HFFWS Fixing and Debugging the Pulley Generator

October 14, 2019

Pulley System Generator

Fixing

Notes:

- Deselecting "Fix Start" and "Fix End" on the Rope component allows for the creation of a simple rope that appears to operate normally, but it is not connected to anything
- "Fix Start" and "Fix End" appear necessary to connect the rope to physics objects

TESTING

Issue 1:

Instantiated Rope is a completely broken mess of physics masses jumping around.

Test 1:

Changing objects at ends to TestBox and TestSphere just to simplify the physics objects involved to see if that makes diagnosing the problems easier

Results:

This did result in a more stable rope. It was still not in the correct location, but the rope was no longer just a jumbled bumbling mess of masses.

Issue 2:

Rope is instantiated in a strange position away from most other objects.

- This appears to be because of the ropeStart and ropeEnd positions. The rope is still following their positions, and they are far away.
- The ropeStart and ropeEnd positions however do have the same Y and Z values, suggesting that they are following the logic to some degree, but not as intended.

Test 1:

Change instantiation process so that pulley end objects are instantiated as children of the overall pulley prefab.

- The idea is that this will help with relative positioning
- I am not sure if I can use this method with a prefab that has not been instantiated yet (seems strange using the transform of an object that does not exist yet)

Results:

- This did properly situate the rope end physics objects at the ends of the rope, however the rope was still spawning in a location that was unintended, below everything else.
- The rope also does not appear to actually be bound by the end objects either.

Test 2:

Debug.Log all the positions to see if the positions occurring at run time are matching those in the script.

Results:

- The script dictates that the start physics object is positioned at (-9.5, 0, 0) - (1.0, 0, 0), so (-10.5, 0, 0) relative to its starting position, and the end physics object is the reversse (+9.5 and +1.0). This indicates that there should be 21 units between them. This did happen, but the values are very different looking.
- The start instantiated at position: (-2.5. -14, 35.5)
- The end instantiated at position: (18.5, -14, 35.5)
- This indicates that the parent position they are referencing is: (8.0, -14, 35.5)
- Both RopeStart and RopeEnd child objects' positions matchup with the weird physics object positions as well, so it's before them.

SOLVED:

Turns out the overall prefab had the exact transform position (8.0, -14, 35.5) so those values were getting passed into everything as the starting parent transform value

Issue 3:

Rope is not actually connected to the physics objects at the ends.

- This is accomplished by setting the connectedBody reference of the RopeStart and RopeEnd objects to the rigid body components of the start physics object and end phsyics object respectively.
- This is happening as seen in the references at run time, which makes me expect that this connection is still somehow ' being made before the instantiation of the full pulley setup.

Test 1:

Run everything in Awake instead of Start

- I thought running everything sooner may help set the connection up earlier.

Results:

- There were no noticeable differences.

NEXT STEPS

Figure out how to actually connect the objects to the ends of the rope.

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