Z Rotating jittering bug

[papaya]

I've been having this incredibly annoying bug where rotating objects via holding down Z and moving the mouse causes it to jitter and rotate in rapid, uneasy to control angles, making it impossible to do any sort of rotation.
Here's two gifs of what's happening:

https://i.imgur.com/QvGxAHf.gif
https://i.imgur.com/DgMOPQb.gif

Here's what I've tried based off of the very sparse info I could find about this bug:

• changing the hotkey didn't work
  
• changing camera settings didn't work
  
• starting a brand new park didn't work
  
• force disabling controller support didn't work
  
• verifying game files didn't work
  
• -legacymouse 1 launch option didn't work
  
• running as admin didn't work
  
• disabling overlays (steam, discord, f.lux etc.) didn't work
  
• changing displays didn't work
  
• changing resolution, or from borderless -> windowed -> full screen didn't work
  
• changing mouse sensitivity/DPI, both via windows and via the mouse program itself, didn't work
  
• trying a new mouse entirely didn't work
  
• mouse drivers and graphics drivers are up to date
  
• reinstalling the entire game didn't work

it's not angle snap being on as you can see in the gif. The issue is still there if angle snap is on. rotating the object while the mouse is in the very centre of the screen does kinda work, but this is not at all a solution. I have submitted this to the frontier issue tracker, but I'm hoping someone can come up with other fixes to try.

Advanced rotation (pressing X twice) does still work, but if I want to do something like quickly rotate a bunch of rocks, having to double-tap X and rotate then place the next one is a huge hassle vs just holding z, spinning a bit and placing the next. I would rather Z-rotating works than have to resort to only using advanced rotation.

[MrHappy]

I've noticed this is usually a result of the mouse pointer being in a hard to control position. kinda difficult to explain. But for example - The object rotates slower if you move your mouse further outward and spins uncontrollably if you try to rotate from the centre. Wanted to mention it even though in your post you have commented on mouse position.

[Kajsa_Kavat]

The only thing left I can think of is to remove all controllers from your PC, though I kinda assume you also tried that if there even are any.

You already searched the forum, right? Looks like it, iirc no one ever found a solution for this problem. :/ Really hope Frontier can help you.

Kudos on the post, it's a service employee's wet dream.

[Mjella14]

I had the same problem but sadly I can't help you. For me it just stopped with the Aquatic Pack Update. I didn't change anything else that could've explained it. Sorry :(

[papaya]

Originally posted by With Faceless Panda:

I've noticed this is usually a result of the mouse pointer being in a hard to control position. kinda difficult to explain. But for example - The object rotates slower if you move your mouse further outward and spins uncontrollable if you try to rotate from the centre. Wanted to mention it even though in your post you have commented on mouse position.

I think I sort of get what you mean? I remember it being like that when it did work, which makes sense. But with this bug it seems to be based off of where the mouse is when you start holding down Z relative to the center of the screen. It leads me to believe there's something that's constantly snapping the mouse back to the center or something, so rotating is less jittery when its small steps from the center rather than it pinging between the center and wherever I first pressed Z

Originally posted by Hlaine:

The only thing left I can think of is to remove all controllers from your PC, though I kinda assume you also tried that if there even are any.

You already searched the forum, right? Looks like it, iirc no one ever found a solution for this problem. :/ Really hope Frontier can help you.

Kudos on the post, it's a service employee's wet dream.

I don't use controllers at all, I'm not sure I've ever even connected one to this machine (only a couple years old). And yeah I searched the forums a bit but sadly to no avail.

Originally posted by Puella14:

I had the same problem but sadly I can't help you. For me it just stopped with the Aquatic Pack Update. I didn't change anything else that could've explained it. Sorry :(

Yeah, I only started playing again after buying the aquatic pack, and this has been happening since then. Interesting though.

As an extra addition on the list of things I tried, I booted up an old PC that can barely run the game and installed Planet Zoo on there. Couldn't play on it normally because the graphics card isn't up to snuff but the Z rotation worked absolutely fine wherever I tried it. I don't really know what the difference between the two machines could be, I figure if it was hardware related then more people would have this issue.. I'm wondering whether somehow a program I have installed is confusing things?

[MrHappy]

Originally posted by papaya:

I think I sort of get what you mean? I remember it being like that when it did work, which makes sense. But with this bug it seems to be based off of where the mouse is when you start holding down Z relative to the center of the screen. It leads me to believe there's something that's constantly snapping the mouse back to the center or something, so rotating is less jittery when its small steps from the center rather than it pinging between the center and wherever I first pressed Z

You know the green circle that appear, it's like the mouse position is important in relation to the centre of that circle. It gets very jittery for me, move outward slightly even as far as the green circumference and it's fine, move out further and it's even more fine.... But I am fairly sure you're trying all this.

[papaya]

Originally posted by With Faceless Panda:

You know the green circle that appear, it's like the mouse position is important in relation to the centre of that circle. It gets very jittery for me, move outward slightly even as far as the green circumference and it's fine, move out further and it's even more fine.... But I am fairly sure you're trying all this.

can you see where the mouse actually is when holding down Z? I guess you can 'feel' that you've moved the cursor past the circle. Unfortunately no matter how much I move the mouse it never becomes more precise with this bug

[papaya]

Bumping this, mostly in the hopes that someone would be able to run the same test I did.

I did some experimenting with showing the location of the cursor, and found that sometimes the cursor seemed to think it was in the center of the screen, rather than at the location where Z was pressed. Using a windows accessibility setting to highlight the cursor (Mouse settings - Additional mouse options - Pointer Options - Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key), and then using mouse keys (check Mouse Keys in start menu) to move the cursor in a precise way (holding down right, numpad 6, in this case). In this gif you can see that sometimes, briefly, the mouse is located in the center:
https://i.imgur.com/X1gJtwW.gif
This may be how planet zoo rotation always works but if someone who does have Z rotation working as normal could try this (you'll need to unbind any shortcuts that use CTRL also), it would at least rule it out as a lead. I believe the issue is that sometimes the mouse is snapping back to center when it shouldn't, though.
The setup to try yourself is to enable both mouse keys and the show location of pointer option, then go to place an object, hold down your rotation key, then hold down a numpad arrow and repeatedly press CTRL. The cursor should (I think?) always be where you're holding the object.

Two more gifs:
https://i.imgur.com/9noS0K7.gif (1)
https://i.imgur.com/WbJhEG1.gif (2)
In both gifs I am simply nudging the mouse to the right. The only difference is that in (1) the mouse is not in the center of the screen and in (2) the mouse is in the center of the screen. Yet (1) moves clockwise while (2) moves anti-clockwise. Again, maybe this is also how planet zoo always works, but the weird correction on the rotation in (1) - it looks like its trying to move anti-clockwise and is being pushed back - suggests its bugged.
If anyone has ANY ideas as to what might be causing the mouse to snap back to the center, how to stop it, or would be willing to test what I did in the very first gif and see if that actually IS the issue, I would be grateful!

[Mjella14]

Hey, I tried to test it for you but I sadly can‘t rotate an object with the numpad. I enabled all the corrext settings (I think) but when I press the z buttan and then a numpad key, the object doesn‘t rotate. The numpad keys only work for moving the object. Any additional settings you might have activated?

[MrHappy]

I always had the free updates and tested it before buying the attached DLC. Never a single bug. As the latest patch seemed to fix most reported bugs I bought the Aquatic pack 2 days ago. The game was fine but tonight I do have a Z key problem. Holding Z to free rotate works, until you let go and then it snaps back to it's original position.

[papaya]

Originally posted by Puella14:

Hey, I tried to test it for you but I sadly can‘t rotate an object with the numpad. I enabled all the corrext settings (I think) but when I press the z buttan and then a numpad key, the object doesn‘t rotate. The numpad keys only work for moving the object. Any additional settings you might have activated?

It's possible there were some other settings changed - or maybe the fact rotating ''works'' with mouse keys is part of the issue! - but I realise I forgot to mention that I'd rebinded rotation from Z to R . My bad there!

almost all other controls were default but with numlock enabled, lock to surface axes rebinded (to something other than Ctrl+Mouse) and rotation binded to something like R or any other key that doesn't have a Ctrl+[Key] shortcut.
Then, with numlock enabled, holding down R -> holding down 6 on numpad -> and pressing Ctrl repeatedly, is how I made that gif.

Originally posted by With Faceless Panda:

I always had the free updates and tested it before buying the attached DLC. Never a single bug. As the latest patch seemed to fix most reported packs I bought the Aquatic pack 2 days ago. The game was fine but tonight I do have a Z key problem. Holding Z to free rotate works, until you let go and then it snaps back to it's original position.

well that's a bit worrying! That does sound different to the issue I'm having (letting go of Z would at least keep it at whatever random rotation it had snapped to) but I hope you're able to solve that.

[MrHappy]

Originally posted by papaya:

well that's a bit worrying! That does sound different to the issue I'm having (letting go of Z would at least keep it at whatever random rotation it had snapped to) but I hope you're able to solve that.

It only happened the once today and hasn't happened since, my game is still bug free. I always thought the bugs would be by the larger more technical free updates and the paid animals were a very minor part. Don't think I was right now after my bug today..... But now it all seems fine.

[wabble deerh]

Necroing rather than starting a new topic.

Just bought the game and running into this bug. Infuriating. Nothing seems to fix it. Tried different mice, launch options, switching to DP from HDMI, monitor refresh rate, disabling/enabling enhanced pointer precision.

Was there ever any fix for this? Or are we unlucky few screwed?

[Runic]

I've never had this issue before, mine started up after a break from the game (last time I played was about 3 months ago) and has been going for about a week. I've tried everything, I put in a ticket with frontier so maybe they'll help but I imagine they'll tell me to do everything that i've already tried. Sucks because it's frustrating enough to prevent me from playing the game.