workspace:Raycast() returning nil even while pointed at a part

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#1

I am trying to raycast from the player to detect what part they are looking at. The issue is it keeps returning nil even if I am looking at a part. However, when I am right up close to a part it does return the raycast result as expected.

local player = script:FindFirstAncestorWhichIsA("Player")
	local lookDir = game.ReplicatedStorage.remoteEvents.getCameraViewVector:InvokeClient(player)
	local ray = workspace:Raycast(player.Character.Head.Position,
		lookDir,
		RaycastParams.new(
			{
				player.Character.Head,
				player.Character.Torso,
				player.Character.HumanoidRootPart,
			},
			Enum.RaycastFilterType.Blacklist,
			false,
			0
		)
	)
	print(ray)
	if ray.Instance ~= nil then
		if ray.Instance.Parent:GetAttribute("isVendingMachine") then
			print("you have bought a",ray.Instance.Parent:GetAttribute("gives"))
		end
	end

here’s the script that gets the view direction in case that’s the issue:

local remoteFunction = game.ReplicatedStorage.remoteEvents.getCameraViewVector

remoteFunction.OnClientInvoke = function()
	local vector = game.Workspace.CurrentCamera.CFrame.LookVector
	return vector
end
#2

You should increase the value, since LookVector is an unit vector with the direction of where the camera CFrame is looking. You can do this by multypling it to a high number.

local ray = workspace:Raycast(player.Character.Head.Position,
		lookDir*200,
		RaycastParams.new(
			{
				player.Character.Head,
				player.Character.Torso,
				player.Character.HumanoidRootPart,
			},
			Enum.RaycastFilterType.Blacklist,
			false,
			0
		)
	)

Also, a ray is very thin, so if there’s a small part you will have to look at the part exactly direct so the ray can detect it. In this case you should instead use Camera:WorldToScreenPoint().

#3

Thanks! I didn’t realize that the size of the Vector3 affected the size of the raycast