Minimap clicking RTS style feature

Hey,

Thank you for the great and simple idea. I managed to make it work..somewhat. It is not there yet, but close. Wherever I click, the main camera moves at approximately the same location.

This is the piece of code :

 if (Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0)){ // if left button pressed...
     RaycastHit hit;
             Debug.Log("Step1");
     Ray ray = itsMinimapCamera.ScreenPointToRay(Input.mousePosition);
             Debug.Log("Step2");
     if (Physics.Raycast(ray, out hit) ){
                 Debug.Log("Step3");
       // hit.point contains the point where the ray hits the
       // object named "Map"
                 Debug.Log(hit.point);
     }
             itsMainCamera.transform.position = Vector3.Lerp(itsMinimapCamera.transform.position, hit.point, 0.1f);
       }

Wherever I click returns about the same value : (-44.3, 7.7, 5.7) or (-43.2, 8.8, 5.7)

Solved it. I was doing something wrong at the Vector3.Lerp line. So, now works with the more simple method :

 if (Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0)){ // if left button pressed...
 RaycastHit hit;
             Debug.Log("Step1");
 Ray ray = itsMinimapCamera.ScreenPointToRay(Input.mousePosition);
             Debug.Log("Step2");
 if (Physics.Raycast(ray, out hit)/* && hit.transform.name=="MinimapBackground"*/){
                 itsMainCamera.transform.position = hit.point;
                 Debug.Log("Step3");
   // hit.point contains the point where the ray hits the
   // object named "MinimapBackground"
                 Debug.Log(hit.point);
 }
             //itsMainCamera.transform.position = Vector3.Lerp(itsMainCamera.transform.position, hit.point, 0.1f);
       }

Quick question though. Can I do something about the very quick movement adjustment that the main camera goes through ? (my main camera is forced by a script to stay at a certain distance and height from the scene). Can I somehow pass only the X axis of the raycast ?

Is your side-scroller going along the X-Y plane? So you don't want the main camera to change in the Z? EDIT: Re-read your question, or change in the Y, yes?

If so, you can set your main camera position like so:

 itsMainCamera.transform.position = new Vector3(hit.point.x, transform.position.y, transform.position.z);

Yes. It worked like this. Now I have one last problem... There is an area around my minimap where if I click it, it considers as I would've clicked on the minimap though there is no viewport there. This area is equally extended to the left and right of the minimap but not above and under.

How is it possible that even though the viewport has a certain area, the raycast detects it as being larger ?

I'm not sure how you have the scene setup, but if you aren't first determining if the mouse click is within your viewport, your script will always attempt the raycast whenever the left mouse button is down, even if the mouse click is outside the viewport. And if your collider in the scene extends past the edges of your viewport, then you might pick up those clicks.

An easy way to determine if the mouse click is within the bounds of your viewport, then do the raycast if so, would be (and this assumes the following script is attached to the minimap camera):

 if (Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0) && camera.pixelRect.Contains(Input.mousePosition))
 {
    ....
 }