Reduce the amount of peak hangtime after jumping?

PhantomFox128

I'm making a 2D platformer and as of right now, whenever the player jumps, they stay suspended in the air at the peak of their jump for a about half a second. Not sure if I want to get rid of that entirely, but it should be a lot less. I've tried adjusting the values of gravity and the player's jump power, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't seem to change anything or it just feels worse (as in, they basically move faster). I've also been told that the motion should be parabolic and there shouldn't be any hangtime, so I really don't know what the issue is.

The code I use for jumping:

extends KinematicBody2D

#VARIABLES
export var jumpForce: int = 2750;
export var gravity: int = 4500;
export var maxFallSpeed: int = 2750;

var stateMachine;
var velocity: = Vector2();

func input():
	var current = stateMachine.get_current_node();

#JUMP
	if is_on_floor() and Input.is_action_just_pressed("jump"):
		velocity.y = -jumpForce;
		stateMachine.travel("Jump");
	if Input.is_action_just_released("jump") and velocity.y < 0:
		velocity.y *= 0.6;
		
#FALL
	if velocity.y >= 0 and !is_on_floor():
		stateMachine.travel("Fall");

func _physics_process(delta):
	input();
	velocity.y += gravity * delta;
	if velocity.y > maxFallSpeed:
		velocity.y = maxFallSpeed;
	velocity = move_and_slide(velocity, Vector2.UP);

Calinou

Could you upload a video recording so we can better see what you mean by "hangtime"?

PhantomFox128

@Calinou said: Could you upload a video recording so we can better see what you mean by "hangtime"?

Sure thing. Link to the video is here.

TwistedTwigleg

It looks like the hang time is when the velocity goes from negative to positive, if I am understanding correctly.

I have no idea how well it would work, but you could try checking if the Y velocity is a small value (about to transition from up to down) and then apply move gravity if it's in this window. Something like this:

if velocity.y > -24 and velocity.y < 24:
	velocity.y += ADDITIONAL_GRAVITY * delta

I haven't tried it myself, but that might help reduce the hang time in the transition.

PhantomFox128

@TwistedTwigleg said: It looks like the hang time is when the velocity goes from negative to positive, if I am understanding correctly.

I have no idea how well it would work, but you could try checking if the Y velocity is a small value (about to transition from up to down) and then apply move gravity if it's in this window. Something like this:
if velocity.y > -24 and velocity.y < 24:
	velocity.y += ADDITIONAL_GRAVITY * delta 
I haven't tried it myself, but that might help reduce the hang time in the transition.

Unfortunately, I'm still getting the same result. It's odd too, because from searching around, it sounds like I'm the only one who's encountered this problem. Is there anyone else making a 2D platformer that can possibly throw some jump code together and see if it's doing the same thing?

vinpogo

Looking at the video i think the hangtime is caused by the tilting sprite. As the character reaches the peak of its jump velocity.y approaches zero, but the characters sprite titlt is the same. Therefore it gives the visual perception of having the same speed as at the start of the jump. To verify if my statement is true you try swapping out the character sprite for a circle and check if it looks better. If it turns out true, then i would suggest to gradually change the character tilt according to velocity.y. something like this might work

var max_angle_in_radians = anyValueYouLike

# inside _process
character_sprite.rotation = (velocity.y / maxFallSpeed) * max_angle_in_radians

PhantomFox128

So, I made a quick test project to figure out if there was something wrong with the code, but it looks like it was working perfectly fine. Going back to the original, I adjusted the camera so it centers the player in the middle of the screen at all times and judging from that, it looks like it's actually working there. I'm starting to think it might have something to do with the animations or the state machine since it just looks off. I've asked it before, but never figured it out: I now think it might be because the animation transition is playing a little later, right when the player starts descending when it should be slightly before that.

Don't know if it'll help, but here's what my mess of a state machine currently looks like:

From the code, it's set to go from 'Jump' to 'Fall' once the player starts falling, but needs to go through 'JumpPeak' first, which has an 'AtEnd' transition.