Is there a better/faster way to do this:

if PosZ < 0
PosZ = PosZ * -1
endif


if PosZ < 0
PosZ = (-PosZ) ;-- will that work?
endif

Is there some math function that can do this without an IF check?

abs(PosZ)

You could use the math.abs(number) function or multiply the number by itself and then make the square root (math.sqrt(number) ).

The problem is that calling a math function may (and surelly will) be way slower than using your method (besides you need to use a float for that functions so, you may need to make a cast first and then another one to make it an int again).

Your second option, using the unary operator, will work. I don't know if calling Math.Abs would be faster than a conditional statement, but that would work too. You'd still need to convert it to negative after calling that too.

Cipscis