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Vector Meta

Vector utilities expand Garry's Mod's math library.

This document describes additional operations for 3D vectors.

Overview

Vector meta functions provide calculations such as midpoints, distances and axis rotations to support movement, physics and placement tasks.

Center, Distance and RotateAroundAxis return new vectors without changing their inputs. Right and Up modify the vector they are called on and also return it.

Example Hook Usage

These helpers may be called from either client or server code.

The following snippet demonstrates rotating a camera offset every frame inside a CalcView hook:

hook.Add("CalcView", "TiltView", function(ply, pos, angles, fov)
    local offset = Vector(30, 0, 10):RotateAroundAxis(vector_up, 45)
    return {origin = pos + offset, angles = angles, fov = fov}
end)

Center

Purpose

Returns the midpoint between this vector and the supplied vector.

Parameters

  • vec2 (Vector): The vector to average with this vector.

Realm

Shared

Returns

  • Vector: The center point of the two vectors.

Example Usage

-- Average two vectors to find the midpoint
local a = vector_origin
local b = Vector(10, 10, 10)
local result = a:Center(b)
print(result)

Distance

Purpose

Calculates the distance between this vector and another vector.

Parameters

  • vec2 (Vector): The other vector.

Realm

Shared

Returns

  • number: The distance between the two vectors.

Example Usage

-- Measure the distance between two points
local p1 = vector_origin
local p2 = Vector(3, 4, 0)
local result = p1:Distance(p2)
print(result)

RotateAroundAxis

Purpose

Rotates the vector around an axis by the specified degrees and returns the new vector.

Parameters

  • axis (Vector): Axis to rotate around.

  • degrees (number): Angle in degrees.

Realm

Shared

Returns

  • Vector: The rotated vector.

Example Usage

-- Rotate a vector 90 degrees around the Z axis
local axis = Vector(0, 0, 1)
local result = Vector(1, 0, 0):RotateAroundAxis(axis, 90)
print(result)

Purpose

Calculates the cross product of this vector and the provided up reference to derive a right-direction vector.

The vector is overwritten via self:Cross(self, vUp) and then normalized,

yielding a direction perpendicular to both inputs. This means the method

modifies the calling vector and returns it.

If this vector has no horizontal component it defaults to Vector(0, -1, 0).

Parameters

  • vUp (Vector, optional): Up direction to compare against. Defaults to vector_up.

Realm

Shared

Returns

  • Vector: The calculated right vector.

Example Usage

-- Get the right direction vector
local forward = Vector(1, 0, 0)
local result = forward:Right()
print(result)

Up

Purpose

Uses two cross products to determine an up-direction vector that is perpendicular to both this vector and the given up reference.

First, the vector is overwritten with the cross product of itself and vUp using self:Cross(self, vUp). This intermediate value, stored in vRet, is crossed with the original vector via self:Cross(vRet, self) to produce the final up direction. The method therefore modifies the calling vector before returning it.

When this vector lacks a horizontal component the fallback value is Vector(-self.z, 0, 0).

Parameters

  • vUp (Vector, optional): Up direction to compare against. Defaults to vector_up.

Realm

Shared

Returns

  • Vector: The calculated up vector.

Example Usage

-- Get the up direction vector
local forward = Vector(1, 0, 0)
local result = forward:Up()
print(result)