Smoothing with Linear interpolation (Lerp)
Linear interpolation (also known as Lerp) is a method to find unknown values between two known points. The unknown values are approximated through Linear interpolation by connecting these two known points with a straight line.
Lerp operations can also be used to smooth movements. We will show this using an example in which we will smooth the camera's target-following feature so the rocks will slightly move up and down to simulate that they are actually floating on the water.
First, add the following line to the CameraHelper class:
private final float FOLLOW_SPEED = 4.0f;
After that, make the following modifications to the same class:
public void update (float deltaTime) {
if (!hasTarget()) return;
position.lerp(target.position, FOLLOW_SPEED * deltaTime);
// Prevent camera from moving down too far
position.y = Math.max(-1f, position.y);
}Luckily, Libgdx already provides a lerp() method in its Vector2 class that makes it easy to execute Lerp...