Lerp by Distance Instead of Position?

Questions & Answers
1

I have this C# code that takes a couple public Vector3 in the inspector and lerps between them.

currentMovement = Mathf.Clamp01(currentMovement + Time.deltaTime * slideOpenSpeed);	
currentSlidePosition = Vector3.Lerp(slideClosePosition, slideOpenPosition, currentMovement);
transform.localPosition = currentSlidePosition;

How can I move by the distance of a Vector3 variable rather than position? Vector3.Lerp only takes Vector3 positions and I don’t know of any way to lerp by distance.

I see there is a Vector3.Distance but it only returns a float, and you can’t lerp by a float alone, unless I’m misunderstanding the purpose of Vector3.Distance.

What I’m trying to do is if someone enters 0,0,-2 in the inspector, they move a distance of -2 on the Z, not to position -2 on z in world or local space.

Is there a simple way to lerp by distance taking x,y,z inputs from the inspector?

3

I wrote an example that I hope will help you out. If you attach it to a GameObject and enter some values in the inspector fields you should be able to see how it works.

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class MoveTest : MonoBehaviour 
{
	// How much to move this object.
	public Vector3 moveBy;

	// How long the movement should take, in seconds.
	public float transitionTime;

	private Vector3 targetPosition;
	private Vector3 startPosition;
	private float moveTime;

	void Start() 
	{
		// Record our starting position so that we can 
		// lerp to the target position smoothly.
		startPosition = transform.position;

		// Add how much we want to move by to the start position.
		// This is where we want to end up.
		targetPosition = startPosition + moveBy;

		// This tracks how long we've been moving for, in seconds.
		moveTime = 0.0f;
	}

	void Update()
	{
		// Check if we're close enough to the target. 
		// Replace Mathf.Epsilon with something else if you want to have a different
		// closeness threshold. 
		if (Vector3.Distance(targetPosition, transform.position) > Mathf.Epsilon)
		{
			moveTime += Time.deltaTime;

			// Lerp from start to target position. 
			// Note that "moveTime / transitionTime" will equal 1 when we reach the target, which
			// is exactly what we want.
			transform.position = Vector3.Lerp(startPosition, targetPosition, moveTime / transitionTime);
		}
	}
}
2

Vector3.Lerp will lerp between Vectors3s i.e they can hold any meaning you want them to.

As an example:

You could use the inspector to define:

  • a starting position (Vector3, part of the standard transform) and;
  • an targetOffset (Vector3)

Then in the start function:

  • you store the starting position in a class variable.

Then in the update (or wherever makes sense for your game):

  • calculate the current offset :

        currentOffset = Vector3.lerp(Vector3.zero, targetOffset, t);

  • set current postition:

        tranform.position = startingPosition + currentOffset
4

Typically, ‘Distance’ with vectors is used to mean ‘length’, which is a scalar value, rather than a vector value, as you’re seeing. What you want is the difference between two vectors: (vectorA - vectorB). You can throw a Mathf.Abs() around it if you don’t care about direction of the resulting vector, otherwise (vectorA - vectorB) and (vectorB - vectorA) will result in equal vectors pointing in opposite directions.

5

Don’t use lerp. Just do the math directly.

Lerp is just is a shortcut for the equation to move between, as you note, two positions. To go 20% from A to B, the math is: A+(B-A)*0.2. That’s all Lerp is. Note how (B-A) is the distance you have to go. Since you already have that distance, may as well use it:

currentSlidePosition = slideClosePosition + slideChange*currentMovement;