How to know from which direction there is a collision with an object? In Unity C#

Question

In the game, there is a ball, and moving objects that can hit it. I want the ball to move when an object hits it. But the ball should move to the right direction, the one which the collision was from. I looked for some answers on the internet, however, most codes were in Java script, and those that were in C# weren't helpful because it needed a Rigidbody. The ball is a rigidbody, but the objects that may hit it, aren't. Those are being moved by the CharacterController. The question is how can I detect the collision, to know from what direction it came, and move it to that direction. Thank you.

Answer 1

Use rigidbody.AddForce instead of transform.Translate so that the collisions are detected. For the direction create a variable with the difference between the target and the object itself and then normalize to find out the direction.

Answer 2

I think a normalized vector from the ball to the object.

direction = (ball.transform.position - kicker.transform.position).normalized;

I made a game doing kind of this thing you are doing. (source code link in the post) http://luigigarcia.byethost7.com/projects/goal-a-r-goal/

I think that your kicking object must do this work, not the ball. You need to know the ball someway:

• reference set in some component;
• through the OnCollision MonoBehaviour methods;
• etc..

You apply the direction with something like this:

  ball.theRigidbody.AddForce(direction * powerValue);