Help with 3D Translation and Rotation

Unity Engine
1

I’ve built a simple 3D scene and put some 2D sprites in the scene. I have a camera that overlooks all 8 sprites. There are 4 close to the camera and 4 far away in the distance. I’m trying to programmatically manipulate the camera as the player interacts with the game. I have spent about 4 hours on this and have learned a lot about it but I am still unable to get it to work correctly. I would appreciate some help.

Here are the two things I want the camera to be able to do:

  1. When one of the four characters in the foreground are clicked I want the camera to rotate towards the character and zoom to a certain distance away from the selected character.
  2. I want to at some point zoom the camera in on the 4 characters in the distance.

Both of these things need to be interpolated so that the camera repositions itself over maybe 500 ms.

I can quite easily make the camera look at the selected character with this code:

Camera.main.transform.LookAt(transform.position);

but this doesn’t result in the camera being animated to the new “look at” rotation. The other thing I can’t figure out is how to translate the camera along a line that runs both through it and a target object.

Here is a screenshot of the scene. for reference.

2262538--151412--camera work.jpg
2262538--151412--camera work.jpg1920×1137 526 KB

Thanks for any help in advance!

2

Here is what I have tried so far but I know I’m missing something obvious and fundamental.

Attempt #1

// face the subject
Camera.main.transform.LookAt(transform.position);

// move back a fixed distance from the subject
Camera.main.transform.Translate(transform.position - (Camera.main.transform.forward * -1));

Attempt #2

// face the subject
Camera.main.transform.LookAt(transform.position);

// move back a fixed distance from the subject       
Camera.main.transform.Translate(Vector3.MoveTowards(transform.position, (Camera.main.transform.forward * -1 * 15), 15));

I’d appreciate anyone that can help me know what I’m missing.

Thanks!

3

Got it!

Camera.main.GetComponent<CameraScript>().Rotate(transform.position - Camera.main.transform.position);
Camera.main.GetComponent<CameraScript>().Reposition(transform.position + (transform.forward * -20));

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class CameraScript : MonoBehaviour {

    private Vector3? _targetPosition;
    private Vector3? _targetRotation;
    private float _damping = 5.0f;

    // Use this for initialization
    void Start () {
        _targetPosition = null;
        _targetRotation = null;
    }
   
    // Update is called once per frame
    void Update () {
   
        if (_targetRotation != null)
        {
            var newRotation = Quaternion.Slerp(this.transform.rotation, Quaternion.LookRotation(_targetRotation.Value), _damping * Time.deltaTime);

            if (newRotation == this.transform.rotation)
            {
                _targetRotation = null;
            }
            else
            {
                this.transform.rotation = newRotation;
            }
        }

        if (_targetPosition != null)
        {
            var newPosition = Vector3.MoveTowards(transform.position, _targetPosition.Value, 50 * Time.deltaTime);

            if (newPosition == transform.position)
            {
                _targetPosition = null;
            }
            else
            {
                transform.position = newPosition;
            }
        }
    }

    public void Reposition(Vector3 newPosition)
    {
        _targetPosition = newPosition;
    }

    public void Rotate(Vector3 newRotation)
    {
        _targetRotation = newRotation;
    }

}