Adjusting Z value of Child Cam in Unity3Ds Follow Camera prefab? (FreeLookCam.cs)

I’ve been using Unity3ds standard Free Look Cam, and it’s been working great so far for what I need, but I’m having a hard time implementing a zoom.

From what I’m understanding, the parent Camera’s Y rotation moves…then the child from that is the Pivot object and that’s X position moves…and then the child of that is the child Camera object, the camera that’s used, and that one’s Z determines the distance that the camera follows.

When the game starts, I’m not really wrapping my head around why you can’t simply adjust the Z value of the child Camera that’s used without it messing up and losing it’s lock on it’s object that it’s supposed to focus on.

If I hit “play mode” and just manually enter in a different Z position value for the child camera, it works perfectly, and yet I can’t put this code in the child cam’s update method…nor am I finding where I should put it or how I should put it in the following code.

Ultimately, I’m trying to implement a camera movement based zoom, and trying to stay away from field of view zoom.

Here’s just some test code that I was trying to put inside a script attached to the child camera:

void Update() { 
    transform.position = new Vector3(0,0,-7);
}

Without it somehow interfering with FreeLookCam.cs’s HandleRotationMovement method (I think that’s what’s happening)…

using System;
using UnityEngine;
using UnityStandardAssets.CrossPlatformInput;

namespace UnityStandardAssets.Cameras
{
public class FreeLookCam : PivotBasedCameraRig
{
    // This script is designed to be placed on the root object of a camera rig,
    // comprising 3 gameobjects, each parented to the next:

    // 	Camera Rig
    // 		Pivot
    // 			Camera

	private int MainCameraChildID;

    [SerializeField] private float m_MoveSpeed = 1f;                      // How fast the rig will move to keep up with the target's position.
    [Range(0f, 10f)] [SerializeField] private float m_TurnSpeed = 1.5f;   // How fast the rig will rotate from user input.
    [SerializeField] private float m_TurnSmoothing = 0.0f;                // How much smoothing to apply to the turn input, to reduce mouse-turn jerkiness
    [SerializeField] private float m_TiltMax = 75f;                       // The maximum value of the x axis rotation of the pivot.
    [SerializeField] private float m_TiltMin = 45f;                       // The minimum value of the x axis rotation of the pivot.
    [SerializeField] private bool m_LockCursor = false;                   // Whether the cursor should be hidden and locked.
    [SerializeField] private bool m_VerticalAutoReturn = false;           // set wether or not the vertical axis should auto return

    private float m_LookAngle;                    // The rig's y axis rotation.
    private float m_TiltAngle;                    // The pivot's x axis rotation.
    private const float k_LookDistance = 100f;    // How far in front of the pivot the character's look target is.
	private Vector3 m_PivotEulers;
	private Quaternion m_PivotTargetRot;
	private Quaternion m_TransformTargetRot;

	private float CamXp = 0;
	private float CamYp = 0;
	private float CamZp = -2;
	public float cameraDistanceMax = 5f;
	public float cameraDistanceMin = -1f;
	public float cameraDistance = 2f;
	public float scrollSpeed = 2.4f;

    protected override void Awake()
    {
        base.Awake();
        // Lock or unlock the cursor.
        Cursor.lockState = m_LockCursor ? CursorLockMode.Locked : CursorLockMode.None;
        Cursor.visible = !m_LockCursor;
		m_PivotEulers = m_Pivot.rotation.eulerAngles;

        m_PivotTargetRot = m_Pivot.transform.localRotation;
		m_TransformTargetRot = transform.localRotation;
    }

    protected void Update()
    {

		HandleRotationMovement();
		if (m_LockCursor && Input.GetMouseButtonUp(0))
		{
			Cursor.lockState = m_LockCursor ? CursorLockMode.Locked : CursorLockMode.None;
			Cursor.visible = !m_LockCursor;
		}

    }

    private void OnDisable()
    {
        Cursor.lockState = CursorLockMode.None;
        Cursor.visible = true;
    }

    protected override void FollowTarget(float deltaTime)
    {
        if (m_Target == null) return;

        // Move the rig towards target position.
		transform.position = Vector3.Lerp(transform.position, m_Target.position, deltaTime*m_MoveSpeed);
    }

    private void HandleRotationMovement()
    {
		if(Time.timeScale < float.Epsilon)
		return;

        // Read the user input
        var x = CrossPlatformInputManager.GetAxis("Mouse X");
        var y = CrossPlatformInputManager.GetAxis("Mouse Y");

        // Adjust the look angle by an amount proportional to the turn speed and horizontal input.
        m_LookAngle += x*m_TurnSpeed;

        // Rotate the rig (the root object) around Y axis only:
        m_TransformTargetRot = Quaternion.Euler(0f, m_LookAngle, 0f);

        // on platforms with a mouse, we adjust the current angle based on Y mouse input and turn speed
        m_TiltAngle -= y*m_TurnSpeed;
        // and make sure the new value is within the tilt range
        m_TiltAngle = Mathf.Clamp(m_TiltAngle, -m_TiltMin, m_TiltMax);
        

        // Tilt input around X is applied to the pivot (the child of this object)
		m_PivotTargetRot = Quaternion.Euler(m_TiltAngle, m_PivotEulers.y , m_PivotEulers.z);

		if (m_TurnSmoothing > 0)
		{
			m_Pivot.localRotation = Quaternion.Slerp(m_Pivot.localRotation, m_PivotTargetRot, m_TurnSmoothing * Time.deltaTime);
			transform.localRotation = Quaternion.Slerp(transform.localRotation, m_TransformTargetRot, m_TurnSmoothing * Time.deltaTime);
		}
		else
		{
			m_Pivot.localRotation = m_PivotTargetRot;
			transform.localRotation = m_TransformTargetRot;
		}
    }
}
}

Don’t touch on the camera Transform directly because the game needs to use this Z value in order to do not collide with the walls If you want to zoom in and zoom out just use the closestDistance variable from ProtectCameraFromWallClip.cs script. (This is in the same camera-gameobject), ajust the value for something around 30 or 50. example:

    public void controllVehicle(){
		...
		//Ajust camera position
    	pivot.transform.localPosition = new Vector3 (0, 15, 0);
    	pivot.transform.parent.GetComponent<FreeLookCam> ().SetTarget(this.gameObject.transform.parent);
    	pivot.transform.parent.GetComponent<ProtectCameraFromWallClip> ().closestDistance = 50f;
    }


    public void positionCameraBack(){
    	pivot.transform.localPosition = new Vector3 (0, 1, 0);
    	pivot.transform.parent.GetComponent<FreeLookCam> ().SetTarget(playerTrans);
    	pivot.transform.parent.GetComponent<ProtectCameraFromWallClip> ().closestDistance = 0f;
    }