Simple situation. Pressing space bar adds velocity to an entity using phent_addvelcentral(). The question is, how do I do this based on the condition that there isn't allready velocity along the same axis?

phent_addvelcentral(my_entity,vector(0,0,key_space * 10));

This will make the object "my_entity" move upwards as long as the space bar is held. What I want is for it to only add the velocity if there is no movement along the Z axis allready. In other words, it should make the object "jump" but not fly.

You could call phent_getvelocity, or else compare the z position between two frames:

var z1 = my_entity.z;
wait(1);
var z2 = my_entity.z;
if (z2 != z1) ....

Having a bit of teething problems with phent_getvelocity().


phent_getvelocity(my_entity,temp,nullvector);
if (temp.z == 0)
{
phent_addvelcentral(my_entity,vector(0,0,key_space * 10));
}


Does nothing. So I guess I'm not sure what value to be looking for.

Put a watch on the velocity vector and it seems to be 0.000 +/- 0.5, makes it kinda fun to detect a rest state...

Even more fun, phent_getvelocity() detects if the object is moving up a ramp as velocity along the Z axis. So this just flat out wont work. How very frustrating.

Welcome to world of programming my friend!

Well I think you could solve the easy problem of small z movements yourself, but it seems you dont want to detect a z velocity at all! Maybe, you want to detect something like if the entity has ground contact or not?

When programming its good to make up your mind beforehand as precisely as possible what you need and want, cos otherwise you waste time by trying other solutions only to find out that this wasnt what you wanted after all.

Yea, thats what I'm working on now. Casting out a ray to detect ground. My hope was that phent_getvelocity() was relitive to the object and not the environment.

My goal here is to do everything with the physics engine rather then animate movment. So all controlls are going to be an exertion of force on the player entity. Basic movement was easy, but jumping seems to be a problem.

At any rate, I think its time to sleep. Things will make more sense in the morning.