Absolute rotations depending on axis?

Questions
1

Hi,

Happy new years and wish you the best;

The PG:
Rotations
Please open a console and look at the third column, which is the absolute rotation of the camera.

My question is: why isn’t it possible to completely tilt the camera on the x axis (doing a like looping), while it is possible on the z axis (full roll).

The X axis will stop and come back in a different orientation (complicating animations scripts) while the Z will continue the loop as usual.

X axis will do
[-pi/2; pi/2], => -1.57, -1.56.., 1.56, 1.57, 1.56...
while Z will do a continued range [-pi; pi] like so:
-3.14,…, 0,…, 3.14, -3.14

The looping at X poles is noticeable.
So:

  1. What is the best way to achieve a full,clean, loop on the x axis?
  2. will that behaviour be consistent in the future? (I will adapt my scripting around that)

Thanks

2

Ok,

Issue comes from the up vector, which is axis Y…

3

Hello and happy new years! This is a side effect of using Euler angles to represent rotations, and in this case quaternions would be a better solution: 10 mins GameDev tips - Quaternions - YouTube

3 Likes
4

Did I hit the gimbal lock?