I am trying to make a client-server architecture. I am stuck at the interpolation part. Right now, I have a very naive implementation of the interpolation algorithm. I have every player given a position history and whenever I receive a position data for other player from the server I push the position in to that array. Every client frame I use the oldest position history to interpolate to a new position with a constant speed.
// when new position for other player recieved
p.stateHistory.push(data)
// Every client frame
if(p.stateHistory.length < 1)
return false
let deltaPosition = p.stateHistory[0].position.clone().sub(p.clientPosition)
let direction = Math.atan2(deltaPosition.y, deltaPosition.x)
let velocity = new Vector2(Math.cos(direction), Math.sin(direction)).scale(30/100)
let threshold = 10
if(deltaPosition.magnitude() < threshold) {
p.clientPosition.x = p.stateHistory[0].position.x
p.clientPosition.y = p.stateHistory[0].position.y
p.stateHistory.shift()
} else {
p.clientPosition.add(velocity.clone().scale(deltaTime))
}
I couldn't find way other to interpolate with a constant speed. I came to know about hermite interpolation from gafferongames. But it's sad that the article didn't have anything about its math and its implementation. I tried to go through the wikipedia article on hermite interpolation, but it didn't help. I know nothing about the math behind it. A pseudo code would be appreciated.
What I have been able to do so far: http://client-side-prediction-attempt.herokuapp.com/
Let's say say that your client receives a new position-velocity update at time currentTime
. Then, you need to save the current position/velocity, the target position/velocity, the current time, and the time when you expect the next update:
function updateFromServer(position, velocity) {
startP = currentPosition; //the current position of the player
startV = currentVelocity;
endP = position;
endV = velocity;
startT = currentTime; //the current time of the game
endT = startT + 0.1; //expect the next update in 100 ms
}
Once you have stored this data, you can do your frame update using interpolation. If you are outside of the [startT, endT]
interval, you might just want to continue a uniform motion:
function frameUpdate(deltaT) {
if(currentTime > endT)
//uniform motion
currentPosition += deltaT * currentVelocity;
else {
//cubic Hermite interpolation
var t = (currentTime - startT) / (endT - startT); //interpolation parameter
var t2 = t * t;
var t3 = t2 * t;
currentPosition =
(2 * t3 - 3 * t2 + 1) * startP +
(t3 - 2 * t2 + t) * (endT - startT) * startV +
(-2 * t3 + 3 * t2) * endP +
(t3 - t2) * (endT - startT) * endV;
currentVelocity = 1 / (endT - startT) * (
(6 * t2 - 6 * t) * startP +
(3 * t2 - 4 * t + 1) * (endT - startT) * startV +
(-6 * t2 + 6 * t) * endP +
(3 * t2 - 2 * t) * (endT - startT) * endV);
}
}
Note that the formulas in this snippet are not valid JavaScript code. They must be translated to whatever library you use.