Unify PathFollower's h/v offsets to a single Vector2/3

[Mickeon]

Closes godotengine/godot-proposals#5104 (comment).

As brought up in #54161 (comment).

If the original name of PathFollower2D and PathFollower3D's offset is changed, it can be brought back to reunite two properties, as can be argued should've been the case quite some time ago.

And as a bonus, it's now a Vector3 for PathFollower3D!

For PathFollower2D and :
h_offset and v_offset -> Vector2 relative_offset
PathFollower3D
h_offset and v_offset -> Vector3 relative_offset (forward and back included)

Depends on #64804 to be merged first.

[KoBeWi]

I think this shouldn't be a Vector2. Vector2 gives an impression that it's an absolute offset, while it is not. It's relative to the curve, so e.g. offset of Vector2(0, -50) will be different depending on the orientation.

h_offset is the offset parallel to the path.
v_offset is the offset perpendicular to the path.
If the current properties don't communicate it properly, we can come up with new names.

[Mickeon]

I do agree, to some extent. At the same time, however, it does make Vector math using these properties a little more laborious than it should probably be.

Maybe another name for an unified "offset" can be found, or the documentation of this new property could state "The relative offset along the curve"...?

Regardless feel free to share the thought in the proposal, too.

[KoBeWi]

What if we group the offset properties with offset_ prefix and call them offset_parallel and offset_perpendicular?

Maybe another name for an unified "offset" can be found

relative_offset maybe? tbh I don't use PathFollower that much to say if changing it to vector is really bad. If the changed property doesn't give wrong idea then it's probably fine.

[Mickeon]

I would favour a single Vector2/3 so relative_offset is a pretty nice name for it. If it's going to be just a rename that is okay too, and still way better than the current "h" and "v". I am just not sure on what the correct mathematical terms for each axis are. offset_parallel, offset_perpendicular and offset...?

[KoBeWi]

offset_parallel, offset_perpendicular and offset...?

I mean they would be grouped:

• offset (group)
  • parallel
  • perpendicular

This would make the names 100% clear on purpose, but I agree that someone might find the names hard to understand. Especially "perpendicular" is not used very often.

[Mickeon]

In the meantime, this PR has been rebased and updated to call it relative_offset.

I mean they would be grouped:

What I did mean is, for PathFollow3D, what would be the name of the third property to go along with the other two?

[KoBeWi]

What I did mean is, for PathFollow3D, what would be the name of the third property to go along with the other two?

Maybe offset_forward and offset_side for Z and X.

[Zireael07]

+1 for offset_forward and offset_side

[akien-mga]

We discussed this in the production team. It's too late for such compat breaking renames for consistency/clarity unless they're motivated by very clear usability issues which many users support. This doesn't seem to the case here, so closing.