How to get the directional vector (for IrrKlang) from pitch and yaw?

Question

Currently my game engine allows the player/camera to pitch and yaw, so there's no roll.

The pitch angle starts at 0°, which means the camera is facing straight ahead. From here it can go up to +85° (looking almost straight up) or down to -85° (looking almost straight down).

The yaw angle starts at 0°, which means the camera is facing east. The rotation is clockwise so 90° is south, 180° is west and 270° north. What would be 360° is 0° again obviously.

How do I get from this to the direction vector (lookdir) IrrKlang's SetListenerPosition requires to get directional audio working?

PS: x and z are my horizontal axis, y is the vertical one.

Answer 1

x = cos(yaw)

y = sin(pitch)

z = sin(yaw)

(Depending on the orientation of you coordinate system you could have to put a "-" somewhere)

Roll is irrelevant for the lookDir Vector, as it just changes the Up-Vector. Remember that there are theoretically infinite "correct" lookDir Vectors, the one above has the length 1.