Box2d Body to follow mouse movement

Question

I am trying a box2d body to rotate following the mouse. Here's an image to clarify what I mean.

The red and blue circles are current point of the mouse and the body (of corresponding color) moving/rotating to follow it. Basically the rectangle should rotate with its one end pointed towards where the mouse pointer is.

Here's my code so far,

 World world;
    Body body, bullet;
    Box2DDebugRenderer debugRenderer;
    OrthographicCamera camera;

    @Override
    public void create() {

        world = new World(new Vector2(0, 0f), true);
        debugRenderer = new Box2DDebugRenderer();
        float w = Gdx.graphics.getWidth();
        float h = Gdx.graphics.getHeight();

        BodyDef bodyDef = new BodyDef();
        bodyDef.type = BodyDef.BodyType.DynamicBody;
        bodyDef.position.set(10, 10);
        body = world.createBody(bodyDef);

        PolygonShape shape = new PolygonShape();
        shape.setAsBox(2, 5);
        FixtureDef fixtureDef = new FixtureDef();
        fixtureDef.shape = shape;
        fixtureDef.density = 1f;
        Fixture fixture = body.createFixture(fixtureDef);

        shape.dispose();

        Gdx.input.setInputProcessor(this);

        camera = new OrthographicCamera(200, 100 * (h / w));
        camera.position.set(camera.viewportWidth / 2f, camera.viewportHeight / 2f, 0);
        camera.update();

    }
 @Override
    public void render() {

        Gdx.gl.glClearColor(1, 1, 1, 1);
        Gdx.gl.glClear(GL20.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
        world.step(Gdx.graphics.getDeltaTime(), 6, 2);
        camera.update();
        debugRenderer.render(world, camera.combined);
    }

  @Override
    public boolean mouseMoved(int screenX, int screenY) {
        int mouseX = screenX;
        int mouseY = Gdx.graphics.getHeight() - screenY;
        float rotateAngle = MathUtils.radiansToDegrees * MathUtils.atan2((float) mouseY - (float) body.getPosition().y, (float) mouseX - (float) body.getPosition().x);
        body.setTransform(body.getPosition(), rotateAngle / 57.2957795f);
        return true;
    }

And here's a gif of how it appears now.

as you can see the body gets skewed and also doesn't rotate properly. What am I missing?

Answer 1

The skew looks like a problem with aspect correction, try,

camera = OrthographicCamera(200, 100 * (w / h));

or even,

camera = OrthographicCamera(200, 100);

To get the end of the box to follow the mouse as in the picture just redefine the box,

shape.setAsBox(5, 2, Vector2(offset, 0), 0);