Configurable Camera Shake for libGDX

This is a simple configurable camera shaker for libGDX.
It is best used for shaking a stationary camera, but with a bit of extra coding you can support a moving camera.
Has been tested on Desktop, GWT/HTML, and Android.

To use this camera shaker in your project, all you need to do is copy the CameraShaker.java class into your core project.

It is that simple. No dependencies or gradle configuration needed.

A runnable demo is included and can be accessed on itch.io: https://antzgames.itch.io/camera-shaker-demo

How to use

Create a CameraShaker instance

camera = new OrthographicCamera();
batch = new SpriteBatch();

// Camera Shaker setup with default values
shakeRadius = 30f;
minimumShakeRadius = 3f;
radiusFallOffFactor = 0.90f;

cameraShaker = new CameraShaker(camera, shakeRadius, minimumShakeRadius, radiusFallOffFactor);

Here is an example if you are using a viewport:

viewport = new FitViewport(Gdx.graphics.getWidth(), Gdx.graphics.getHeight());

// Camera Shaker setup
cameraShaker = new CameraShaker(viewport.getCamera(), shakeRadius, minimumShakeRadius, radiusFallOffFactor);

Start a camera shake

After a player was hit, explosion, impact or collision is the best time to shake the camera (and play a cool sound!). To start the camera shaking call the startShaking() method on the cameraShaker object:

// start a camera shake
cameraShaker.startShaking();

Update the cameraShaker

In your main render/update loop of your game you need to call update() method on the cameraShaker object:

// Call camera shaker update method
batch.setProjectionMatrix(camera.combined);  // not needed if not using a SpriteBatch
cameraShaker.update(deltaTime);

Look at demo source code if you still need help

If you still cannot get the camera shaker to work then look at the demo source code.

The demo source code is very simple, you can see it here.

Configurable parameters

shakeRadius

shakeRadius value affects the magnitude of the camera shakes. The larger the radius value, the larger the area on the screen that the shakes will affect. Determining the best value depends on your screen size and resolution.

minimumShakeRadius

minimumShakeRadius value should always be less than shakeRadius and your should target this value to be 5%-20% of the shakeRadius.

radiusFallOffFactor

radiusFallOffFactor value determines the speed in which the shaking radius diminishes. The value should be greater than 0 and less than 1, however the optimal ranges are between 0.8f and 0.95f.
Too small a value and the shake happens to fast, and the closer you get to 1 the longer the shake persists.

How to use the demo

CLICK ME TO RE-SHAKE button

Clicking this button will re-shake the camera with the currently displayed configuration parameters.

Randomize Parameters button

Click this button to randomize the 3 parameters and re-shake.

Default parameters button

Click this button to return to the default parameters. Here are the default parameters:

shakeRadius = 30f;
minimumShakeRadius = 3f;
radiusFallOffFactor = 0.90f;

Turn On/Off Sound

Sound can be toggled on/off with the this button.

Limitations

Linear diminishing shake radius

The current code uses a linear diminishing radius for shaking. Future releases might use libGDX's interpolation.

Moving camera

The current implementation camera shaking assumes a stationary camera with a fixed origin. The shaking uses the origin to randomly move around it, and to put it the camera back in its original position once the shaking stops.

With a moving camera (like the camera following a player around a map) you will need to constantly update the origPosition variable with the true camera position (minus any shaking). The origPosition variable is public in the CamerShaker class so you can update it.

Most games utilize custom camera controllers, so it is best that you modify the class to suit your implementation.