[look-at] Setting `look-at` manually didn't work

[janpio]

I tried updating look-at dynamically with some values I was getting. It didn't work, so I had to jump in a bit.

---

I found out that removing the current target3D, then calling setAttribute('look-at', ...) worked:

_location_apex_1 = document.getElementById('apex_1').object3D.getWorldPosition();
location_apex_1 = _location_apex_1.x + " " + _location_apex_1.y + " " + _location_apex_1.z
airplane.components['look-at'].target3D = ''
airplane.setAttribute('look-at', location_apex_1);

---

But something was off, the rotation was not right. I looked at the component, and saw that for object following, there was another manipulation of the coordinates/vector before using, so I tried that as well:

Line 106-108:

       if (typeof target === 'object') {
	      return object3D.lookAt(new THREE.Vector3(target.x, target.y, target.z));
	    }

were replaced with:

	    if (typeof target === 'object') {
	      var vector = new THREE.Vector3(target.x, target.y, target.z);
	      object3D.parent.worldToLocal(vector);
	      return object3D.lookAt(vector);
	    }

This now correctly updates my airplane to look at the correct coordinates.

---

Does this make sense or did I find a strange special case here?

[ngokevin]

I think that makes sense if they aren't in the same space. Can you provide a Glitch and PR?

Also use IIFE on the update function to reuse that Vector and not allocate new one on each update.

[janpio]

I appreciate your answer, but the second part doesn't say anything to me - I am just playing around with Aframe and JS and don't really know it. What is IIFE?

Do you have any insight why airplane.components['look-at'].target3D = '' was necessary to get the setAttribute to work? Did I miss another method that should be used to update the look-at?

[weddingdj]

I just stumbled across the same issue, setting my_entity.setAttribute('look-at', { x: 0, y: 0, z: 0 }); is not working anymore since I am using a-frame v0.9.0.

I tried my_entity.setAttribute('look-at', '0 0 0'); but the rotation is wrong.

Using my_entity.components['look-at'].target3D = ''; did not work for me, the rotation is still wrong.