How to make an object move up and down on a loop.

Hello dear Unity community,

For the past few hours I've been trying to get this seemingly simple thing done. I am by no means a programmer, but because I'm trying to create a prototype I have to make some scripts. I have been Googling and reading documentations but every time I think I have the solution the compiler gives me al sorts of errors.

In short: I want to have a game object (Collectible) move up and down, in a loop, and me to be able to change the speed and height in the editor. I imagine this being something very simple, but this programming thing goes above my head. Could someone help me with this?



As a side note there are probably going to be more instances in which I need to make small scripts, if someone could keep helping me as sort of a mentor/helping programmer I'd appreciate that a lot. At this point I'm just prototyping, but in case this turns into something I want to pursue I'm willing to share revenue.

 

You may could take a look at iTween its very complexe but it can do nearly everything:
http://itween.pixelplacement.com/index.php

 

Thanks, i'll look into this tomorrow. Time for me to get some sleep and take a fresh look at it again in the morning.

 

you could try an animationCurve

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. using UnityEngine;
3. using System.Collections;
4.  
5. public class TestScript : MonoBehaviour
6. {
7.     public AnimationCurve myCurve;
8.    
9.     void Update()
10.     {
11.         transform.position = new Vector3(transform.position.x, myCurve.Evaluate((Time.time % myCurve.length)), transform.position.z);
12.     }
13. }
14.  

you can setup whatever curve you like then (note the little cogs each end of the curve when you edit it, select "loop" )

 

You could use a bit of trig which will make it SUPER easy for you to edit the speed and height of the animation.

So in a script you attach to the object, put something like this:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. //adjust this to change speed
3. float speed = 5f;
4. //adjust this to change how high it goes
5. float height = 0.5f;
6.  
7. void Update() {
8.         //get the objects current position and put it in a variable so we can access it later with less code
9.         Vector3 pos = transform.position;
10.         //calculate what the new Y position will be
11.         float newY = Mathf.Sin(Time.time * speed);
12.         //set the object's Y to the new calculated Y
13.         transform.position = new Vector3(pos.x, newY, pos.z) * height;
14. }
15.  

 

Thank you LeftyRighty, your solution is wonderful and does what I wanted. Also my thanks to Diericx and qqqbbb for helping.

 

Quick question, how do I make it so that it floats around its current Y axis. I have this modified slightly to be used in a 2D game, but I cannot get it to move around on its current position.

 

Rollerball Tutorial my friend, short, simple and you will be suprised how much you will learn. Its in the Unity home page under the learn section.

 

Yah I've already seen it but just realized all I had to do was change it to transform.localPosition

 

Although old, for anyone in the future that might bump into this post, there are 2 issues with this little block of code.
First , since you are multiplying the position by the height, the position will be changed. Not just the Y. Say we have an object at coordinates (2, 2, 2). When this code runs, given that the height = 0.5, the object will be moved to (1, 1, 1).
Instead, to control the height of the up and down movement, you should be multiplying the variable by the newY.

Also the newY will will be going around the 0 coordinate. To fix this you should add the old position to the newY

float newY = Mathf.Sin(Time.time * speed) * height + pos.y;

 

here goes the right edited one :



//adjust this to change speed
[SerializeField]
float speed = 5f;
//adjust this to change how high it goes
[SerializeField]
float height = 0.5f;

Vector3 pos;

private void Start()
{
pos = transform.position;
}
void Update()
{

//calculate what the new Y position will be
float newY = Mathf.Sin(Time.time * speed) * height + pos.y;
//set the object's Y to the new calculated Y
transform.position = new Vector3(transform.position.x, newY, transform.position.z) ;
}

 

Thank you my man

 

Thank you

 

what if you want to stop movement on key? lets say down "n", and remember last position?, just stopping not reseting

 

@LeftyRightyWhat a simple solution, it works so well. I almost feel like there must be a major downside to this method since I've never seen this method before... But maybe I was looking in the wrong directions. Thank you!

edit: I was looking for a way to make my floating object slightly 'hover' up and down in the air. With this curve solution I even have full control over the movement...

 

How would I do the same thing except when you jump on (in my case a cloud) it bobs down then back up when you first touch it?

 

Four years, still great

 

This still works! Thanks

 

Thank you so much. This is exactly what I needed.

 

Thanks man,,,,,