How to implement a camera like this?

[antalikra]

Hello, I don’t quite understand how to describe this, so I made a demonstration in Blender of how I want the camera to work in Unity. This can be described as the camera should follow the ball and rotate around this “pillar” while looking at the “target”.

Here’s an example of what I want
https://youtu.be/Vvj7JH8LhJ0

What does it look like at the moment
https://youtu.be/UzVrmXLKRqo

As you can see, the camera simply follows the subject from one angle.
In Blender I implemented this using the Track to constraint to keep the object in the field of view and follow the curve for the camera path, is it possible to implement something similar in Unity?

[ArachnidAnimal]

Here’s how I have done this:

public Camera cam;
public Transform spiral;
public Transform ball;

public float camDistance = 5.0f;
public float camRotAdjustment = 45f;

//Calculate direction from spiral center to ball,
var spiralPositionXZ = spiral.position;
spiralPositionXZ.y = ball.position.y; //disregard the y distance (up/down) of the ball
var ballDirectionFromSpiral = (ball.position - spiralPositionXZ).normalized;

//Calculate the required cam position
var newCamPosition = spiral.transform.position + (ballDirectionFromSpiral * camDistance);
float spiralToCamStartingHeightRatio = 1.5f; //Optional: start cam above the spiral like in the video. Assumes spiral ends on ground plane
newCamPosition.y = ball.position.y * spiralToCamStartingHeightRatio; //Keep cam at same level as ball
cam.transform.position = newCamPosition;

//Adjust cam rotation so it is more to the side of the ball
cam.transform.RotateAround (spiral.position, Vector3.up, camRotAdjustment);

//Focus on ball
cam.transform.LookAt (ball);

[Cyber_Cats]

Hello @antalikra,

The ball rotates around the pillar so it’s Y rotation is progressively changing to keep it’s course around the pillar right? Or does your ball follow a path?

You can make your camera stick to a point in 3D space around the ball for example:

public Transform target;
public float offsetForward;
public float offsetUp;
public float offsetRight;

private void Update() {
   this.transform.position = this.target.position + (this.target.forward * offsetForward + this.target.right * offsetRight + Vector3.up * offsetUp);
   this.transform.LookAt(this.target.position, Vector3.up);
}

try this code and tell me if that’s what you wanted.

In the case the ball follows a specific path you just need the LookAt and make the camera follow the same path with an offset.