I want to know how to calculate distance from one object to another

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#1

I am making a tool that changing colors of the player’s body parts with a tool, I have not made the server-side part yet but I want to know how I can calculate the distance between the player and the target.

Script:


script.Parent.Parent.Activated:Connect(function()
	local mouse = game.Players.LocalPlayer:GetMouse()
	if mouse.Target and mouse.Target.Parent:FindFirstChild("Humanoid")  then 
		mouse.Target.BrickColor = BrickColor.Random()
		mouse.Target.Parent.Humanoid:TakeDamage(1)
	end
end)

I WILL SETUP SERVER-SIDE LATER.

#2

This is the ideal use for Magnitude:

local self = game.Players.LocalPlayer.HumanoidRootPart.Position
local target = mouse.Target.Position
local distance = (target - self).Magnitude

I haven’t done a benchmark for it in literal years, but as Magnitude involves a square-root calculation, it can (and definitely used to be!) significantly more efficient to manually calculate the sum of the Vector’s components’ squares. I.e.:

local maxDistanceSq = 25^2
local t = (target - self)
local distanceSq = t.X^2 + t.Y^2 + t.Z^2
if distanceSq > maxDistanceSq then
    print("Distance more than 25 studs")
else
    print("Distance less than or equal to 25 studs")
end

This is almost never a problem, and I stress that I have not checked if this is actually better in years.

A similar micro-optimization that I’m almost certain you never need to do is replacing that exponentiation with multiplication. I.e. 25*25 instead of 25^2

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