Clamping Rotation, physics

[Lillani Lowell]

So, I am an advanced coder, but when it comes to physics and certain rotations; Second Life tends to have me perplexed (I'm not a math wizard, anyway).

This is what I'm trying to do...

I am working on a vehicle akin to to a hovercraft that when it moves forward, back, left, or right it needs to tilt/lean in the direction its moving (so, I'm using llLookAt) to create a dampened tilt in the direction it needs to move... this vehicle also tracks targets and needs to use llRotLookAt to rotate itself and orient the front of the vehicle toward a target.

And here's the problem I am running into...

llRotLookAt and llLookAt are not playing together nicely; whenever I used llLookAt it seems to orient the X axis of the vehicle with the X axis of the world; which is fine and dandy if the vehicle didn't need to physically turn.

How do I make llLookAt maintain an upward Z axis while ignoring the forward X axis and letting llRotLookAt do its thing? Difficulty, no axis can be locked as it needs to be able to tilt on the X or Y axis freely while being able to rotate around the Z axis.

Also to note, using the built in vehicle features is not an option; all the physic behaviours have to be custom coded.

[Lillani Lowell]

Or, alternatively...

Is there a way I can use JUST llLookAt to clamp the Z axis up while making the X axis look in a specific direction?

[Dora Gustafson]

May I suggest:

rotation Vec2RotHor( vector V ){    V = llVecNorm( V );    vector UP = < 0.0, 0.0, 1.0 >;    vector LEFT = llVecNorm(UP%V);    V = llVecNorm(LEFT%UP); // you want V confined to the horizontal plane    return llAxes2Rot(V, LEFT, UP);}

Where vector V is the direction you want the X-axis to point
The function returns the requested rotation.

Reference: llAxes2Rot, right and wrong in the wiki

:smileysurprised::smileyvery-happy:

 

[Lillani Lowell]

Hey Dora, thanks for the response, but I don't understand what it's returning or how I would use its results, essentially.

Let's say I want the Z axis of my object to point at <10, 0, 10> (relative of its position, leaning forward)... and I want the X axis of my object pointing to <20, 30, 15> (a random coordinate in the region).

How am I using this function? And am I using it in llLookAt? llRotLookAt?

 

[Dora Gustafson]

I was focused on what you said about clamping the Z axis and assumed vertical up
But you can clamp Z by setting UP in the function to what you want
You need to normalize it with UP = llVecNorm( UP );

You may want to use Vec2RotTrue( vector V ) or Vec2RotHor( vector V ) in the reference

The function is returning the rotation of your object, to rotate your object to the indicated rotation:

llSetRot( Vec2RotTrue( V ));

or similar for physical objects

 :smileysurprised::smileyvery-happy:

Edit: to answer your last question: the function replaces llLookAt and the returned rotation should be used in llRotLookAt

Deep note:
All axes used in llAxes2Rot must  be orthogonal and unit vectors
This means that random z and x vectors will not satisfy the demands in general
The given function recalculate either x or z direction to meet the demand

1. Vec2RotTrue( vector V ) will calculate new z perpendicular to x and keep x
2. Vec2RotHor( vector V ) will calculate new x perpendicular to z and keep z