Ballistic Raycaster

Description

Ballistic Raycaster is a lightweight Unity toolkit for simulating and visualizing bullet flight. It casts a projectile along a gravity‑curved arc using fast, segment‑swept raycasts, returns precise impact data, and renders an animated tracer that “trails” behind the projectile. A ready‑to‑use DemoGun shows how to aim from the screen center, fire either ballistic or straight (hitscan) shots, and optionally pool tracers for zero‑GC visuals.

What it gives you

•Accurate ballistic hits: First impact, time‑to‑hit, and sampled path points under gravity.

•Visual feedback: Curved or straight tracers with trailing animation, impact clamping (no “through wall” look), and editor‑only trajectory preview.

•Easy integration: Single API call to raycast ballistics; plug‑and‑play DemoGun for rapid prototyping.

•Solid ergonomics: Ignores your own rig, supports trigger filtering/layer masks, and includes pooling for high fire‑rate effects.

•Flexible comparison: Toggle between true ballistics and straight hitscan to validate gameplay feel.

Where it helps

•Shooters needing believable bullet drop and clear hit confirmation.

•Gameplay prototyping where you can quickly switch between ballistic and hitscan behavior.

•VFX/tracer systems that must look correct from all angles without overdraw artifacts.

•Tools and debugging: visualize trajectories in the Scene view while tuning velocity, gravity, and time step.

Why use it

•Performance‑minded: Non‑alloc physics queries and optional pooling minimize runtime GC.

•Precise: Returns time‑of‑flight for timing damage, SFX, or network reconciliation.

•Production‑ready visuals: Trailing tracers with configurable width, duration, and end‑skin to avoid penetration artifacts.

Result: believable ballistics, clean tracers, and a concise API that lets you ship faster with fewer edge‑case visuals.