds.html
I see no one ever followed up on this. Let's get some terms straight first:
Camera.main = the main camera that is looking at your game world
"game world" = the entire game map you've drawn
World Point = an absolute, unique position in the game world. Can be 2D or 3D (x,y,z)
Screen Point = a 2D x,y location of a pixel on the screen
So, when you want to place an object (i.e.transform its location) what you are really doing is placing it somewhere within the Game World. If the camera happens to be looking at that location in the World then it will appear on screen.
To figure out what parts of the World are currently on screen, you must convert a Screen Point to a World Point. So...assuming your object's size is 20x20, try this:
//Attach this script to the item you want "pinned" to the bottom, left corner of the screen
void Update() {
//fetch the rectangle for the whole screen
Rect viewportRect = Camera.main.pixelRect; //again, this has nothing to do with the World, just the 2D screen "size", basically
//now, let's pick out a point on the screen - bottom, left corner - but leave room for the size of our 20x20 object
Vector3 newPos = new Vector3(viewportRect.xMin + 20, Camera.main.pixelHeight - 20, 0);
//now calculate where we need to place this item in the World so that it appears in our Camera's view (and, thus, the screen)
this.transform.position = Camera.main.ScreenToWorldPoint(newPos);
}
I'm 98% certain this is all accurate info but if someone sees a mistake please point it out.

c# XNA 4.0 Camera zoom and sprite resizing

Inside my project, I have a sprite being draw of a box. I have the camera zoom out when clicking a key. When I zoom out, I want my box to scale it's dimensions so it stays consistent even though the camera has zoomed out and "shrunk" it.
I have tried multiplying the object's dimensions by 10% which seems to be the viewpoint's adjustment when zooming out, but that doesn't seem to work. Now this may sound dumb, but would scaling the sprite in the draw function also change the sprite's dimensions?
Let's say the box is 64x64 pixels. I zoom out 10% and scale the sprite. Does the sprite still have the boundaries as 64x64 or is the up-scaling also changing it's dimensions?
Scaling using SpriteBatch.Draw()s scale argument will just draw the sprite smaller/bigger, i.e. a 64x64 one will appear as 7x7 pixels (the outer pixels being alpha blended if enabled). However there are no size properties on the sprite, if you have your own rectangle, position variables for the sprite SpriteBatch.Draw() of course will not change those.
An alternative is draw the sprite in 3D space then everything is scaled when you move your camera, so the sprite will appear smaller though it will still be a 64x64 sprite.
How to draw a sprite in 3D space? Here is a good tutorial http://www.riemers.net/eng/Tutorials/XNA/Csharp/Series2/Point_sprites.php. (You will need to take time to learn about using 3D viewports, camera's etc, see here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb197901.aspx)/
To change sprite dimensions you need to change Rectangle parameter for SpriteBatch.Draw. To calculate zoom on rectange:
Rectangle scaledRect = new Rectangle(originalRectangle.X, originalRectangle.Y, (int)(originalRectangle.Width*zoom), (int)(originalRectangle.Height*zoom)); // where zoom default is 1.0f
When drawing use:
spriteBatch.Draw(Texture, scaledRect, Color.White);
Now I'm sorry to assume it, but without knowing why you doing what you doing - I think you doing something wrong.
You should use camera transformation to zoom out/in. It is done like that:
var transform = Matrix.CreateTranslation(new Vector3(-Position.X, -Position.Y, 0))* // camera position
Matrix.CreateRotationZ(_rotation)* // camera rotation, default 0
Matrix.CreateScale(new Vector3(Zoom, Zoom, 1))* // Zoom default 1
Matrix.CreateTranslation(
new Vector3(
Device.Viewport.Width*0.5f,
Device.Viewport.Height*0.5f, 0)); // Device from DeviceManager, center camera to given position
SpriteBatch.Begin( // SpriteBatch variable
SpriteSortMode.BackToFront, // Sprite sort mode - not related
BlendState.NonPremultiplied, // BelndState - not related
null,
null,
null,
null,
transformation); // set camera tranformation
It will change how sprites are displayed inside sprite batch, however - now you also must account for different mouse coordinates (if you using mouse input). To do that you must transform mouse position to transformed world matrix:
// mouse position, your tranformation matrix
public Vector2 ViewToWorld(Vector2 pos, Matrix transform)
{
return Vector2.Transform(pos, Matrix.Invert(transform));
}
I used the code without direct access to test it, so if something will not work - feel free to ask.
This is not answer to your question directly, if you could provide reason why you want re-size sprite when zooming instead of zooming camera - maybe I could better answer your question, also you should fallow markmnl link to understand world transformations and why you seem to need it in this situation.

How do I make a set of blocks look seamless when I know the size of the texture and the position and dimensions of the blocks?

So I have a seamless texture. The black lines in the picture represent the repeating texture. Then I have a series of blocks who have known x,y coordinates and known height and width. In Unity Textures have a 'scale' and 'offset'.
Scale is the amount of the texture that will show on the block. So the block starting at 0,0 will have a scale of about (.2,1.3). It's width is .2x the width of a single texture (for the sake of simple numbers) and it's height is about 1.3x the height of the texture.
Offset then moves the 'starting point of the texture. The block at 0,0 will have an offset of 0,0 because it is perfectly aligned with a corner but the block immediately to it's right would have a texture of about .2,0 because the texture needs to start about .2 units in to align properly. This is as far as I understand offset. I am pretty sure this is correct but feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
Now when you apply a texture to a block unity automatically scales the texture to start at the top left corner of the block and stretch it appropriately to fit 1 full iteration inside of that space. I obviously don't want this.
My question comes in for the three blocks labeled with the (x,y) coordinates. I have tried for several hours over a few weeks to get it right, unsuccessfully.
So how do I take in the x,y position and width/height to create a correct scale and offset so that those blocks will look like they are exactly where they are supposed to be in the texture?
It is not a particularly difficult concept but after staring at it I have no more ideas.
For the sake of the question assume a single texture is 12x12. The x,y and width/height are known values but are arbitrary.
I know it's normally good practice to post attempted code but I would rather see a good way of doing it than see answers that try to fix my failed attempts. But I will post code if people want to see that I did try on my own or how I initially tried.
What is a UV Map
Textures are applied to models by what is known as UV map. The idea is that each (x,y,z) vertex has two (u,v) coordinates assigned. UV coordinates define which point on the texture should correspond to that vertex. If you want to know more, I suggest the awesome (and free) Udacity 3D graphics course. Unit 8 talks about UV mapping.
How to solve your problem using UV Maps
Let's ignore all the vertices that are not visible - your blocks are basically rectangles. You can assign a UV mapping, where world possition of each vertex will be turned into its UV coordinate. This way, all the blocks will have the same origin point in texture space (0,0 in world position corresponds to 0,0 on texture). Code looks like this:
Mesh mesh = GetComponent<MeshFilter>().mesh;
Vector3[] vertices = mesh.vertices;
Vector2[] uvs = new Vector2[vertices.Length];
for (int i = 0; i < uvs.Length; i++)
{
// Find world position of each point
Vector3 vertexPos = transform.TransformPoint(vertices[i]);
// And assign its x,y coordinates to u,v.
uvs[i] = new Vector2(vertexPos.x, vertexPos.y);
}
mesh.uv = uvs;
You have to do this each time your block position changes.

How do Vectors and Matrices work into computer graphics, such as Matrix Rotations?

I have been trying to wrap my head around how my Linear and Vector Algerbra knowledge fits in with Computer Graphics. Particulary in the language C#
The knowledge I mean is:
Points
Vectors
Matrices
Matrix multiplaction - Rotations, Skews, etc..
Heres my goal: Create a simple box, and apply a rotation, translation, and skew to it via matrix multiplication. Afterwards, start messing around with the camera. I wish to do this all myself, only using the functions that actually take in the data and draw it. I wish to create all the logical stuff inbetween.
Heres what i've got so far:
My custom Vector3 class, which holds
-an X, Y, and Z variable (floats)
-Several static matrices (as 2x2 2d float arrays?) that hold ZERO and TRANSLATION matrices (for 2x2 and 3x3)
-Methods
1. Rotate(float inAngle) - Creates a rotation matrix and multiplies the xyz by it.
2. Translate(inx,iny,inz) - Adds the ins to the member variables
3. etc...
When complete, i translate the vector back into a C# Vector3 class and pass it to a drawing class, such as DrawPrimitiveShapes which would draw Lines.
The box class is like this:
4 Vector3's, UpperLeftX, UpperRightX, LowerLeftX, LowerRightX
a Draw class which uses the 4 points to then render lines to each one
My confusion comes at this:
How do I rotate this box? Am I on the right track by using 4 vector3's for the box?
Do I just rotate all four vector3's by the angle and be done with it? How does a texture get rotated if it's got all this texture data in the middle?
The way I learned is by using the upper level built in Xna methods and using 'Reflector' to see inside those methods to see how they work.
To rotate the box, each of the four vertices needs to be transformed from where they were to: a number of degrees about a particular axis.
In Xna 2d the axis is always the Z axis and that axis always runs through the worlds origin, the top left corner of the screen in xna.
So to rotate your four rectangle vertices in xna, you would do something like this:
foreach(Vector2 vert in vertices)
{
vert = Vector2.Transform(vert, Matrix.CreateRotationZ(someRadians));
}
This gets the vertices to rotate (orbit) the top left corner of the screen.
In order to have the box rotate in place, you would first move the box to the top left corner of the screen , rotate it a bit, then move it back. All this happens in a single frame so all the user sees is the rectangle rotating in place. There are many ways to do that in code but here is my favorite:
// assumes you know the center of the rectangle's x & y as a Vector2 'center'
foreach(Vector2 vert in vertices)
{
vert = Vector2.Transform(vert - center, Matrix.CreateRotationZ(someRadians)) + center;
}
Now if you were to reflect the "Matrix.CreateRotationZ" method, or the "Vector2.Transform" method, you would see the lines of code MS used to make that work. By working through them, you can learn the math behind more efficiently without so much trial and error.

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