Thank you so much for continuing to think this out with me!
I read your response slowly several times and tried to follow along.
Let me first answer your question - When players are moving around the field, they can move the camera freely with their right thumb stick. This is very much like a third person action game/shooter.
What I’m currently imagining passing to feel like is the player holds an input to pull up a “passing interface”. While the input is held, they move the right thumbstick (almost like a radial menu) to “aim”. We have been currently discussing that the thumbstick dictates direction AND pass strength. When the player releases the pass input, the interface drops and the ball goes flying based on their thumbstick decision making. So, I think we’re on the same page. The player will be upright and the camera will be locked while holding the pass button down (cause HUD widget interaction).
I anticipate as players get good, this action will be SUPER quick. A quick hold of pass, a little nudge or flick, and then a release.
So, on to my understanding of your dump:
No normalization of the vector and instead we use vector length squared greater than 1 as a condition to branch the action. As a visual person, I put a “placeholder” PASS input button that fires into the branch.
I’m targeting my gameball which is what I’d like to add the impulse to so that seems right but the rest is where I get lost.
You came up with 2 equations to calculate 2 axis’ of direction? Then you add them together? Then there’s a Z (up?) axis added as well? These 3 come together into the impulse direction?
What if the branch is false? What goes there?
Hopefully we can take this step by step! Before going into input sensitivity or a passing widget, maybe we just try to get a directional impulse propelling my ball in the thumbstick direction?
<3, Jon