I use this code to get the new angle and its 10 degrees off D3DXVec3Subtract(&vDiff, &vPos, &vDest ); D3DXVec3Normalize(&vTempDiff, &vDiff); fYaw = vTempDiff.x; .785 is the number I need in radians but I always get .82 Its direct3d please help.

How do you know the number you need? Could it be that 0.82 is in fact the correct yaw angle?

Actually, now that I think about, it's going to be more complicated than just grabbing the x component. The problem is that when you transform pitch, yaw, and roll into a vector orientation, you would technically have to exactly reverse that transformation step by step to extract the pitch, yaw, and roll again.

What this means, for example, is if you have an orientation vector with an extremely high pitch (85° let's say), then the x component is going to be really small since this vector is almost parallel to the Y-axis, as opposed to a lower pitch (45° for instance) which will have a larger x component. However, pitch isn't supposed to affect yaw. This tells us that the process of extracting PYR information from a vector is going to be a bit more involved than just grabbing coordinates.

Luckily, it isn't too difficult. To extract the yaw, you must project the vector to the XZ plane, and find the angle there. One version of the code would look like: fYaw = atan( vec.x / vec.z );

Extracting pitch and roll require some more complicated projections. As a matter of fact, you won't be able to extract roll at all without an additional vector perpendicular to the orientation vector (sometimes refereed to as an UP or RIGHT vector, depending on how it's oriented).

If you store PYR information in a transformation matrix, it might be easier to extract the information later than rebuilding it from a vector orientation. I have no idea how exactly you would do this, heh, but assuming it's possible it would work for everything but degenerate cases (i.e pitch being 90°, which would lead to a gimbal lock scenario).

[edited by - Zipster on June 6, 2004 10:12:05 PM]

well actually the yaw is only 10 degrees off so its just a hunt and peck. I chose that angle because I set a location that I know x would be exactly 45 degrees. which means the radian is .005 off.

I''m thinking that this could be a precision issue with the float. Because its flying on a X plane basically during testing I dont use the roll factor, maybe I should but I dont see how it affects the outcome. And since were running on the X plane Y is 0 also so thats not used.

Baseically I''m saying I haqve the possibilities limited to the x plane. And since the z factor just means I flip the x arc 180 degrees, thats not the issue.

I dont use acos because sometimes the it return numbers greater than .99999 which bugs out.

But if you have any ideas.

Your numbers are 0.035 off, which isn't a precision error. 0.0000001 is a precision error.

Like I was saying, pitch and roll could have an adverse effect on your yaw calculations.

Here's what we'll do. Tell we what vPos and vDest vectors you're using as a test, and I'll tell you whats wrong with your code

[edited by - Zipster on June 6, 2004 11:29:06 PM]

Yeah I wasnt listening maybe because I was medication for a virus I caught.

vPos is the current Position

D3DXVECTOR3(0,0,0)

vDest is the position I want to travel to

D3DXVECTOR3(1000,0,1000)

Thats basically the code. If you need an actual snapshot I can send one tonight. I''m going to attack the code tonight to see if I can find out why.

Thanks a lot,
Nick

ok so I tested all different calcs. this one came the closest

double sinYaw = sin((double)fYaw); // fYaw is the x counterpart in the subtraction of the 2 vectors after normalization

This resulted in 45 degrees which wopuld be 0.82496662150210143

which means when x is 1024 then z is 946. If I could just get 2 more degrees over.

how frustrating. I tried multiplying, adding, dividing, and subtract and no avail.

Nick

You wouldn''t take the sine of the yaw, because the x coordinate of the normalized vector already is the sine value. Take the arcsine.

then I get 76 degrees. it doesnt make sense. I wish I knew of a link to help with my problem. I cant weven fire a missle