Transition between normal and slow motion

Question

I have a game (C++) in which I want to transition between two speeds of motion. For illustration, the player raises their weapon to aim, and whilst this is in progress over a known duration, time should slow down incrementally until it reaches the target rate.

Slowing it down linearly is easy. We have a start speed (e.g. 1.0), an end speed (e.g. 0.2), and can determine where we are in the fixed-length transition (e.g. 2000ms)

However if I slow it down linearly, the look and feel is just wrong. I suspect that to feel 'right', it should slow down quickly early in the transition, and then at a decreasing rate towards the end.

My maths is less than brilliant; it's been a long time since I graphed a function, and I rarely if ever introduce this kind of stuff into code. At a guess, using part of a 1/x or x^2 curve might give me what I want, but I'd still have to parametrise it to suit.

This or something like it must be a regularly-solved problem, so what's the simplest approach I can use here?

Answer 1

Here's a function that interpolates between Start and End quadratically by T.

float Qerp (float Start, float End, T)
{
    //The quadratic stuff
    T = 1 - T;
    T = 1 - (T * T);

    float Difference = End - Start;

    return (Start + (Difference * T));
}

I.e.:

float Elapsed = 0;
const float Length = 2.5f;
while (true)
{
    Time.timeScale = Qerp (1f,.2f,Elapsed / Length);

    Elapsed += Time.deltaTime;
    if (Elapsed > 1) break;
    yield return null;
}

This sets Time.timeScale from 1 to .2 over the course of 2.5 seconds. As the elapsed time of this process increases, the amount at which Time.timeScale changes decreases.