Eli5: Vector dot and cross products, what they are and what they’re used for

Question

Trying to wrap my head around some mathematical concepts for game dev, thank you 🙂

In: 0

Answer 1

* If I have two vectors **a** and **b** then their cross product **a**x**b** will be perpendicular to both **a** and **b**, so you’d use it if you need to find a vector like that.
* The dot product spits out a number that essentially measures the angle between the two vectors, if I have vectors **a** and **b** with and angle t between them, then **a**.**b** = |**a**||**b**|cos(t), the way you actually calculate the dot product is fairly simple though, so it’s a way to get the angle between two vectors if all you have is two columns of numbers.