Devlog 5: Moving Platforms

Following a recent epidemic; the content of these logs has changed.

This log will be covering Moving Platforms. I worked on creating two types of platform; One that fits more to float along a body of water, and one that fits within a more mechanical or factory environment.

For starters is the barrels. These barrels move along a spline path created by Sebastian Lague, which is free on the Unity store. The barrels follow the path and should they reach the end of the path then they are reset to the beginning of the path, to form a loop.

Barrels also lean down on where the player is standing, with the centre as a point of rotation. A player standing further to the edge of a barrel will make it lean more in that direction. The barrel returns to its original position when the player leaves it. I could have made the barrel move downward when the player was on it, and raise upward, to sell the floating idea better, but did not.

There is also an issue that the player leans with the barrel, making platforming work awkwardly This is due to the player becoming a child of the barrel. A solution to this would be to update the player to match the movement of the barrel every second, which would be possible, but I think expensive computationally.

The player can stop multiple barrels from moving by hitting a button. Hitting the button again will restart the barrels movement.

There are also mechanical platforms which are not as organic as regular barrels, and instead precisely follow their spline path. I again could have added them going downward slightly when the player stepped on them for a sense of weight, before returning to their original position, but could not manage that effectively with the platform following the spline path