How do I ray cast shoot to mouse-crosshair from mesh and not camera?

Questions & Answers
1

Here’s a video of my very flawed mechanics, I’ve posted in the forum but I’m gonna ask here about a specific issue that occurs at 2:01 - YouTube

Here is the script attached to camera which is a child object mouseorbiting around a player mesh the spawnPoint of the bullet prefabs is a child of the camera so the bullets shoot out from the camera lol. What i moved the spawn point to the mesh’s hand or something it was aiming totally off and offset:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;
 
public class Shoot : MonoBehaviour {
 
  public AudioClip shootSound;
  public float shootForce = 2500;
  public GameObject spawnPoint;
  public GameObject bulletPF;
  public GameObject Character;
  private GameObject projectile;
  public bool isLaserState = false;
 
  void Update() {
    if(isLaserState){
      if(Input.GetMouseButton(0)) {
        audio.PlayOneShot(shootSound);
        RaycastHit hit;
        Ray ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay(Input.mousePosition);
        Physics.Raycast(ray, out hit);//hit exits now
        projectile = Instantiate(
            bulletPF,
            spawnPoint.transform.position,
            spawnPoint.transform.rotation) as GameObject;
 
        Debug.DrawLine(spawnPoint.transform.position, hit.point);
 
        projectile.transform.LookAt(hit.point);
 
        Physics.IgnoreCollision(projectile.collider, Character.collider);
 
        projectile.rigidbody.AddForceAtPosition(ray.direction * shootForce, hit.point);
      }
    }else if (Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0)) {
      audio.PlayOneShot(shootSound);
      RaycastHit hit;
      Ray ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay(Input.mousePosition);
      Physics.Raycast(ray, out hit);//hit exits now
      projectile = Instantiate(
          bulletPF,
          spawnPoint.transform.position,
          spawnPoint.transform.rotation) as GameObject;
 
      Debug.DrawLine(spawnPoint.transform.position, hit.point);
 
      projectile.transform.LookAt(hit.point);
 
      Physics.IgnoreCollision(projectile.collider, Character.collider);
 
      projectile.rigidbody.AddForceAtPosition(ray.direction * shootForce, hit.point);
    }
  }//end of Update
}//end of class
2

So I actually just got it to work with some help from #unity3D on IRC.
credit definitely goes to user Dezoaan on #unity3D

this code fixes it:
It has everything to do with the new variable added in called ‘aimPoint’ which is a vector3 that if hit.point = (0.0,0.0,0.0) then aimPoint = to a point 100 units into the ray. so now you have a point to lookAt no matter what!

Here’s a youtube video of it working. notice how spawnPoint is placed in front of the model now. resembling some sort of gun shooter or bullet emitting area.

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class Shoot : MonoBehaviour {

  public AudioClip shootSound;
  public float shootForce = 2500;
  public GameObject spawnPoint;
  public GameObject bulletPF;
  public GameObject Character;
  private GameObject projectile;
  public bool isLaserState = false;
  int ammo = 20;

  void Update() {
    if(isLaserState){
      if(Input.GetMouseButton(0)) {

        audio.PlayOneShot(shootSound);

        RaycastHit hit;

        Ray ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay(Input.mousePosition);//straight ray to mouse position

        Vector3 aimPoint;//hit point placeholder

        if (Physics.Raycast(ray, out hit, 100)){//where the ray hits, so draw from anywhere to THIS = raycast from new THAT 

          aimPoint = hit.point;

        } else {                                        //if  ray doesn't hit anything, just make a point 100 units out into ray, to referece

          aimPoint = ray.origin + (ray.direction * 100);//aimPoint is some point 100 unitys into ray line

        }

        projectile = Instantiate( bulletPF, spawnPoint.transform.position, spawnPoint.transform.rotation) as GameObject;

        projectile.transform.LookAt(aimPoint);          //fixes when hit point was = (0,0,0);

        Debug.DrawLine(spawnPoint.transform.position, aimPoint);

        Physics.IgnoreCollision(projectile.collider, Character.collider);

        projectile.rigidbody.velocity = projectile.transform.forward * 80;//this plus the LookAt aimpoint sends a bullet on the correct ray

        ammo = 20;
      }
      // END OF LASERSTATE SHOOTING
    }else if (Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0) && (ammo > 0)) {//normal shooting, since button down

      audio.PlayOneShot(shootSound);

      ammo--;

      RaycastHit hit; //hit exists now

      Ray ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay(Input.mousePosition);

      Vector3 aimPoint;

      if (Physics.Raycast(ray, out hit, 100)){//same amazing check, credit to Deozaan #Unity3D on IRC

        aimPoint = hit.point;

      } else {

        aimPoint = ray.origin + (ray.direction * 100);

      }

      projectile = (GameObject)Instantiate( bulletPF, spawnPoint.transform.position, spawnPoint.transform.rotation) as GameObject;

      Debug.DrawLine(spawnPoint.transform.position, aimPoint);

      Debug.Log("this is hit point: " + hit.point);
      //so it is 0,0,0 when i hit nothing
      Debug.Log("this is null hit: " + aimPoint);

      projectile.transform.LookAt(aimPoint);//send it on the ray

      Physics.IgnoreCollision(projectile.collider, Character.collider);// don't hit character

      projectile.rigidbody.velocity = projectile.transform.forward * 80;
    }

  }//end of Update

}//end of class