Create acceleration with direction

Question

I want to move my object with an acceleration in the proper direction. I'm not good at math so I need some help. The example in Game Maker is:

friction = 0.3;
direction = 180;
speed = 5;

But I'm not working with Game Maker any more and this is the C++ right now. For making it clear, I need a formula to create a linear acceleration.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can calculate the invidual components by using sin and cos:

xSpeed = sin(direction)*speed;
ySpeed = cos(direction)*speed;
[...]
xPos += xSpeed;
yPos += ySpeed;

Accleration is simply increasing the speed.

xAccel = sin(accelDirection)*accleration;
yAccel = cos(accelDirection)*accleration;
// [...]
xSpeed += xAccel;
ySpeed += yAccel;

Answer 2

To do any movement or physics calculations you should always use the time spent since the last frame (dt or delta); this depends on the main loop implementation, but is generaly passed to a method called update as parameter. (If this is not available assume dt = 1)

To update speed with acceleration and time and position with speed and time you can:

speed += acceleration * dt;
position += speed * dt;

Note that acceleration, speed and position are vectors, so they have the operations:

• vector addition
• scalar and vector multiplication

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_vector#Addition_and_subtraction

To create a vector with a given angle you can use the method described by Mr. Beast.

To simulate friction you can do something like:

speed -= speed * friction

Where friction should be a number: 0 < friction < 1

Answer 3

Acceleration is the rate at which velocity changes. If it is zero, then you will keep moving at your start velocity. If it is larger than zero, and in the same direction as the current velocity, velocity will increase.

velocity = old_velocity + acceleration;
position = old_position + velocity

If acceleration = 2, then your velocity will increase by 2 for each timestep.