Positioning camera at marker

monotonic · 08-29-2014 11:15 PM

Hi All,

I've just started playing around with the engine and have created a marker object+class in the editor and positioned them in the world. Then in my world loader class I'm trying to position the camera where one of these markers is positioned. My camera is positioned within the world but it is always at the origin of the world, I'm scratching my head as to what the problem could be.

Below is the snippet of code that finds the player start marker from the object map and then positions the camera:

Code:

REPA(PlayerStartMarkers)

   {

      if( PlayerStartMarkers[i].PlayerCharacter) {

         Cam.dist =10;

         Cam.yaw  =-PI_4;

         Cam.pitch=-0.5;

         Vec Pos = PlayerStartMarkers[i].pos();

         Cam.at.set(Pos.x, Pos.y, Pos.z);

      }

   }

And this is my simple PlayerStartMarker class:

Code:

class PlayerStart : public Game.Obj

{

protected:

   // members

   Matrix m_Matrix;

public:

   // properties

   bool PlayerCharacter;

public:

   // ctor / dtor

   PlayerStart();

   ~PlayerStart();

public:

   // methods

   virtual void create( Game.ObjParams& obj );

   virtual Vec pos( ); 

   virtual void pos( C Vec &pos ); 

   virtual Matrix matrix( ); 

   virtual void matrix( C Matrix &matrix ); 

   virtual UInt drawPrepare(); 

   virtual bool update();

}

// constructor

PlayerStart::PlayerStart()

{

}

// destructor

PlayerStart::~PlayerStart()

{

}

// handles reading the parameters

void PlayerStart::create(Game.ObjParams& obj)

{

   //super.create(obj);

   if( Param * p = obj.findParam("Player Character")) PlayerCharacter = p.asBool();

}

Vec PlayerStart::pos( )

{

   return m_Matrix.pos;

}

void PlayerStart::pos( C Vec &pos )

{

   m_Matrix.pos = pos;

}

Matrix PlayerStart::matrix( )

{

   return m_Matrix;

}

void PlayerStart::matrix( C Matrix &matrix )

{

   m_Matrix = matrix;

}

UInt PlayerStart::drawPrepare()

{

   return IndexToFlag(RM_SOLID);

}

bool PlayerStart::update()

{

   return true;

}

FYI - This class is only meant to be visible within the editor and not rendered within the world at runtime. Do I need to multiply the Pos vector by the world matrix?

My C++ is very rusty, I haven't used it for many years so forgive any ugliness.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

monotonic · 08-30-2014 08:32 AM

Update: After debugging through the code I can see that the position vector that I'm getting back from the marker is (0.0013f, 0.0013f, 0.0013f), which is odd because the marker is positioned right at the edge of the terrain roughly (128.0f, 0.0f, 128.0f)

Pherael · 08-30-2014 08:57 AM

You have "super.create(obj)" marked as comment, you should change that.

monotonic · 08-30-2014 11:20 AM

(08-30-2014 08:57 AM)Pherael Wrote: You have "super.create(obj)" marked as comment, you should change that.

Hi Pherael,

The base class Game.Obj has a pure virtual function for the create function so calling it would result in an error. This is still there because I copy and pasted some code from another class.

Pherael · 08-30-2014 12:09 PM

Ah, yes. I was thinking your class inherit from Game.Static instead Game.Obj because I often do that. If you do that everythink should work.

The secon options is manually set data from ObjParams. Add something like this in create function: m_Matrix = obj.matrix; or m_Matrix.pos=obj.matrix.pos

Rubeus · 08-30-2014 01:54 PM

Also, the Cam code is a litte goofy- setting those variables won't actually do anything. The best options are:
1) Modify Cam.matrix directly, then use Cam.set()
2) Use one of the built in functions like Cam.setAngle(C Vec &pos, Flt yaw, Flt pitch, Flt roll).set()

The Cam.yaw, pitch, roll, dist, etc don't actually do anything. They are there so you can see what the values are when using the Cam.setX functions, which assign them within the function.
Using Cam.set copies Cam.matrix to the actual camera matrix.

I've been building a camera library, so I've become rather familiar with the camera system.

monotonic · 08-31-2014 07:39 AM

Hi Pherael / Rubeus,

Adding m_Matrix = obj.matrix into the world loader code and using Cam.setPosDir(Pos, Vec(0, 0, 0), Vec(0, 1, 0)).set(); to position the camera fixed the problem.

Thank you very much for your help it is very much appreciated.

Positioning camera at marker
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