How to add acceleration to character body2d

[gertkeno]

@gnarlak_bones

I make target_velocity = to a value, it just keeps moving and doesn’t slow down to start to stop.

If you assign target_velocity = to a value based on inputs, like the sample below, then it will stop when there are no inputs pressed, because the target velocity will be 0 * SPEED which equates to zero. Could you share how you are handling inputs currently?

@gertkeno

target_velocity is how fast (and in what direction) you want the player to move, usually this is calculated with inputs times a max speed.

var target_velocity = Input.get_axis("Left", "Right") * SPEED

[gnarlak_bones]

I’m not using inputs; I want the player to move when they punch like impulse but then after I got the drag for this to work, I needed acceleration to make it better. I didn’t want acceleration for movement I wanted it for an impulse for a punch.

[gertkeno]

Impulses don’t have acceleration, they are a one-frame addition to velocity. How do you see acceleration helping in this? What are you experiencing about your current punch-velocity-drag implementation that you want to fix?

[gnarlak_bones]

impulses do have acceleration! right? if only a very little bit surely, they do. Well, I think impulse would look or feel better if it had a little bit of acceleration. When I set up impulse for the first time it would set a speed and then go to 0 but example: it might go from 200 to 190 to 180 to 170 until it hits 0, it does this smoothly so it doesn’t look like someone throwing a 2d punch instead it looks like my character is sliding from one point to another

[gnarlak_bones]

you there

[gertkeno]

I’m just not sure I am understanding your example, it sounds like friction/drag after a impulse to me. Impulses add to velocity, not acceleration, of which velocity may decay over time without another impulse/force.

Maybe adding some camera shake or other juice would help out?

Have you ever slid a nearly empty jug of milk? The liquid sloshes around and accelerates the jug mid-way through moving, I feel like that’s the effect you’d end up with by adding acceleration to the mix.

[gnarlak_bones]

but why does it look so weird than : (
after some thinking, I think I can put it into words better.

The punch is moving at one speed from the start to finish kinda. I think the term is ease? easing from value to another.

But things in real life slide at different speeds, I slid something, and it was pretty fast and then stopped really quickly. The punch would have slowed down slower, the thing I slid was not slowing down at the same past the whole time it was sliding. This is why my characters punch feels weird I think.

[gertkeno]

@gnarlak_bones

velocity.x = move_toward(velocity.x, 0, 300 * delta)

whenever I do a punch:
   acceleration += 10
   velocity.x += 10

based on this example, I remove acceleration (since it isn’t part of the equation), increase the friction/drag from 300; depending on your game’s scale relative to pixels. Then greatly increase the added velocity.x, at least half as much as the friction/drag value

[gnarlak_bones]

Thank you, I’m finally happy with my games dumb punch and can move on to the afterlife. I will be putting you in my will and overall thanks for sticking around to help me through all my bullshit