FreeCamera direction vector

[lazarmitic]

I'm trying to make camera "shoot" projectile in direction camera is facing, but I can't seem to find camera direction vector. Only vector I managed to find is camera upVector but with only one vector I can't calculate camera direction vector. Any help how to get direction vector, or maybe how to fire projectile from camera in some other way is greatly appreciated. 

[RaananW]

Hi Lazarmitic,

the simplest way would be to use the Ray class (if you don't wanna deal with math too much) - 

BABYLON.Ray.CreateNewFromTo(camera.position, camera.getTarget()).direction

 

[lazarmitic]

Thanks, this will do it

[jerome]

maybe the direction vector is simply :

camera.getTarget().subtract(camera.position)

assuming that getTarget() returns a point in space and not the vector direction you wanted

[Venerated1]

camera.getTarget().subtract(camera.position)  does give the perfect unit vector that I was looking for... HUGE thanks jerome.

my movement looks like this.

http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#1WFOOA#8

[coolroar]

How about:

 

camera.getFrontPosition(1).subtract(camera.position);

?

 

[RaananW]

Hi @coolroar,

getFrontPosition(1) will actually do the job, without subtracting the camera's position. This is why it was introduced  

[coolroar]

Oh -- Handy!

Just to be clear:

var unitVec= camera.getFrontPosition(1).subtract(camera.position);

console.log(unitVec);

console.log("Magnitude: " + Math.sqrt(unitVec.x*unitVec.x + unitVec.y*unitVec.y + unitVec.z*unitVec.z));

var bigVec= camera.getFrontPosition(1);

console.log(bigVec);

console.log("Magnitude: " + Math.sqrt(bigVec.x*bigVec.x + bigVec.y*bigVec.y + bigVec.z*bigVec.z));