Efficient way of getting entities in the player's FOV?

[jackwilsdon]

I understand that you could loop through every entity using ents.GetAll and test it against ply:Visible(ent), but that doesn't sound like the most efficient way. Is there a function I can use that already does this, or is a loop the best way?

[editline]8th July 2014[/editline]

Hmm, seems that ply:Visible(ent) only checks if the entity has a direct line of sight to the player, and not if the player is looking at it.

[Netheous]

You can play with Entity:GetPos():ToScreen() and see if the returned values are lower than 0 and higher than both ScrW() and ScrH().

[jackwilsdon]

Thanks! Looks like it's better to trust the X and Y values than the "visible" field returned by ToScreen, as it seems to be true when it shouldn't be;

	for _, v in pairs(player.GetAll()) do
		if not (v == ply) then
			local screen_pos = v:GetPos():ToScreen()

			print(not (screen_pos.x > ScrW() or screen_pos.y > ScrH()), screen_pos.visible)
		end
	end

[Pugsworth]

Keep in mind that #GetPos() will only check the entity's origin.
#Visible() checks if the entity is visible at all.

[Lenny.]

ToScreen isn't really efficient though

[G😹nz😻]

[QUOTE=vexx21322;45328165]Keep in mind that #GetPos() will only check the entity's origin.
#Visible() checks if the entity is visible at all.[/QUOTE]

Visible check if the entity it's on the PVS, not on the FOV

[CallMePyro]

[LUA]
local ratio = 0.95

local Player = FindMetaTable( "Player" )
function Player:IsLookingAt( vec )
return self:GetAimVector():DotProduct( ( vec - self:EyePos() ):Normalize() ) < ratio
end
[/LUA]

you could play with the ratio variable until it seems to only work when the ent is on your screen.

[nazer1290]

In the past I've used ents.FindInSphere as it's much faster than going through ALL entities along with ToScreen.

[CallMePyro]

[QUOTE=nazer1290;45329826]In the past I've used ents.FindInSphere as it's much faster than going through ALL entities along with ToScreen.[/QUOTE]

Not sure if you're only looking to find players in a sphere around a player, or all entites.

However, if you are only looking for players in a sphere, here's a function that I posted a while back that's much more efficient than ents.FindInSphere if you only want players
[LUA]
local Vect = FindMetaTable( "Vector" )
local Ent = FindMetaTable( "Entity" )
local GetAll = player.GetAll

function Vect:PlayersInSphere( radius )

local plys = {}
local radius = radius * radius
local idx = 1

local DistToSqr = Vect.DistToSqr
local GetPos = Ent.GetPos

for _, ply in ipairs( GetAll() ) do

if DistToSqr( self, GetPos( ply ) ) <= radius then

plys[idx] = ply
idx = idx + 1

end

end

return plys

end
[/LUA]

[BlackAwps]

[QUOTE=CallMePyro;45329516][LUA]
local ratio = 0.95

local Player = FindMetaTable( "Player" )
function Player:IsLookingAt( vec )
return self:GetAimVector():DotProduct( ( vec - self:EyePos() ):Normalize() ) < ratio
end
[/LUA]

you could play with the ratio variable until it seems to only work when the ent is on your screen.[/QUOTE]

Just posting to make this more accurate.

[lua]local cos = math.cos
local Player = FindMetaTable("Player")

function Player:GetDefaultFOV()
if self:IsBot() then
return 90 -- Bots are bots, who cares
end
return tonumber( self:GetInfo( "fov_desired" ) )
end

function Player:IsInFOV( pos )
local fov = cos( self:GetFOV() / self:GetDefaultFOV() )
local dir = ( pos - self:EyePos() ):GetNormal()

return self:GetAimVector():Dot( dir ) < fov
end[/lua]