Hello,

I've been working with my own game engine for awhile now and I've been trying to get the input and controls to flow much more like a AAA FPS game, or at least a decent indie one. I've posted several topics in the past on this issue about making a smooth camera, and at the time of posting them, I had been satisfied with the results. Now however, I feel that it is not quite smooth enough, and I've switched the whole engine to SDL so I have control over the loop. (previously I was using GLUT). After changing everything to SDL, the mouse is smooth as butter, but the camera movement (walking) is still stutters and looks bad. I've implemented the last of Dwitter's game loop, the one with interpolation, and here is the relevant code:

int main (int argc,  char** argv)
{
    arg1 = argc;
    arg2 = argv;
    engineInit();
    //the loop has to stay here
    //kill all extra threads so they don't cause problems after we quit
    //gameloop
    SDL_Event event;
    bool running = true;
    
    const int TPS = 20;
    const int SKIP_TICKS = 1000 / TPS;
    const int MAX_FRAMESKIP = 5;
    int loops;
    long lastSec = 0;
    long nextGameTick = SDL_GetTicks();
    
    while (running)
    {
        while (SDL_PollEvent(&event)) {
            //do crap with events
            switch (event.type)
            {
                int x,y,button;
                case SDL_QUIT:
                SDL_GL_DeleteContext(glContext);
                SDL_DestroyWindow(window);
                SDL_Quit();
                cout << "The window has been closed.\n";
                running = false;
                    break;
                case SDL_MOUSEMOTION:
                    SDL_GetMouseState(&x, &y);
                    passiveMouse(x,y);
                    break;
                case SDL_MOUSEBUTTONDOWN :
                   button =  SDL_GetMouseState(&x, &y);
                    mouseFunc(button,1,x,y);
                    break;
                 case SDL_KEYDOWN:
                    keyboardDownFunc(event.key.keysym.sym);
                    break;
                case SDL_KEYUP:
                    keyboardUpFunc(event.key.keysym.sym);
                    break;
                default:
            
                    break;
            }
            
        }
        loops = 0;
        while (SDL_GetTicks()> nextGameTick && loops < MAX_FRAMESKIP) {
            nextGameTick+=SKIP_TICKS;
            loops++;
            TickHandler.tps++;
            TickHandler.onTick();
            
            
            int tickTime = int(SDL_GetTicks()/1000);
            if (tickTime > lastSec+1)
            {
                TickHandler.tps = 0;
                lastSec = tickTime;
            }
        }
        TickHandler.interpolation = double(SDL_GetTicks() + SKIP_TICKS - nextGameTick )
        / double( SKIP_TICKS );
        TickHandler.onRender();
        render();
    }
    Console.consoleActivated = false;
    SDL_GL_DeleteContext(glContext);
    SDL_DestroyWindow(window);
    SDL_Quit();
    
    return 0;
}

TickHandler.onRender() calls a few interpolated functions and here is the one that controls movement of the camera:

void renderTick(float intp)
{
    if (cameraPlayer == true)
    {
        Physics.pos3 = -camy;
        Physics.collisions();
        Input.applyGravity();
        if (Input.walking == true)
            Input.moveCameraFirstPerson(1*intp);
        else
        {
            roll = 0;
            Input.change = false;
        }
    }

}

And here is the move camera first person:

void inputs::moveCameraFirstPerson(float speed)
{
    speed = speed*walkspeed;
    float radx = ((yaw+addedAngle)*MPI/180);
    camx -= (sinf(radx)/10)*speed;
    camz += (cosf(radx)/10)*speed;
    
    Physics.pos1 = -camx;
    Physics.pos2 = -camz;

    if (Physics.collided == true)
    {float radx = ((yaw+Input.addedAngle)*3.1415926535/180);
        camx += (sinf(radx)/20)*speed;
        camz -= (cosf(radx)/20)*speed;
        Physics.collided = false;
        
    }
    Client.x = camx;
    Client.z = camz;
    Client.y = camy;
    
    Projectile.x = camx;
    Projectile.z = camz;
}

I'd love if I could get this all sorted out, any help or reference would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Why you

void inputs::moveCameraFirstPerson(float speed)
{
speed = speed*walkspeed;

you pass almost const float 

at least change speed = speed*walkspeed; to float tmp; tmp = speed*walkspeed; and why you use walkspeed?]

remember that every mouse movement the game forces to draw new eye look at point so mouse movement as is is not dependant on time ( you don't use timefactor there)

to smooth camera movement you should use better timer (i use for win32 QueryPerformanceTimer), that done the trick for me

You should also separate drawing routine from mouse movements (that drawing is made independent)

you can also

make character to turn from one eyepoint to another in fixed time vaule lets say 22 ms and then blend two scenes or more

it wont be much help but you can go here http://www.sulaco.co.za/opengl_project_Basic_3D_engine.htm and downlaod source that will show you how to move mouse (with average of two frame times) almost the same as your code (OpenGLApp.dpr - winmain func) if you use queryperformancetimer there instead of average two frames from gettickcount) i could tell you more precise but i can't now.

walkspeed is another variable for things like sprinting and crouching. The mouse movement is very smooth, it is the camera 'walking' that is jittery. The update function isn't being called faster than a millisecond, so I really don't need the precision of a performance counter.

ok my bad about this mosue movement it was about camera lol, anyway you should do better timing believe me.

another thing is that if you divide a float by in example 180 you will get integer result

ex. 3.1415926535/180 should be 3.14159265350f / 180.0f same for void inputs::moveCameraFirstPerson(float speed) you cannot pass integer to float unless you cast it to a

Input.moveCameraFirstPerson(1.0f*float(intp));

or if you have something more complex then you use (float)var

the average timer ticks can also smooth your movement but i prefer queryperformancetimer

however i do not see here time independant variable

since you move character, by telling what direction it is going, multiplying that direction by speed value and than you have to multiply it by time (ofc in seconds for SI)

I didn't know that whole float thing, and I changed the code to do that. Unfortunately, query performance counter seems to fluctuate really badly. It could be a problem in my code, but I don't really think so. Speed when passed to the function is time, the independent variable.

i wonder if you use it like this:

CStopWatch * timin;

timin = new CStopWatch();

timin->startTimer();


get time

     double l;
timin->stopTimer();

l = timin->getElapsedTime();
FRAME_TIME = float(l);
timin->startTimer();

cpp

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------


#pragma hdrstop

#include "Timer.h"

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------

#pragma package(smart_init)



 
 double CStopWatch::LIToSecs( LARGE_INTEGER & L) {
     return ((double)L.QuadPart /(double)frequency.QuadPart) ;
 }
 
 CStopWatch::CStopWatch(){
     timer.start.QuadPart=0;
     timer.stop.QuadPart=0; 
     QueryPerformanceFrequency( &frequency ) ;
 }
 
 void CStopWatch::startTimer( ) {
     QueryPerformanceCounter(&timer.start) ;
 }
 
 void CStopWatch::stopTimer( ) {
     QueryPerformanceCounter(&timer.stop) ;
 }
 
 double CStopWatch::getElapsedTime() {
     LARGE_INTEGER time;
     time.QuadPart = timer.stop.QuadPart - timer.start.QuadPart;
     return LIToSecs( time) ;
 }

h

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------

#ifndef TimerH
#define TimerH
#include "windows.h"
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------

typedef struct {
     LARGE_INTEGER start;
     LARGE_INTEGER stop;
 } stopWatch;
 
 class CStopWatch {
 
 private:
     stopWatch timer;
     LARGE_INTEGER frequency;
     double LIToSecs( LARGE_INTEGER & L) ;
 public:
     CStopWatch() ;
     void startTimer( ) ;
     void stopTimer( ) ;
     double getElapsedTime() ;
 };
#endif
//         LARGE_INTEGER liFrequency;
//		::QueryPerformanceFrequency(&liFrequency);
//		return ((double)GetElapsed() / (double)liFrequency.QuadPart);

There is nothing wrong with dividing a float with an integer, it will result as a float. But dividing an integer with an integer will not give you a float, 1 / 3 = 0.

It depends on the compiler, mine won't pass (you multiply int by float you get int)


however reply to this topic if you still have a problem, we will search for another solution


maybe you should post a video with that camera problem, i found jittering in my cam but i used better timer