I need to calculate the 2 angles (yaw and pitch) for a 3D object to face an arbitrary 3D point. These rotations are known as "Euler" rotations simply because after the first rotation, (lets say Z, based on the picture below) the Y axis also rotates with the object.
This is the code I'm using but its not working fully. When on the ground plane (Y = 0) the object correctly rotates to face the point, but as soon as I move the point upwards in Y, the rotations don't look correct.
// x, y, z represent a fractional value between -[1] and [1]
// a "unit vector" of the point I need to rotate towards
yaw = Math.atan2( y, x )
pitch = Math.atan2( z, Math.sqrt( x * x + y * y ) )
Do you know how to calculate the 2 Euler angles given a point?
The picture below shows the way I rotate. These are the angles I need to calculate. (The only difference is I'm rotating the object in the order X,Y,Z and not Z,Y,X)
This is my system.
- coordinate system is x = to the right, y = downwards, z = further back
- an object is by default at (0,0,1) which is facing backward
- rotations are in the order X, Y, Z where rotation upon X is pitch, Y is yaw and Z is roll