Drawing a Line for a Smart Crosshair

Unity Engine
1

Okay guys, I’ve run into a bit of a snag. Hopefully someone here can shed some light on the subject. Here goes!

I want to draw a line or a ray(whichever would be ideal) from my player to a set distance directly in front of him on the Z axis.

Let’s say, for example, I wanted to draw a ray/line that stopped 10 yards away and have the end of that line draw a crosshair. The line would also need to stop and draw the crosshair on whatever it collided with, if anything. I think this would be a very useful subject to discuss. I’ve been reading up and I couldn’t really find too much on the subject.

I can’t really think of an example from another game, but I’m sure someone’s done it.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!

2

Hello there!

The first thing you’ll be needing is the start position and the direction. A ray contains both these variables. Since you’re using a cross hair I’m going to go ahead and presume that you’re doing this in a first person perspective.

Ray ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay(Screen.width / 2, Screen.height / 2);
RaycastHit hit = new RaycastHit();
Vector3 crosshairPosition;

if(Physics.Raycast(ray, out hit, maxDistance))
    crosshairPosition = ray.origin + ray.direction * hit.distance;
else
    crosshairPosition = ray.origin + ray.direction * maxDistance;

There you have it! That should be the position you wanted.

3

Thanks for the reply. I’ve been messing with it and it works pretty well so far. I have to fine-tune it a little bit. This crosshair will be a sweet thing to have. I look forward to sharing screenshots and a demo with you all soon!