Unity Script Reference – Physics.SphereCast

static function SphereCast (origin : Vector3, radius : float, direction : Vector3, out hitInfo : RaycastHit, distance : float = Mathf.Infinity, layerMask : int = kDefaultRaycastLayers) : boolean

Parameters

Name	Description
origin	The center of the sphere at the start of the sweep.
radius	The radius of the sphere.
direction	The direction into which to sweep the sphere.
hitInfo	If true is returned, hitInfo will contain more information about where the collider was hit (See Also: RaycastHit).
distance	The length of the sweep
layerMask	A Layer mask that is used to selectively ignore colliders when casting a capsule.

Returns

boolean - True when the capsule sweep intersects any collider, otherwise false.

Description

Casts a sphere against all colliders in the scene and returns detailed information on what was hit.

This is useful when a Raycast does not give enough precision, because you want to find out if an object of a specific size, such as a character, will be able to move somewhere without colliding with anything on the way. Think of the sphere cast like a thick raycast.

Note: The sphere cast does not work against colliders configured as triggers. If you move colliders from scripting or by animation, there needs to be at least one FixedUpdate executed so that the physics library can update it's data structures, before a SphereCast will hit the collider at it's new position.

JavaScript

function Update () {
    var hit : RaycastHit;
    var charCtrl : CharacterController = GetComponent(CharacterController);
    var p1 : Vector3 = transform.position + charCtrl.center;
    // Cast a sphere wrapping character controller 10 meters forward, to see if it is about to hit anything
    if (Physics.SphereCast (p1, charCtrl.height / 2, transform.forward, hit, 10)) {
        distanceToObstacle = hit.distance;
    }
}

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class example : MonoBehaviour {
    void Update() {
        RaycastHit hit;
        CharacterController charCtrl = GetComponent<CharacterController>();
        Vector3 p1 = transform.position + charCtrl.center;
        if (Physics.SphereCast(p1, charCtrl.height / 2, transform.forward, out hit, 10))
            distanceToObstacle = hit.distance;
        
    }
}

import UnityEngine
import System.Collections

class example(MonoBehaviour):

    def Update():
        hit as RaycastHit
        charCtrl as CharacterController = GetComponent[of CharacterController]()
        p1 as Vector3 = (transform.position + charCtrl.center)
        if Physics.SphereCast(p1, (charCtrl.height / 2), transform.forward, hit, 10):
            distanceToObstacle = hit.distance

static function SphereCast (ray : Ray, radius : float, distance : float = Mathf.Infinity, layerMask : int = kDefaultRaycastLayers) : boolean

static function SphereCast (ray : Ray, radius : float, out hitInfo : RaycastHit, distance : float = Mathf.Infinity, layerMask : int = kDefaultRaycastLayers) : boolean