Pong horizontal movement algorithm

Question

I was just wondering about the horizontal movement of a pong ball? What is the general algorithm used with this? The ball in my pong game just moves vertically and I don't know about the algorithms used for horizontal movement.

Answer 1

You have two speeds here: - ball speed (x,y) - paddle speed (x)

Ball speed is constant (positive or negative) by Y axis while speed on X axis is set depending how fast is the paddle while you hit the ball.

Simple calculation could be:

// this is called when ball hits the paddle   
function OnCollision()
{
    BallSpeed.x = PaddleSpeed.x * 0.5f; // 0.5f = custom factor
}

// you calculate new ball position here every frame
function OnUpdate(float dt)
{
    BallPosition.x += BallSpeed.x * dt;
    BallPosition.y += BallSpeed.y * dt;
}

Of course, you could also calculate X speed depending which part of the paddle it hit (if it was far edge, X speed is bigger). Usually both parameters are applied in pong games. Let me know how it went.