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Is it safe to have Camera children in Unity?

Hello everybody.

I'm implementing a basic cursor that I simply attached as a child game object of the main camera. Before I carry on I wanted to know whether it's safe to create any child game objects underneath the main camera in Unity? Or is it a shallow concept that gets replaced with some "actual" camera at runtime thus neglecting everything underneath?

Thank a lot!

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Best Answers

  • HoloSheepHoloSheep mod
    Answer ✓

    Hi @stepan_stulov yes it is safe to put children under the main camera gameobject and is one technical way to achieve UI elements that follow you. For example Brandon from Unity presented something similar during our user group meeting this week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12ff6eJP9Qk
    (see the Object Finder demo around the 49 min mark)

    However it is also worth noting that Microsoft has done a lot of research on user experience issues where UI elements move fixed to the users view and the general guidance is that in most cases you should not fix UI to the view in this way and should use techniques like the TagAlong functionality found in the HTK.

    Further discussion on the topic can be found in threads like Fixed object in the cameral/view

    Windows Holographic User Group Redmond

    WinHUGR.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - @WinHUGR
    WinHUGR YouTube Channel -- live streamed meetings

Answers

  • HoloSheepHoloSheep mod
    Answer ✓

    Hi @stepan_stulov yes it is safe to put children under the main camera gameobject and is one technical way to achieve UI elements that follow you. For example Brandon from Unity presented something similar during our user group meeting this week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12ff6eJP9Qk
    (see the Object Finder demo around the 49 min mark)

    However it is also worth noting that Microsoft has done a lot of research on user experience issues where UI elements move fixed to the users view and the general guidance is that in most cases you should not fix UI to the view in this way and should use techniques like the TagAlong functionality found in the HTK.

    Further discussion on the topic can be found in threads like Fixed object in the cameral/view

    Windows Holographic User Group Redmond

    WinHUGR.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - @WinHUGR
    WinHUGR YouTube Channel -- live streamed meetings

  • stepan_stulovstepan_stulov ✭✭✭
    edited August 2016

    Hi, HoloSheep. Fantastic answer, thank you. I only wanted to attach the cursor in a form of a little sphere for testing purposes. I am aware of Microsoft's user experience recommendation of avoiding hard-attached thing to your head. In my case I was experimenting with placing holograms over their reality counterparts using intersection with the floor. It appeared that if I use the "conventional" gaze from the centre of the viewport I don't see the object in front of me in full as it's clipped by the viewport. I ended up simply using a cursor that's one third or fourth from the bottom of the viewport thus allowing better overview further ahead. And at some point HoloLens stopped showing my little test sphere altogether. But with your answer I now know the problem is somewhere else. Thank you!

    Building the future of holographic navigation. We're hiring.

  • @HoloSheep Thanks for the answer. I tried the fixed UI, and I feel it is a little hard to keep my eyes focus on both physical and virtual world. I believe that TagAlong is the way to go.

  • I resolved the mystery of my test sphere as child of camera not showing up. I accidentally set camera's depth from -1 to 0. Apparently that disabled rendering or something. Who could have thought.

    Building the future of holographic navigation. We're hiring.

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