Calc direction vector based on destination vector and distance from enemy in AS3

I'm working on a zombie game in AS3 where I want a character to be able to move away from a zombie depending upon how close the zombie is. The character also has a destination that it's trying to get too on the screen.

Ok so I have 2 vectors, one pointing to my destination, and one pointing to the zombie which I then invert to get my "away" vector. I then turn the distance between my character and the zombie into a value between 0 and 1. And then I'm stuck on how to get a resultant vector for my character. How would I use my 0-1 value to calculate how much of the away vector is used and how much of the original destination vector is still left if that makes sense? to end up with 1 direction vector to move my character? So if the zombie is right where my character is, then my direction vector = away vector, and if I'm far away from the zombie than my direction vector = destination vector, but how do I calculate the in-between?

Ideally need the answer in AS3.

Simply add the vectors together, after scaling them.

 DestinationVector.scale(1-awayFactor)
AwayVector.scale(awayFactor)

CharacterDirection = DestinationVector + AwayVector


Where awayFactor is your 0-1 value.

Sorry, I don't know AS3, so I can't write it in that language.

If it's just x and y vectors this is the same as:

DestVec.x *= (1-awayFactor)
DestVec.y *= (1-awayFactor)

AwayVec.x *= awayFactor
AwayVec.y *= awayFactor

CharVec.x = DestVec.x + AwayVec.x
CharVec.y = DestVec.y + AwayVec.y

• You can find the AS3 specific stuff here – MichaelHouse Jun 23 '12 at 22:18

I would try ordinary linear interpolation. If your destination vector is D (dx, dy, dz) and away vector is A (ax, ay, az), and your 0-1 value is V, then final vector F would be:

F = V * A + (1 - V) * D = (V * ax + (1 - V) * dx, ....)


If V is 1 (as in your example), you will get F = 1 * A + (1 - 1) * D = A, just as in your example.

But you should be careful with 0-1 value (if it isn't in range 0-1, then don't use interpolation) and also with vector normalization (I don't know, if you are using normalized vectors or not).

• Thanks for the reply, ideally I need that in AS3 :) my vectors are just simple, x, y vectors, no z value. – Phil Jun 23 '12 at 22:07
• @Phil It's just a simple formula using vectors. Write it yourself in AS3. – doppelgreener Jun 23 '12 at 22:59
• @Jonathan I understand AS3, not mathematical notation, but hey thanks for your really positive comment anyway. – Phil Jun 23 '12 at 23:54
• @Phil It's only basic algebra, otherwise I wouldn't have said anything. – doppelgreener Jun 24 '12 at 0:10