fxgl-third-person-3d

name	fxgl-third-person-3d
description	Build a third-person 3D game in FXGL — orbit a camera behind the player, move the character relative to camera direction, rotate the player to face travel direction, jump with manual 3D gravity, smooth the camera with a spring arm, avoid camera clipping, and optionally add lock-on combat behavior.
triggers	["third person 3d","third person","orbit camera","spring arm","lock on","camera clipping","player faces movement"]
compatibility	Java 17+, FXGL 21.x. Requires FXGL 3D mode and builds on fxgl-scene3d.
category	fxgl/3d
tags	["fxgl","java","javafx","3d","game-types","third-person"]
metadata	{"author":"fxgl-skills","version":"1.0","fxgl-version":"21.1"}
allowed-tools	["Read","Write","Edit","Bash"]

FXGL Third-Person 3D

Layering

Use fxgl-scene3d for the baseline 3D scene. This skill adds:

• orbit camera controls
• character-relative movement
• spring-arm smoothing
• lock-on behavior
• third-person combat / traversal structure

Orbit Camera

private Camera3D camera;
private double cameraYaw = 0;
private double cameraPitch = 20;
private double cameraRadius = 8;

private Point3D computeCameraOffset() {
    double yawRad = Math.toRadians(cameraYaw);
    double pitchRad = Math.toRadians(cameraPitch);

    double x = cameraRadius * Math.sin(yawRad) * Math.cos(pitchRad);
    double y = -cameraRadius * Math.sin(pitchRad);
    double z = cameraRadius * Math.cos(yawRad) * Math.cos(pitchRad);

    return new Point3D(x, y, z);
}

Update the camera every frame:

private void updateCamera(double tpf) {
    Point3D   player.getPosition3D().add(, -, );
       target.add(computeCameraOffset());

       camera.getTransform();
    transform.setX(lerp(transform.getX(), desired.getX(), tpf * ));
    transform.setY(lerp(transform.getY(), desired.getY(), tpf * ));
    transform.setZ(lerp(transform.getZ(), desired.getZ(), tpf * ));
    transform.lookAt(target);
}