XYZ Coordinates, 360 Rotation.. How to calculate? AutoIT Visual Basic, Visual Studio

well im not doing 3D programming or anything like that yet, Just making a third party program for the teachers game that he provided the whole class, it consist of a lil character toon guy, that can run around, jump, walk, etc, So i need to make a program that records the characters XYZ coordinates in an Config.ini file then make him run that path with the XYZ coords, Ive got him moving but he isnt rotating to the direction of the next coordinate... he is just running straight ahead... Sorry if you misunderstood me , ill read this links tho jkr, but im pretty sure ill be using PI conversions (3.14) / (180) but im not sure how to go about doing this correctly in AutoIT (which has some similar C++ syntax) or an explanation or code snippet in anouther language like C++, VB or C# I can understand...I always can learn alot better from a code sample....Let me know thanks guys

If you are dealing with 3d coordinates, you *are* doing 3d programming ;o)

And yes, you rave to use radioant coordinates in most programming languages.

yes the game is 3D but im just trying to get the formula to use so the program can figure out wat direction to turn by the coordinates of his current position and the coordinates of the next waypoint to run to, just like a GPS points to the direction of a saved coordinate so if theres a 360 degree of possible output, I need the formula to figure out say if the current position of toon is [X is -2000, Y is -210, Z is 78 ] and the nexy waypoint is [X = -1000, Y = -310, Z = 42]  Anyone know what the math formula is to figure that out? im sure theres a math problem that deals with this :p

It is not a plain formula, it is matrix algebra - check out the rotation matrices above, they will have the formulas for the individual coordinates as well. Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotation_matrix for more details.

There is not a universal answer for this problem.

Your co-ordinate system, and how you represent it will be different from mine.

however, have a look at this web tutorial.  It's pretty simple, and it covers the basics.

Also, consider for a moment, the trigonometric function, arctan.

-john

you say look at this tutorial but you didnt post any links..... isnt there a conversion to find the direction that a coordinate is in like north south east west?? you guys are making it seem so much harder then i feel it is! Thanks for the help so far and all, ive read those pages bbut they are dealing with making 3D worlds and camera rotation, I just need a plain formula just like a GPS uses to point in a north south east west  my direction....it just seems like when i look at those tutorials they look like nothing my teacher was talking about, seems to advanced of 3D programming for the starting assignment....if anyone understands what i mean and could give me an answer, code snippet whatever anything! It doesnt have to be exact, just a way to find out whatdirection a set of XYZ coords is in. thanks

ooops sorry.  i mean to post a link...

http://chortle.ccsu.edu/VectorLessons/vectorIndex.html

And I'm sorry, but there is no such thing as north, or south or whatever.  Your resistence is futile!

You yourself said you have points in 3 space.. X, Y, and Z values.

Tell me, what's "North"?

In your euclidian space, (XYZ), which direction is negative X? which direction is positive Z?

-john

ok well theres a map in the game that shows which direction north south east west is just like our world has XYZ coordinates and N S E W, So if I get the coords from the very north of the map, then the coords from each point of the map (south, east, west) This will atleast tell me about where north is and show, then from there theres got to be an math equation to figure out which direction the next waypoint is cloest to! This makes perfect sense to me, Im just looking for an answer, Im not into vectors or programming a game I programming a small third party app that rotates the character with _MouseMovePlus() function and runs a path, this isnt the hard part of the class...hopfully you can understand what I mean....If you know some things about the situation theres always a way to figure it out, Since I know the game uses N S E W Im going to get those coords, Ill map my findings...hopflly i can do it myself...thanks i guess