Unity - Making Camera Lock on To Enemy and stay behind player? - vector

Question

I am attempting to create a Camera that moves with the Player but locks onto an enemy when the player clicks the lock on button. The behaviour is almost working as I want it, the camera locks onto the target. And when the player stand in-front of the target it works fine. However as soon as the player runs past the target, the camera behaves strangely. It still looks at the Enemy, however it does not stay behind the player. Here is the code that dictates the behaviour:
if(MouseLock.MouseLocked && !lockedOn){ // MOUSE CONTROL:
Data.Azimuth += Input.GetAxis("Mouse X") * OrbitSpeed.x;
Data.Zenith += Input.GetAxis("Mouse Y") * OrbitSpeed.y;
} else if(lockedOn) { // LOCKON BEHAVIOUR:
FindClosestEnemy();
}
if (Target != null) {
lookAt += Target.transform.position;
base.Update ();
gameObject.transform.position += lookAt;
if(!lockedOn){
gameObject.transform.LookAt (lookAt);
} else if(enemyTarget != null) {
Vector3 pos1 = Target.transform.position ;
Vector3 pos2 = enemyTarget.transform.position ;
Vector3 dir = (pos2 - pos1).normalized ;
Vector3 perpDir = Vector3.Cross(dir, Vector3.right) ;
Vector3 midPoint = (pos1 + pos2) / 2f;
gameObject.transform.LookAt (midPoint);
}
}
And the Code for Finding the nearest Enemy:
void FindClosestEnemy () {
int numEnemies = 0;
var hitColliders = Physics.OverlapSphere(transform.position, lockOnRange);
foreach (var hit in hitColliders) {
if (!hit || hit.gameObject == this.gameObject || hit.gameObject.tag == this.gameObject.tag){
continue;
}
if(hit.tag != "Enemy") // IF NOT AN ENEMY: DONT LOCK ON
continue;
var relativePoint = Camera.main.transform.InverseTransformPoint(hit.transform.position);
if(relativePoint.z < 0){
continue;
}
numEnemies += 1;
if(enemyTarget == null){
print ("TARGET FOUND");
enemyTarget = hit;
}
}
if(numEnemies < 1){
lockedOn = false;
enemyTarget = null;
}
}
As I said, teh behaviour almost works as expected, however I need the camera to stay behind the player whilst locked on and it must face the enemy/midPoint between the enemy and player. How can this be done? Thank you for your time.

Answer 1

To clarify your intent: you want to lock the position relative to the target (player), whilst setting the camera rotation to look at either the target or a secondary target (enemy)? And your current code performs the rotation correctly but the positioning is buggy?
The easiest way to fix the camera relative to another object is to parent it in the scene. In your case you could add the camera as a child under the Player game object.
If you would rather not do this then look at your positioning code again:
lookAt += Target.transform.position;
base.Update ();
gameObject.transform.position += lookAt;
I don't know where lookAt comes from originally but to me this looks all wrong. Something called lookAt should have nothing to do with position and I doubt you want to += anything in the positioning code given that you want a fixed relative position. Try this instead:
public float followDistance; // class instance variable = distance back from target
public float followHeight; // class instance variable = camera height
...
if (Target != null) {
Vector3 newPos = target.position + (-Target.transform.forward * followDistance);
newPos.y += followHeight;
transform.position = newPos;
}
This should fix the positioning. Set the followDistance and followHeight to whatever you desire. Assuming your rotation code works this should fix the problem.