How can I have a sprite orbit the centre of the screen and keep pointing at the same point?

Question

So I have this sprite that orbits around the centre of the screen, however it doesn't point to the centre like I want to. How can I do that?

The code I got for this is from here: https://godotengine.org/qa/34102/how-to-make-ideal-circle-path2d-in-simple-way

Answer 1

Godot gives you the look_at method which is exactly what you need.

var center = get_viewport().get_rect().size * 0.5
sprite.look_at(center)

Comments

Well, it made it look straightforward, but not to the centre of the screen.

Here's the following code by the way (Ship's code is commented completely out save for the extends)

Player.gd

extends Node2D


var speed = 2  # rotation speed (in radians)
var radius = 300  # desired orbit radius
var screen_size  # Size of the game window.
var center

func _ready():
    $Ship.position = Vector2(radius, 0) # desired orbit radius  
    screen_size = get_viewport_rect().size
    center = screen_size * 0.5

func _process(delta):
    rotation += speed * delta
    $Ship.look_at(center)

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Godot considers a node to be facing in the positive x axis in 2d. Looks like your model is pointing towards positive y. Just rotate the sprite 90 degrees (PI/2) to correct. You could do this in code but just turning it in the editor is probably the easiest.

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That worked! Thank you.

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Welcome! Good luck with your project!