Convert LookVector/Surface Normal to rotation

[dthecoolest]

Yeah look vector is not enough information

But from my knowledge there are only two methods to make up for this lack of information

One:

@dthecoolest

One common method that is seen is the CFrame.lookAt method

CFrame.lookAt(pos1, pos1 + newDirection)

However, the above CFrame method forcefully also generates the rest of the vectors such as the right vector and up vector and doesn’t allow for much control unless you manually mess around with the third parameter the “UpVector”

For more info this uses cross product with the direction vector and UpVector to generate the rest of the axises.

This is good if you don’t care about the rotation along that surface normal axis let’s say for a circular/cylindrical object like a blood puddle.

Second:

Getting the shortest rotation from one vector to another vector. This allows for rotation along that surface normal axis which is good for systems like a character controller.

How to get the angles of a surface?

Rather than trying to convert this up vector into an angle which is also complicated it’s better to leave it I would rather use @EgoMoose advanced CFrame technique to leave it in terms of vectors. We can obtain a CFrame rotation to align the current persons “UpVector” to the new surface upvector. Here is an example script and video. The advantage of this method is that it will allow you to rotate along the new upVector without having to specify a right vector as a CFrame.fromMatrix solution. …