Question Bullets Instantiating In Roughly Specific Area in World and I do not know why

I was following this tutorial on youtube

I was fine until I reached the 53 minute mark when my bullets weren't coming out of my gun, I triple checked the code and nothing seems out of the ordinary. I thought the bullets weren't spawning whatsoever but I found that they were spawning in a specific area in the world, and it did not matter where my gun was placed in the world.

I have some serialized fields but I triple-checked those too, I remade the prefabs that need them and reinserted them but still did not matter. I do not know why they bullets decide to spawn outside of where they should be, all the code works (as i can see through multiple Debug.Log statements), but they just arent where they should be.

The pictures I've provided show the bullets Position vs my Player's position and how far they are. The bullets are always roughly in the same Z position vary maybe 20 units and are always on that edge of the map, nothing is over there that would make them do that. The X and Y vary on where my player is looking and when I shoot (Ex: If I shoot high up, the bullets are higher on the Y)

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. using UnityEngine;
3. using UnityEngine.InputSystem;
4.  
5. [RequireComponent(typeof(CharacterController), typeof(PlayerInput))]
6. public class PlayerControls : MonoBehaviour
7. {
8.  
9.     [SerializeField]
10.     private bool groundedPlayer;
11.  
12.     [SerializeField]
13.     private float playerSpeed = 2.0f;
14.  
15.     [SerializeField]
16.     private float jumpHeight = 1.0f;
17.  
18.     [SerializeField]
19.     float rotationSpeed = .8f;
20.  
21.     [SerializeField]
22.     GameObject bulletPrefab;
23.  
24.     [SerializeField]
25.     Transform barrelTransform;
26.  
27.     [SerializeField]
28.     Transform bulletParent;
29.  
30.     [SerializeField]
31.     float bulletHitMissDistance = 25;
32.  
33.     CharacterController controller;
34.  
35.     PlayerInput playerInput;
36.  
37.     Vector3 playerVelocity;
38.  
39.     Transform cameraTransform;
40.  
41.     InputAction moveAction;
42.     InputAction jetpackAction;
43.     InputAction shootAction;
44.  
45.     float gravityValue = -9.81f;
46.  
47.     private void Awake()
48.     {
49.         controller = GetComponent<CharacterController>();
50.         playerInput = GetComponent<PlayerInput>();
51.         cameraTransform = Camera.main.transform;
52.         moveAction = playerInput.actions["Move"];
53.         jetpackAction = playerInput.actions["Jetpack"];
54.         shootAction = playerInput.actions["Shoot"];
55.     }
56.  
57.     private void OnEnable()
58.     {
59.         shootAction.performed += _ => ShootGun();
60.         Debug.Log("enable");
61.     }
62.  
63.     private void OnDisable()
64.     {
65.         shootAction.performed -= _ => ShootGun();
66.         Debug.Log("disable");
67.     }
68.  
69.     void ShootGun()
70.     {
71.         Debug.Log("Shoot");
72.         RaycastHit hit;
73.         Debug.Log("Shoot1");
74.         GameObject bullet = GameObject.Instantiate(bulletPrefab, barrelTransform.position + barrelTransform.forward, Quaternion.identity, bulletParent);
75.         Debug.Log("Shoot2");
76.         BulletController bulletController = bullet.GetComponent<BulletController>();
77.         Debug.Log("Shoot3");
78.         if(Physics.Raycast(cameraTransform.position, cameraTransform.forward, out hit, Mathf.Infinity))
79.         {
80.             Debug.Log("if");
81.             bulletController.target = hit.point;
82.             bulletController.hit = true;
83.         }
84.         else
85.         {
86.             Debug.Log("Else");
87.             bulletController.target = cameraTransform.position + cameraTransform.forward * bulletHitMissDistance;
88.             bulletController.hit = true;
89.         }
90.     }
91.  
92.     void Update()
93.     {
94.         groundedPlayer = controller.isGrounded;
95.         if (groundedPlayer && playerVelocity.y < 0)
96.         {
97.             playerVelocity.y = 0f;
98.         }
99.  
100.         Vector2 input = moveAction.ReadValue<Vector2>();
101.         Vector3 move = new Vector3(input.x, 0, input.y);
102.         move = move.x * cameraTransform.right.normalized + move.z * cameraTransform.forward.normalized;
103.         move.y = 0f;
104.         controller.Move(move * Time.deltaTime * playerSpeed);
105.  
106.         // Changes the height position of the player..
107.         if (jetpackAction.triggered && groundedPlayer)
108.         {
109.             playerVelocity.y += Mathf.Sqrt(jumpHeight * -3.0f * gravityValue);
110.         }
111.  
112.         playerVelocity.y += gravityValue * Time.deltaTime;
113.         controller.Move(playerVelocity * Time.deltaTime);
114.  
115.         //Rotate towards camera direction
116.         float targetAngle = cameraTransform.eulerAngles.y;
117.         Quaternion targetRotation = Quaternion.Euler(0, targetAngle, 0);
118.         transform.rotation = Quaternion.Lerp(transform.rotation, targetRotation, rotationSpeed * Time.deltaTime);
119.     }
120. }

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. using System.Collections;
3. using System.Collections.Generic;
4. using UnityEngine;
5.  
6. public class BulletController : MonoBehaviour
7. {
8.  
9.     [SerializeField] GameObject bulletDecal;
10.  
11.     float speed = 50f;
12.     float timeToDestroy = 3f;
13.  
14.     public Vector3 target {get; set;}
15.     public bool hit { get; set;}
16.  
17.     void OnEnable()
18.     {
19.         Debug.Log("Destroy");
20.         Destroy(gameObject, timeToDestroy);
21.     }
22.  
23.     private void Update() {
24.         transform.position = Vector2.MoveTowards(transform.position, target, speed * Time.deltaTime);
25.         if(!hit && Vector3.Distance(transform.position, target) < .01f)
26.         {
27.             Destroy(gameObject);
28.         }
29.     }
30.  
31.     private void OnCollisionEnter(Collision other) {
32.         Debug.Log("Bullet collison");
33.         ContactPoint contact = other.GetContact(0);
34.         GameObject.Instantiate(bulletDecal, contact.point + contact.normal * .00001f, Quaternion.LookRotation(contact.normal));
35.         Destroy(gameObject);
36.     }
37. }

 

Triple-checking does not constitute debugging.

Debugging will reveal clues about what is going on.

Here is how to begin your exciting new debugging adventures:

You must find a way to get the information you need in order to reason about what the problem is.

Once you understand what the problem is, you may begin to reason about a solution to the problem.

What is often happening in these cases is one of the following:

- the code you think is executing is not actually executing at all
- the code is executing far EARLIER or LATER than you think
- the code is executing far LESS OFTEN than you think
- the code is executing far MORE OFTEN than you think
- the code is executing on another GameObject than you think it is
- you're getting an error or warning and you haven't noticed it in the console window

To help gain more insight into your problem, I recommend liberally sprinkling

Debug.Log()

statements through your code to display information in realtime.

Doing this should help you answer these types of questions:

- is this code even running? which parts are running? how often does it run? what order does it run in?
- what are the values of the variables involved? Are they initialized? Are the values reasonable?
- are you meeting ALL the requirements to receive callbacks such as triggers / colliders (review the documentation)

Knowing this information will help you reason about the behavior you are seeing.

You can also supply a second argument to Debug.Log() and when you click the message, it will highlight the object in scene, such as

Debug.Log("Problem!",this);

If your problem would benefit from in-scene or in-game visualization, Debug.DrawRay() or Debug.DrawLine() can help you visualize things like rays (used in raycasting) or distances.

You can also call Debug.Break() to pause the Editor when certain interesting pieces of code run, and then study the scene manually, looking for all the parts, where they are, what scripts are on them, etc.

You can also call GameObject.CreatePrimitive() to emplace debug-marker-ish objects in the scene at runtime.

You could also just display various important quantities in UI Text elements to watch them change as you play the game.

If you are running a mobile device you can also view the console output. Google for how on your particular mobile target, such as this answer or iOS: https://forum.unity.com/threads/how-to-capturing-device-logs-on-ios.529920/ or this answer for Android: https://forum.unity.com/threads/how-to-capturing-device-logs-on-android.528680/

If you are working in VR, it might be useful to make your on onscreen log output, or integrate one from the asset store, so you can see what is happening as you operate your software.

Another useful approach is to temporarily strip out everything besides what is necessary to prove your issue. This can simplify and isolate compounding effects of other items in your scene or prefab.

Here's an example of putting in a laser-focused Debug.Log() and how that can save you a TON of time wallowing around speculating what might be going wrong:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/coroutine-missing-hint-and-error.1103197/#post-7100494

When in doubt, print it out!(tm)

Note: the

print()

function is an alias for Debug.Log() provided by the MonoBehaviour class.

It sounds like perhaps you're only doing Step #1 of the two-step tutorial process. Step #2 is CRITICAL or else you are honestly just wasting your time doing only Step #1. Read on:

Tutorials and example code are great, but keep this in mind to maximize your success and minimize your frustration:

How to do tutorials properly, two (2) simple steps to success:

Step 1. Follow the tutorial and do every single step of the tutorial 100% precisely the way it is shown. Even the slightest deviation (even a single character!) generally ends in disaster. That's how software engineering works. Every step must be taken, every single letter must be spelled, capitalized, punctuated and spaced (or not spaced) properly, literally NOTHING can be omitted or skipped.

Fortunately this is the easiest part to get right: Be a robot. Don't make any mistakes.
BE PERFECT IN EVERYTHING YOU DO HERE!!

If you get any errors, learn how to read the error code and fix your error. Google is your friend here. Do NOT continue until you fix your error. Your error will probably be somewhere near the parenthesis numbers (line and character position) in the file. It is almost CERTAINLY your typo causing the error, so look again and fix it.

Step 2. Go back and work through every part of the tutorial again, and this time explain it to your doggie. See how I am doing that in my avatar picture? If you have no dog, explain it to your house plant. If you are unable to explain any part of it, STOP. DO NOT PROCEED. Now go learn how that part works. Read the documentation on the functions involved. Go back to the tutorial and try to figure out WHY they did that. This is the part that takes a LOT of time when you are new. It might take days or weeks to work through a single 5-minute tutorial. Stick with it. You will learn.

Step 2 is the part everybody seems to miss. Without Step 2 you are simply a code-typing monkey and outside of the specific tutorial you did, you will be completely lost. If you want to learn, you MUST do Step 2.

Of course, all this presupposes no errors in the tutorial. For certain tutorial makers (like Unity, Brackeys, Imphenzia, Sebastian Lague) this is usually the case. For some other less-well-known content creators, this is less true. Read the comments on the video: did anyone have issues like you did? If there's an error, you will NEVER be the first guy to find it.

Beyond that, Step 3, 4, 5 and 6 become easy because you already understand!