Camera.setTarget() with world coordinates

Feature requests
1

Hello,

currently Camera.setTarget() uses local coordinates for it’s calculations. If you set a parent to the camera, this function only makes sense in the camera’s local space, but not in world space anymore.

I’d like to propose a function Camera.setTargetWorld() or similar, which works with target vectors in world coordinates.

2 Likes
2

Sounds like a wonderful suggestion!
Do you want to try and tackle this yourself, or is it just a feature request from the team? (Both are fine, BTW, I am just wondering :slight_smile: )

3

I tried to implement this earlier and realized, it’s just a mattter of transforming the target by the cameras global position, which already is computed and exposed. Something like:

const worldTarget = new Vector3(...);
const localTarget = worldTarget.subtract(camera.globalPosition);
camera.lookAt(localTarget);

I don’t think, there is a need for a new function in the framework here. But a remark somewhere in the documentation might be nice. setTarget() not behaving as I expected, took me really off guard and way more time than I’d like to admit. :sweat_smile:

1 Like
4

Tou can make a PR with a new parameter to define the space if you want ?

1 Like
5

I thought about an optional parameter, but then everybody has to live with the extra if.

Maybe just a remark in the jsDoc like:

 /**
  * Defines the target the camera should look at.
  * @param target Defines the new target as a Vector relative to the camera position
  */
public setTarget(target: Vector3): void {

Not sure about the wording though. ‘Camera local space’ would be inaccurate, since rotation is ignored. It’s just relative to the camera’s position.

6

Maybe camera's local position instead of space?
Having said that - I believe it is enough to add a switch with the space selected (if you want to avoid the if), and still allow the user to select the space in which they are setting the target.