How do i get the current Cameras position?

[MCVenor]

I try to make a Raycast from the current Viewpoint, the Camera, against a Plane (Plane class).
I wonder how to get the current position of the current Camera.

At this moment im going to use a reference throu properties, but i wonder if there is another way.

[Doprez]

You can access it from the GraphicsCompositor. The only hiccup I found is that the camera doesnt populate here until a few frames in and will be null until initialized.

	public static CameraComponent GetCamera(this ScriptComponent scriptComponent)
	{
		SceneCameraSlotCollection cameraCollection = scriptComponent.SceneSystem.GraphicsCompositor.Cameras;
		foreach (var sceneCamera in cameraCollection)
		{
			if (sceneCamera.Name == "Main")
			{
				return sceneCamera.Camera;
			}
		}
		return null;
	}

the world position can then be accessed with the entity world matrix camVar.Entity.Transform.WorldMatrix.TranslationVector;

[MCVenor]

🔥

[MCVenor]

Holy cow thats cool.
But my spider-it-senses tell me not to do it this way :D

[Doprez]

When it comes to finding the camera with the main tag it would have to be from the GraphicsCompositor.
scriptComponent.SceneSystem.GraphicsCompositor.Cameras;
The GraphicsCompositor contains the CameraSlots that you would assign on the Camera itself with the Slot property. This is why I am looking for the sceneCamera.Name == "Main".

if you wanted to just find the camera in the current scene then you could do a search for an Entity with a specific name using SceneSystem, below would be the LINQ version.
SceneSystem.SceneInstance.RootScene.Entities.Where(x => x.Name == "NameOfCameraEntity");

it does feel funky but this is essentially the same idea as Unity's Camera.Main for the initial code I put.

[MCVenor]

Yes, my initional thought was that we use a GraphicsCompositor to access what feels like should be accessed otherwise. But your explanation is sound. If i had to loop thou ALL stuff vs SOME Cameras, the later is indeed better. Thanks for the awnser

[Ethereal77]

If you control the camera in the scene in which the ray-casting script is (for example, it's a isometric camera, and the script is the one responsible for scrolling, picking, etc), it's better to assign manually the camera to a property in the script. That way you know it's the correct camera and you don't have to go enumerating entities or accessing the GraphicsCompositor.Cameras comparing names (which is brittle and error-prone). Like this:

class MyCameraScript : SyncScript
{
    public CameraComponent IsoCamera; // Or its owner Entity. Can't remember if you can drag-drop components directly
}

Then, as you are composing the scene, assign the camera component (or entity) to the MyCameraScript in the properties panel.