Quaternion capabilities

[next wyvern]

i need insight on what it can do and if you can, explain why
I also need to know more about quaternions

so far i know xyz means the axis of the rotation with coordinates and w being how far.

1. it works for additive rotation (i used 5 angle increments and avoided gimbal lock.
   1.1. How do I generalize, or make it be able for use for continuous angles, the above?
2. i tried to use it to rotate a part to a point/goal rotation but im forced to use trigonometry, which has its limited.

At this moment I realized id maybe have to use pure quaternions to rotate a part. Unfortunately I dont really understand it as an expert, so i want to learn more.

sorry if unclear

and ping me when responding if im not there, i will ask questions untill i get it

[lilac ember]

you're just asking this to rotate a part?

[next wyvern]

its to avoid gimbal lock.

but yea

what else is it used for?

[lilac ember]

uhh about that
https://create.roblox.com/docs/reference/engine/datatypes/CFrame

you don't need allat for roblox

[next wyvern]

How about learning? can i just have help learning?

[lilac ember]

...thats, why i sent you that link

[next wyvern]

oh

[lilac ember]

because you're better off learning cframe for position and rotation for roblox than having to learn insane math concepts

[next wyvern]

alright lemme see if this gimbal locks

[lilac ember]

since, you know, roblox devs did that job for you

[next wyvern]

they did

[zenith yacht]

** You are now Level 1! **

[next wyvern]

ill test it now

[next wyvern]

gimbal lock on the y axis

i tried most of them. im still learning the XYZ vectors but i tried lookat
from axis angle is most promising but not what i wanted when asking this question

"i want to learn quaternions"

"go learn cframe"

[wet gorge]

roblox does not offer quaternions built in but it does has cframe, and cframe is a reasonable substitute for quaternions most of the time

[wet gorge]

where is gimbal lock

what are you rotating

take a screenshot of it maybe

[next wyvern]

theres a quaternion cframe.new overload

https://devforum.roblox.com/t/quaternion-reaching-gimbal-lock/3221611
this is roughly what im dealing with
THOUGH i can do the same rotations already

the solutarion talks about euler angles being the cause of the lock

im trying to use quarternions to rotate a part to a point, like cframe.lookat, which ive tried and freaks out at when the arrow looks at the y axis

ive tried to get the angles (from trig) and then use quaternions to rotate but uhh it kinda freaks out still.

[wet gorge]

what are you rotating?

[wet gorge]

sounds like XY problem http://XYproblem.info

• User wants to do X.
• User doesn't know how to do X, but thinks they can fumble their way to a solution if they can just manage to do Y.
• User doesn't know how to do Y either.
• User asks for help with Y.
• Others try to help user with Y, but are confused because Y seems like a strange problem to want to solve.
• After much interaction and wasted time, it finally becomes clear that the user really wants help with X, and that Y wasn't even a suitable solution for X.
• The problem occurs when people get stuck on what they believe is the solution and are unable step back and explain the issue in full.

[next wyvern]

hmmmm. alright. assuming quaternions for Y, id use cframe.
i need to rotate a spaceship by any rotation that is in any direction

[wet gorge]

independent pitch yaw roll controls can be achieved with cframes why are you not using this

i assume you stuck on math?

should probably hire someone if you're stuck on math ngl

lots of math tutorials if you look for them

robux or time&effort? 🤷

[next wyvern]

how do i do that with cframed

hold on

[wet gorge]

cframe is roblox's matrix4x4 aka Transform3d

[next wyvern]

whats a matrix4x4

[wet gorge]

if you know anything about quaternions you would know it can be converted into a matrix 3x3, and both quaternion and matrix 3x3 apply rotations additively in a similar fashion, both avoiding gimbal lock

[next wyvern]

ohh alright

[zenith yacht]

** You are now Level 2! **

[wet gorge]

if you care to be a programmer you will learn someday but for right now, as long as you understand a cframe has the same properties as a quaternion in terms of rotation characteristics then you are one step ahead of the pack on that front

[next wyvern]

oooo alright

aside from that, how do u understand quaternions?

[wet gorge]

bro was today years old when they first learned about rotation matrix and rotation order

[wet gorge]

3blue1brown has a good video about it, i'm sure you can find it with a google search

[next wyvern]

alright, and any yt resources on rotation matrixes too?

[wet gorge]

yes rotation matrix is common to all 3d rendering

[next wyvern]

alright

[wet gorge]

ya angles in 3d are actually 4d or a 3x3 matrix. yet it can be compressed into a 2d representation. the 4d is most computationally convenient, matrix is slightly more expensive but they contain more information than just rotation, like.. Size.

[next wyvern]

oo

[wet gorge]

roblox will never tell you but cframes actually hide a secret property/characteristic known as Skew. that one is a fun google if you ever get the time

[next wyvern]

oo