What is the best way to code grinding for a skate game in Unity?

Question

I am making a inline skate game, what could be the best method to code the grinding system, there are many various and complex stuff to use but what could be used to set it up simple and not that complex? I made some research, I come up with Catmull Splines or Bezier curves but that seems very complex, my Idea is getting something simple to build up on that and improve it. Maybe use a simple waypoint system that the player follows along while jump on a trail or something. Any ideas or suggestions? Because you cant find any tutorials on grinding system in YouTube or somewhere.

Thanks.

Answer 1

actually catmull splines and bezier curves are probably the easiest method to go about this. there's plenty of plugin's that can provide this kind of functionality. take a look at the leantween plugin, it's great, and you could wrap it into a scriptable object: [link]https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/3595 this plugin allows you to define paths, and you could read them out in your code, to get the waypoints. then simply iterate over them. edit: Here's an example of code, set up to create an instance of an LTSpline on a gameObject:

    using UnityEngine;
    using System.Collections;
    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using UnityEditor;


public class PathSpline : MonoBehaviour{
public Color color;

[HideInInspector]
public Vector3[] splinePoints;
    [HideInInspector]
public LTSpline  spline;
public Vector3[] localPts;

int i,j;
[ExecuteInEditMode]
void Start(){
    j = 0;
    GameObject parent = this.gameObject;
    //Vector3[] localPts = new Vector3[splinePoints.Length];
    if (localPts.Length > 2) {
        System.Array.Resize (ref splinePoints, localPts.Length);
    }
    for (j = 0; j < localPts.Length; j++) {
        if(parent.transform.TransformPoint(localPts[j]) != splinePoints [j]){
            splinePoints[j] = parent.transform.TransformPoint(localPts[j]);
        }
    }
    if (splinePoints.Length >= 4) {
        System.Array.Resize (ref spline.pts, splinePoints.Length);
        spline = new LTSpline (splinePoints);

        //System.Array.Resize (ref spline.ptsAdj, splinePoints.Length);
        //spline.ptsAdjLength = splinePoints.Length;
    }
}

Answer 2

Catmull splines and Bezier curves are no doubt the easiest method, although Bezier curves have the downside of not passing through the actual waypoints. Another option is to use Hermite curves.