Aligning an object with surface normal

Question

Ok, I know how this sounds, but it isn't like that :D. I know there's many questions regarding this, but I believe my problem is a bit different and after working for hours my brain is fried, hence resists to my attempts of programming. I have a character, with this hierarchy

Character
- Visual mesh

It's a top-down shooter, so the character is contrantly spinning around, trying to look at the mouse, which makes the visual mesh spin too. Now, normally, I'd use

 VisualMesh.localRotation = Quaternion.FromToRotation(VisualMesh.up, hit.normal);

But this doesn't work, because as soon as I rotate the character around, it stops being aligned.

So, my question is, how would I go about aligning the visual object with the ground, while making it keep it's parents Y rotation.

Pictures

Character's y rotation set to 0

alt text

Character's y rotation set to 180

alt text

--David

Answer 1

Best Answer

Answer by DavidDebnar · Oct 19, 2013 at 09:50 PM

Thanks Jamora! I didn't know you could assign transform.up and it almost solved my problem. All I had to do then was apply the Y rotation.

 // assigns the raycast's normal direction to the VisualMesh' up directio. this makes it look 'from the surface'
 // then use some lerping, to smooth it all out
 VisualMesh.up = Vector3.Lerp(VisualMesh.up, hit.normal, Time.deltaTime * 10);
 
 // this part makes sure the Y rotation is properly preserved from the parent gameObject as well
 VisualMesh.RotateAround(VisualMesh.position, VisualMesh.up, transform.localEulerAngles.y);

--David

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Aligning an object with surface normal

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