Get player being looked at

I'm creating a pretty unique (I think) magic plugin for Bukkit. I need to get the player being looked at by the spell-caster. Is this possible?

 

This is how I do it in my magic plugin:

http://code.google.com/p/nisovin-mi.../com/nisovin/MagicSpells/InstantSpell.java#75

 

Without looking at nisovin's code, I'd get the location of where the player's looking and the entities near that location within a certain tolerance. He may have a better solution though.

 

Totally different approach here.
I'd calculate the look-at yaw and pitch values for all entities and pick the entity that has the lowest angle difference with the player.

Code:

    public static float getAngleDifference(float angle1, float angle2) {
        float difference = angle1 - angle2;
        while (difference < -180) difference += 360;
        while (difference > 180) difference -= 360;
        return Math.abs(difference);
    }

 

Thanks all. Noviso's code worked great, I'll also try Bergerkiller's one. In the end, I'm going to use a completely different approach: spawning particles along the path of the spell, and targeting the first entity or block that gets hit. That way, you can visually see the path.

 

@AbeJ bergerkiller's solution is quite accurate but it doesn't account for the distance the targeted entity is from the player. Taco's solution accounts for distance but may not be accurate in returning the closest target. You're best solution would be a good balance of the two.

 

Yup, true. Mine would return the player in a cave when you looked down...lol
Good luck with adding a custom moving entity spawning 'smoke?' while moving along. If you need help with velocity/location update algorithms, just ask.