Cannot access exposed Visual Effect tansform property in code

fra3point · Feb 14, 2020

Good morning,

I'm working on an interactive effect using VFX Graph which is based on the position of an exposed transform property.

As you can see in the images above, I'm able to change the transform values in the inspector (and when I do this everything works great), but I can't find a way to access this property from code. The VisualEffect class has methods like SetFloat, SetVector3, etc. but hasn't "SetTransform".

My current workaround is to use a bunch Vector3 in the graph and then set them via SetVector3 in Update instead of just using a transform, but sincerely I don't like this solution.

Has anyone succeded accessing a VisualEffect transform property from code?

Thanks in advance,
Francesco

ThomasVFX · Feb 14, 2020

Hello!
Currently, the exposed properties of more complex types (such as transform) can only be accessed using separate components of lower-level type. Which means that you can set separately its position, angles and scale.

for your example you will be able to access these 3 properties using SetVector(). The nomenclatured names for all three sub-property names is the following:

TRANSFORM_position
TRANSFORM_angles
TRANSFORM_scale

If you need more information about performing these efficiently, I invite you to take a look at the code we used in our Transform Property Binder :
https://github.com/Unity-Technologi...yBinding/Implementation/VFXTransformBinder.cs

The code makes use of ExposedProperty : an utility class that caches the optimized integer value that you often compute using (Shader.PropertyToID()) to set the properties.

fra3point · Feb 14, 2020

ThomasVFX said: ↑

Hello!
Currently, the exposed properties of more complex types (such as transform) can only be accessed using separate components of lower-level type. Which means that you can set separately its position, angles and scale.

for your example you will be able to access these 3 properties using SetVector(). The nomenclatured names for all three sub-property names is the following:

TRANSFORM_position
TRANSFORM_angles
TRANSFORM_scale

If you need more information about performing these efficiently, I invite you to take a look at the code we used in our Transform Property Binder :
https://github.com/Unity-Technologi...yBinding/Implementation/VFXTransformBinder.cs

The code makes use of ExposedProperty : an utility class that caches the optimized integer value that you often compute using (Shader.PropertyToID()) to set the properties.
Click to expand...

Thank you for this answer!

The VFXPropertyBinder class is a great solution for the moment as it allows us to not write custom companion scripts for every effect.
I'd expect complex properties to be exposed in the VisualEffect property inspector in the future, but it's fine for now.

magehuntz · Dec 20, 2021

ThomasVFX said: ↑

Hello!
Currently, the exposed properties of more complex types (such as transform) can only be accessed using separate components of lower-level type. Which means that you can set separately its position, angles and scale.

for your example you will be able to access these 3 properties using SetVector(). The nomenclatured names for all three sub-property names is the following:

TRANSFORM_position
TRANSFORM_angles
TRANSFORM_scale

If you need more information about performing these efficiently, I invite you to take a look at the code we used in our Transform Property Binder :
https://github.com/Unity-Technologi...yBinding/Implementation/VFXTransformBinder.cs

The code makes use of ExposedProperty : an utility class that caches the optimized integer value that you often compute using (Shader.PropertyToID()) to set the properties.
Click to expand...

Please put this information on the documentation. I was struggling to access those properties in my project and could only find this information here.

koirat · Feb 14, 2022

ThomasVFX said: ↑

https://github.com/Unity-Technologi...yBinding/Implementation/VFXTransformBinder.cs
Click to expand...

Link is not working.

dyburke · Feb 21, 2022

This seems to be the current location: https://github.com/Unity-Technologi...yBinding/Implementation/VFXTransformBinder.cs

Still can't figure out how to get the Property Binder to properly work with Transform though. I realize that's not quite what this thread is about, but I'm searching for why my Property Binder says

There needs to be more substance to this error to let me know what the issue is; seems like a very simple use case, but I've been trying as many secret "_suffix" magic words I can find and it's unable to bind the transform.

VladVNeykov · Feb 21, 2022

Hi @dyburke ,
Can you confirm that you've assigned a target and that your Property name matches that of an exposed Transform property?

If all of that's good, try renaming your property or removing/re-adding the property binder in question.

dyburke · Feb 21, 2022

@VladVNeykov The dropdown you show next to the 'Property' field wouldn't even pop up. I tried a lot of rename and reassigning. In the end, it was removing the entire Mono component and re-adding it that worked; the dropdown you show now has my property in it. I'm not sure what caused the issue; I've been unable to reproduce it.

Liderangel · Mar 4, 2022

VladVNeykov said: ↑

Hi @dyburke ,
Can you confirm that you've assigned a target and that your Property name matches that of an exposed Transform property?

If all of that's good, try renaming your property or removing/re-adding the property binder in question.
Click to expand...

I'm trying to do the exact same thing as in your GIF but leaving the Target empty so that it can be assigned through script, but I can't find any documentation on how to do this. The help would be much appreciated!

VladVNeykov · Mar 7, 2022

Hey @Liderangel ,

If you are setting the transform via script, you can just set it directly and not use the binders at all.
You can look for the VFXTransformBinder script in your packages to see how the binder component does it, but in a nutshell, expose your transform in blackboard, and then set separately the position, angle, and scale.

Pseudo-example:
Say your exposed transform is named myTransform:

Code (CSharp):

Transform player; // the transform you want to track

VisualEffect vfx; // your vfx component

void Update()

{

vfx.SetVector3("myTransform_position", player.position);

vfx.SetVector3("myTransform_angles", player.eulerAngles);

vfx.SetVector3("myTransform_scale", player.localScale);

}

Hope this helps!

ashtorak · Mar 24, 2022

@VladVNeykov
Thanks, these examples help a lot!
At first I was looking for a way to convert a Vector3 into a transform position inside the graph, but it doesn't seem possible? Even though the greyed out position fields show the values up to the final set position block in the system, the particles don't spawn at that position in the scene view. This was really confusing to me. There is no indication why it wouldn't work - on the contrary, the values showing up in the fields make me expect that it should be working. Or is it a bug?

VladVNeykov · Mar 25, 2022

ashtorak said: ↑

Thanks, these examples help a lot!
Click to expand...

Sure thing!

ashtorak said: ↑

a way to convert a Vector3 into a transform position
Click to expand...

Vector3 types are not spaceable (i.e. they do not contain information on whether the values are in world or local space), while Position types are, so if you are trying to convert a Vector3 to a Position, you you'll have to manually set what space you want these values to be (by toggling the L/W icon):

ashtorak said: ↑

Even though the greyed out position fields show the values up to the final set position block in the system, the particles don't spawn at that position in the scene view. This was really confusing to me. There is no indication why it wouldn't work - on the contrary, the values showing up in the fields make me expect that it should be working. Or is it a bug?
Click to expand...

Can you please provide some visuals? I'm not quite sure what this is referring to. It could be the space consideration we discussed before, but hard to tell.

ashtorak · Mar 26, 2022

This is my setup:

I want to move the position of this torus in world space. Doing it like this does nothing when I change the y-value for example, even though it shows up on the right. However, and I just found now that it works like this for some reason:

Now, when I change y, it moves the effect in the scene view accordingly.
There must be some difference how the Vector3 as exposed property is funneled to the block compared to the other Vector3, which is really odd and unexpected. Especially since it shows the value on the torus block in both cases.

VladVNeykov · Mar 28, 2022

Are you per chance overwriting your exposed flameHitPoint in the inspector?

Here is an example with color: New Color (green by default) is exposed and modified in the visual effect component to be red. Changing the default value in blackboard won't matter, as you are overwriting it later with what you have in the inspector (red). If you untick the overwrite checkbox in the inspector however, you can go back to modifying and reusing the default value:

ashtorak · Mar 28, 2022

Yes, that's it! Thank you very much!
So you have to be really careful when editing the effect in the graph and looking for the result in the scene view when you have it attached on some object. In hindsight, it's a pretty obvious mistake. I guess, you have to get used to the concept a bit.

Liderangel · Apr 14, 2022

VladVNeykov said: ↑

Hey @Liderangel ,

If you are setting the transform via script, you can just set it directly and not use the binders at all.
You can look for the VFXTransformBinder script in your packages to see how the binder component does it, but in a nutshell, expose your transform in blackboard, and then set separately the position, angle, and scale.

Pseudo-example:
Say your exposed transform is named myTransform:

Code (CSharp):

Transform player; // the transform you want to track

VisualEffect vfx; // your vfx component

void Update()

{

vfx.SetVector3("myTransform_position", player.position);

vfx.SetVector3("myTransform_angles", player.eulerAngles);

vfx.SetVector3("myTransform_scale", player.localScale);

}

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

Sorry about the delay, we are dealing with some other shader issues, but this worked perfectly, thank you very much!

betaFlux · Jun 1, 2022

Hi, I created a VFX Graph for SkinnedMeshRenderer effects and need to assign character roots to the VFXPropertyBinder at runtime, since I spawn characters and pooled vfx graphs on the fly. Can someone explain how to do that?

konzeptzwei · Jun 8, 2022

the link for the github repository is 404! Is there a new link somewhere?

PaulDemeulenaere · Jun 8, 2022

Hello!

konzeptzwei said: ↑

the link for the github repository is 404! Is there a new link somewhere?
Click to expand...

The repro ScriptableRenderPipeline has been migrated to Graphics (see this message).
About VFXTransformBinder.cs, you can now find the code reference here:
https://github.com/Unity-Technologi...yBinding/Implementation/VFXTransformBinder.cs

betaFlux said: ↑

Hi, I created a VFX Graph for SkinnedMeshRenderer effects and need to assign character roots to the VFXPropertyBinder at runtime, since I spawn characters and pooled vfx graphs on the fly. Can someone explain how to do that?
Click to expand...

Hello,
VFXTransformBinder is actually private but if you have copied this helper in your project, you can modify the Target property. Alternatively, you can reproduce the same behavior (see this earlier post)

Two side remarks:
- You can also directly expose a Matrix4x4 instead of transform in VisualEffect
- Since 2022.2a14, the Skinned Mesh Sampling integrates (optionally) the root bone transform

VoltaDev · Aug 14, 2022

VladVNeykov said: ↑

Hey @Liderangel ,

If you are setting the transform via script, you can just set it directly and not use the binders at all.
You can look for the VFXTransformBinder script in your packages to see how the binder component does it, but in a nutshell, expose your transform in blackboard, and then set separately the position, angle, and scale.

Pseudo-example:
Say your exposed transform is named myTransform:

Code (CSharp):

Transform player; // the transform you want to track

VisualEffect vfx; // your vfx component

void Update()

{

vfx.SetVector3("myTransform_position", player.position);

vfx.SetVector3("myTransform_angles", player.eulerAngles);

vfx.SetVector3("myTransform_scale", player.localScale);

}

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

Appears that this doesn't work for a Sphere property's sub properties. Have tried your suggestion and also upper case Scale. Any help is much appreciated.

VladVNeykov · Aug 14, 2022

Hey @VoltaDev ,
The naming for individual shape properties can be a bit tough to get right since there's no native shader type for any of them. If you have an exposed Sphere type named New Sphere, your properties will be:
position: New Sphere_transform_position
angles: New Sphere_transform_angles
scale: New Sphere_transform_scale
radius: New Sphere_radius

For an Arc Sphere type called New Arc Sphere, they'll be:
position: New Arc Sphere_sphere_transform_position
angles: New Arc Sphere_sphere_transform_angles
scale: New Arc Sphere_sphere_transform_scale
radius: New Arc Sphere_sphere_radius
arc: New Arc Sphere_arc

So you don't guess for other shapes in the future (as the naming is not very discoverable), you can do the following:
First, overwrite in the inspector the properties you'd like to see the shader name for:

Then right click on the inspector window and change your inspector to Debug mode:

Then you can scroll down and see for each type (i.e. Vector3 for the position property, float for the radius property, etc.) the list of the actual property names you can use to set directly with script:

Hope this helps!

VoltaDev · Aug 17, 2022

VladVNeykov said: ↑

Hey @VoltaDev ,
The naming for individual shape properties can be a bit tough to get right since there's no native shader type for any of them. If you have an exposed Sphere type named New Sphere, your properties will be:
position: New Sphere_transform_position
angles: New Sphere_transform_angles
scale: New Sphere_transform_scale
radius: New Sphere_radius

For an Arc Sphere type called New Arc Sphere, they'll be:
position: New Arc Sphere_sphere_transform_position
angles: New Arc Sphere_sphere_transform_angles
scale: New Arc Sphere_sphere_transform_scale
radius: New Arc Sphere_sphere_radius
arc: New Arc Sphere_arc

So you don't guess for other shapes in the future (as the naming is not very discoverable), you can do the following:
First, overwrite in the inspector the properties you'd like to see the shader name for:

Then right click on the inspector window and change your inspector to Debug mode:

Then you can scroll down and see for each type (i.e. Vector3 for the position property, float for the radius property, etc.) the list of the actual property names you can use to set directly with script:

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

Thank you so much! This is super helpful.

Liderangel · Sep 6, 2022

@VladVNeykov hey, we are getting a bunch of "Value of name 'VARIABLE' was not found". I know this error can occur when the variable name is not the correct one or we are using the incorrect "SetX" (for instance using SetFloat instead of SetBool). That's not the case in our situation. We found that when you click on "Compile" all the errors are fixed and you can keep playing normally. Of course this in the editor, but on build there is no "compile" and thus all the errors keep popping up.

How can we precompile all the VFX Graphs? Thanks!

VladVNeykov · Sep 8, 2022

Hi @Liderangel ,

I haven't encountered this, can you share a bit more info? What are you setting via script, and what is exposed in your blackboard?

Liderangel said: ↑

We found that when you click on "Compile" all the errors are fixed and you can keep playing normally.
Click to expand...

If a compile fixes it, do you also save the graph to preserve any changes? (I think sometimes in version control or upgrading / importing effects from different versions you may need to re-save your VFXs)

Liderangel · Sep 8, 2022

VladVNeykov said: ↑

Hi @Liderangel ,

I haven't encountered this, can you share a bit more info? What are you setting via script, and what is exposed in your blackboard?

If a compile fixes it, do you also save the graph to preserve any changes? (I think sometimes in version control or upgrading / importing effects from different versions you may need to re-save your VFXs)
Click to expand...

I think this solved it! We did updated Unity a couple of days ago so that could have been it. Weird that this is needed, it was quite time consuming.

Thanks!

VladVNeykov · Sep 12, 2022

Liderangel said: ↑

it was quite time consuming.
Click to expand...

If you encounter this again, there's a menu option under Edit > VFX > Rebuild And Save All VFX Graphs for next time

Liderangel · Oct 13, 2022

VladVNeykov said: ↑

If you encounter this again, there's a menu option under Edit > VFX > Rebuild And Save All VFX Graphs for next time

Click to expand...

Good to know! That saves a lot of time. Is there an equivalent for "Open and Compile All"? Because what we found is that you need to manually compile the effects in other to see them locally, and sometimes in build you just don't see them because the PC that made the build hasn't compiled said effect. Maybe it's a setting in Build Settings that we are missing.

akhileshrao · Oct 16, 2022

VladVNeykov said: ↑

Hey @Liderangel ,

If you are setting the transform via script, you can just set it directly and not use the binders at all.
You can look for the VFXTransformBinder script in your packages to see how the binder component does it, but in a nutshell, expose your transform in blackboard, and then set separately the position, angle, and scale.

Pseudo-example:
Say your exposed transform is named myTransform:

Code (CSharp):

Transform player; // the transform you want to track

VisualEffect vfx; // your vfx component

void Update()

{

vfx.SetVector3("myTransform_position", player.position);

vfx.SetVector3("myTransform_angles", player.eulerAngles);

vfx.SetVector3("myTransform_scale", player.localScale);

}

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

How does this work if I want to expose bools and Vector3 materials? For me, Only my "float" options can be set in the VFX Property Bonder, but any varibbles of other types (Vector3 and bools) are seen as options

HDProDesignTeam · Oct 20, 2022

Hi everyone.
I searched lots of discussions but could not find a solution. I am creating vfx particle systems and setting some exposed properties from mono behavior. Everything works fine, but when you try to download this from CDN, or copy it to another project it gives an error which says could not find the exposed parameter(s). When you open the vfx and close it without making any change everything returns to normal again.

Is there anyone who experienced this issue before or have solution on this.

Thanks in advance.

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