Skip to main content
GameDev.net gamedev.net
🔒 Locked

Re:Distance to target check

Started by altra4u Apr 6, 2012 at 7:03 PM 3 replies 2.5k views
Original Post
altra4u
altra4u
Hi
So normally a distance check would be done by simply doing distance < range check. So lets say distance between character a from character b.
However to optimize one would do d^2 < r^2 check.

However if one has to include the radius of each of the characters then the check would be
distance - characterradii < range where characterradii = raidusofa + radiusofb

I'm trying to think of some way where I could keep the squared optimization and also be able to include the radii part.
Thoughts??
I'm discounting this one
(d^2 - r^2)/(d+r)
as that will need the square root value of d
Thanks.
alvaro
alvaro
distance < range + sum_of_radii

distance^2 < range^2 + 2*range*sum_of_radii + sum_of_radii^2

You should be able to precompute everything on the right-hand side and then the check again becomes distance^2 < constant. So no square root needed.
altra4u
altra4u
Good suggestion.
Do you think its worth doing this addition and multiplication operations over doing square root of distance though?
Plus I will either have radius or radius^2. So if I have radius then I will have to square it and if I have radius^2 then I will have to root it. lol.
Or I would have to save both. Probably not a good idea to double data storage.
altra4u
altra4u
Basically I have distance^2, range^2 and radius of each character and I want to keep it the most optimized.
Looks like its going to have to be d - r < range check.
alvaro
alvaro
Multiplications and additions are much cheaper than square roots. Don't bother storing the squares of numbers, because they are easy to compute.

Topic Locked

This topic has been locked by a moderator. New replies are not allowed.

Sign in to reply to this topic.