Calculating up-vector to avoid gimbal lock using euler angles
- by jessejuicer
I wish to orbit a camera around a sphere, yet the problem is that when the camera rotates so that it is at the north pole (and pointing down) or the south pole (and pointing up) of the sphere the camera doesn't handle itself very well. It spins rapidly until arriving 180 degrees in the opposite direction. I believe this is known as gimbal lock.
I understand you can avoid this problem using quaternions. But I also read in another forum that it's possible to avoid this easily using euler angles as well. Which I would prefer to do. It was said that all you need to do is "calculate a proper up-vector every frame, and that avoids the problem entirely."
Well, I tried aligning the up-vector with the vertical axis of the camera whenever the camera changed orientation, but this didn't seem to work. Meaning that the up-vector followed exactly the orientation of the camera's y-axis (or it's up vector), instead of using a constant up-vector aligned to the up-vector of the world (0, 1, 0).
How exactly do I go about calculating a proper up-vector as my camera orientation changes to avoid the gimbal lock problem mentioned above?
