Changing SpatialUnderstanding mesh material at run-time

trzy

After finalizing the playspace, it looks like there is no built-in way to change the spatial understanding material (from visible to occluding, for example). Am I missing something or is the only way to iterate over all the mesh objects that are attached to the SpatialUnderstanding game object, manually changing the material myself?

james_ashley

@trzy,

You're right. Sorry. Looks like you would have to iterate over all the mesh objects and change the materials individually. That's basically what SpatialUnderstandingManager.SetSurfaceMaterial does.

Here's another way of getting to the same goal, though. You can put your second mesh on SpatialMappingManager.SurfaceMaterial but set DrawVisualMeshes to false, so it won't draw.

When you want to change what the mesh looks like, turn off drawing through SpatialUnderstanding and turn on drawing through SpatialMapping:

SpatialUnderstanding.Instance.UnderstandingCustomMesh.DrawProcessedMesh = false;
SpatialMappingManager.Instance.DrawVisualMeshes = true;

james_ashley

I use the custom mesh script to just stop drawing, like I would with spatial mapping:

var customMesh = SpatialUnderstanding.Instance.GetComponent<SpatialUnderstandingCustomMesh>();

customMesh.DrawProcessedMesh = false;

You can set a new mesh same way:

var customMesh = SpatialUnderstanding.Instance.GetComponent<SpatialUnderstandingCustomMesh>();

customMesh.MeshMaterial = yourMaterial;

trzy

Thanks for the response, James. This doesn't seem to work for me. Once the playspace is finalized and the meshes are generated, changing MeshMaterial has no effect (note that it's just a public member, and not a property with a setter defined).

I even tried disabling mesh drawing (DrawProcessedMesh=false) and then on the next frame setting the MeshMaterial and enabling drawing again, but no luck. The new material does not take effect.

james_ashley

@trzy,

You're right. Sorry. Looks like you would have to iterate over all the mesh objects and change the materials individually. That's basically what SpatialUnderstandingManager.SetSurfaceMaterial does.

Here's another way of getting to the same goal, though. You can put your second mesh on SpatialMappingManager.SurfaceMaterial but set DrawVisualMeshes to false, so it won't draw.

When you want to change what the mesh looks like, turn off drawing through SpatialUnderstanding and turn on drawing through SpatialMapping:

SpatialUnderstanding.Instance.UnderstandingCustomMesh.DrawProcessedMesh = false;
SpatialMappingManager.Instance.DrawVisualMeshes = true;

trzy

Thanks, James. I think I see what you're getting at. But I'm not sure meshes obtained through SpatialMappingManager and SpatialUnderstanding should be used together given the amount of processing that the latter have gone through.

I haven't yet tried using SpatialUnderstanding's meshes for occlusion but I imagine they should work just as well, if not better, than the underlying spatial mapping meshes.

I want to use SpatialUnderstanding for easier positioning of objects (it detects planar surfaces much better) but then will want said objects to interact with those surfaces (drive over them, blast holes in them, and hide behind them).

I guess iterating over the meshes themselves (as SpatialMappingManager does) is the best choice. Surprised, though, that an explicit function for this was not provided.