transform.Translate but with raycast distance

Unity Engine
1

Hi.
i wanna move a point using transform Translate:

_objectToPlaceRoot.transform.Translate(_camera.transform.right * _input.x, Space.World);
_objectToPlaceRoot.transform.Translate(Vector3.up * _input.y, Space.World);

but also changing its Y position (height) based on a raycast at the same time

if (Physics.Raycast(from, dir, out RaycastHit hit, Mathf.Infinity, _treeLayer))
{     
  hitpoint = hit.point;
}

i thought i can simply do it this way after the transform translate code

 _objectToPlaceRoot.transform.position = new Vector3(_objectToPlaceRoot.transform.position.x, hitpoint.y, _objectToPlaceRoot.transform.position.z);

but the _objectToPlaceroot is just somewhere else in the world now.
how am i supposed to do that the right way?
thanks

2

The issue here is Transform.Translate takes a direction, while Transform.position takes a… position.

So you need to make both play nice just one one or the other. The easiest at a glance at your code would be to work with positions.

Generally it’s best to build a vector and use it right at the end. So you can first get the horizontal position offset from input (current position + input), the vertical position from your raycast, put those together and set the transform’s position to that.

2 Likes
3

hey, thanks, i tried to do it this way now:

Vector3 right = _camera.transform.right * _input.x;
Vector3 up = _camera.transform.up * _input.y;
              
Vector3 forward = Vector3.zero;
_objectToPlaceRoot.transform.position += right + up + forward;

so that works just like transform translate for moving left/right/up down

but i dont really know what to set for the forward.
so thats where the raycast hit something, so that the forward distance should match the raycast distance

4

What exactly is ‘forward’ in this context? I’m not sure what type of movement we’re dealing with here.

Screenshots may help.

5

Admittedly still trying to understand you a bit. So you can move the box up/down/left/right, but want it to remain in front of the tree based on a raycast from the camera?

I guess that gets a little complicated. I guess you maintain a position of where the box currently is, and if you register a raycast hit, subtract the position of the hit from the box.