Are Raycasts only used to check something? Why can't I use Raycasts to perform an action?

Questions & Answers
1

Hi! I’ve been playing around with Raycasts and SphereCasts and whatnot and currently i’m trying to perform an event for when a Ray has been activated, is this possible? Or are Rays only for checking or “see only” purposes?

Here is a picture of the Ray being activated when the ball is in sight, everything is working fine, the only issue is AddForce isn’t actually affecting the Ball.

48929-pingradius.jpg
48929-pingradius.jpg1920×1040 183 KB

And here is the code for what i’m trying to do.

   public void castRayCast()
    {
        float booster = 100;
        objectPos = transform.position;
        if (Physics.SphereCast(objectPos, rayRadius, Vector3.forward, out hitInfo, rayDistance))
        {
            rayAlive = true;
            Debug.Log("Raycast has hit " + hitInfo.transform.gameObject.tag);
            Debug.DrawRay(objectPos, Vector3.forward, Color.red);
            GameObject ball = pongPrefab;
            if (rayAlive)
            {
                ball.GetComponent<Rigidbody>().AddForce(transform.forward * booster, ForceMode.Impulse);
                Debug.Log("Ray is Alive!");
            }
            else
                Debug.LogError("Failed to bounce ball back");
        }
        else
            rayAlive = false;

    }

Any sort of help is appreciated! Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

2

You are not checking anything from the RaycastHit, just if it hit.

if(hitInfo.transform.CompareTag("Ball")){
	hitInfo.GetComponent<RigidBody>().AddForce(transform.forward * booster, ForceMode.Impulse);
}

This should check that your sphere hit the Ball, then get the RigidBody of it and apply the force.