Handling User Input - 3D Game Development Practical Introduction - page 113

Illustration 28: A simple plane model built using cubes
Let's now describe how the plane can be controlled. We let the plane fly forward auto-
matically, and the player must not be able to stop it. This makes sense because the pilot can
never stop the plane in the air. What the player can do is to rotate the plane around its local
z axis using right and left arrows, in a movement known as roll . Another rotation the player
can do is around the local x axis of the plane using up and down arrows, and this movement
is known as pitch .
When the player presses down arrow, the front side of the plane raises, so the altitude of the
plane increases as it moves. The opposite happens when the player presses up arrow, where
the front side of the plane gets lower and the altitude decreases with the time. Right and
left arrows do not affect the altitude or the direction of the plane, but they make it roll to
the right or the left. So when the plane roll to the right and then raise its front, it is going
eventually turn to right. This type of control needs some time to get used to if the player
has no experience with it.