# Moving toward a Target in a Straight Line

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I am creating a simple 2D tile based game. It involves a character standing somewhere on the grid. When you click on spot in the grid it will set a target, the character will then move toward that target in a straight line. In order to accomplish this, I calculate the slope. This gives me a slope in decimal form which I normalize, then multiply times the speed of the sprite. This gives me a usable X/Y offset. So far so good, but I need the sprite to move while conforming to the tile map. I wan't the sprite to resolve which tile to move to based on the line I have calclulated. The resulting paths should be something similar to this: The red in this case shows the start location, and the green showes the target. This is the effect you usually see in a drawing program. How would I go about achiving this sort of pathing?

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delta.x = dest.x - start.xdelta.y = dest.y - start.ydistance = sqrt(delta.x*delta.x + delta.y*delta.y)delta.x = delta.x / distancedelta.y = delta.y / distance

Move by delta each time. TODO: Insert magic for dealing with fractions.

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All you need to do is store the position in floating point, but when you draw the sprite, round it to the nearest tile coordinate:

int((FloatX + (TileWidth / 2)) / TileWidth) * TileWidth;
Do the same for FloatX and TileHeight.

You might want to take out the (TileWidth / 2) term that does the rounding (that would change the operation to truncation) depending on how your system works.

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Quote:
 Original post by smart_idiot *** Source Snippet Removed ***Move by delta each time. TODO: Insert magic for dealing with fractions.

Hmmmm.... I like it. I just unearthed the "bresenham algorithm". It looks like a more complicated version of what you posted but optamized for speed.

The only problem I can see with yours is the calculation of the distance every time. This requires some sqrt() work and this is an arcade game so speed is a must.

I'll let you know how it goes ;)

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You only need to calculate the delta once, you can reuse it each test until you get where you're going (repreat for distance steps). But actually, using a line drawing algorithm like the one you just found is probably a better idea.

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Yep, this algorithem did it:

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1275.asp

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