Draw 3D Object over the UI

Maybe it is simple but I cannot seem to figure out how to draw a 3D object over the GUI using Unity's built-in system in 4.6, whether the Render Mode is set as "Screen Space - Overlay" or "Screen Space - Camera."

In 4.5.5, I used NGUI and I had direct access to the camera draw order. Is there anything I can do in 4.6?

I've attached two images. One shows the GUI drawing correctly behind the 3D object ("correct-draw-order") and the other shows it drawing in front of the 3D object ("gui-draws-over-3d-object").

 

Do both the GUI and the 3D object need to be parented to the same camera? Currently, we have the on screen 3D controller linked to one camera, and the UI as a "Screen Space - Camera" (as you recommended). Then there are additional cameras that are linked to various button presses: Orbit camera, in-vehicle camera, FPS camera, etc. I notice that the GUI disappears and does not maintain being always in the viewable area. We have the UI camera set with a depth of -1.

This was all out of the box before with NGUI. Any thoughts or do you need more details? Any and all help is super appreciated.

 

Nothing needs to parented to a camera. The camera you set on the Canvas (with Render Mode set to Screen Space - Camera) renders its content using the 'Plane Distance' setting. So if you set 'Plane Distance' to 100 then that Canvas will render at 100 unit in front of the camera. Obviously the far clip plane will need to be >100.

 

Thanks for the response. We ported this project from 4.5.5 to 4.6 and from NGUI to the new Unity GUI system. I believe we've got something else going on. The camera set on the canvas is orthographic and we set the plane distance to 100 simply as a starting point. That being said, on Screen Space - Camera, it does not draw on the screen. On Screen Space -Overlay, though, it does.

I will post a solution when I find it in case anyone else is experiencing this. Open to any more thoughts on this and will post more details as I have them.

 

Correct. In the editor window, when I have that camera selected in the hierarchy, I can see the little camera preview window and it displays as I would expect it to. However, when playing the project in the editor, none of the UI set on Screen Space - Camera displays in the Game Window. When set to Screen Space - Overlay, it displays correctly (minus the 3D game object problem).

We have the Canvas Sorting Layer set to Default and the Order in Layer set to -1.

Here's the Canvas settings:


Here's the Canvas and the Camera in the Hierarchy:


Here's how the game starts in the editor (no GUI):

Here's what it should look like (minus the 3D object under the GUI):

 

Just tried setting the Order in Layer to zero and then 1000. Made no difference. Exactly as displayed above. Thanks for the thought though. Any other details that you could think of that I can get for you that we might have set incorrectly? Otherwise, we may need to start from scratch with the camera system.

 

Fantastic! You helped me get the whole problem resolved!

1. I moved the camera outside of the canvas. That made it show up in the camera preview, but it still would not draw to the game screen when played in the editor.
2. I had the UI Camera depth set to -1. In NGUI, this was necessary, but with the new Unity UI, it is the opposite. As soon as it was a greater value than the other cameras, it drew over the top. I set it to zero and the other cameras that get swapped out remained at -1.
3. The 3D controller was still being drawn over the top. As soon as I changed it's depth to 1, it drew on top of the GUI.

Thank you so very much for your help! Problem solved and now I understand the proper way to set this up when there are many cameras.

 

Can Anyone please guide me I am using Unity 4.6 UI Canvas. The problem is that when I put my 3d Objects in canvas They does not show in game view and when I scale my 3d object then It shows in game view but they look too small in mobile build.
I am using the hierarchy of UI is
1 Canvas-parent
1.1 Panel - Child
1.1.1 My 3d Object

 

Two possible situation:
1. When your Canvas' Render Mode set to Screen Space - Camera
Try change your 3d Object larger about scale = {100,100,100}
Because the Canvas' Scale will very small like 0.02

2. When your Canvas' Render Mode set to Screen Space - Overlay
Your object's size is OK, but Canvas is so large! You can find the object and move it into the camera's view

 

I have another (obscure) reason why your 3d objects might appear too small in the mobile build, while they look fine in Unity. Make sure the 3d object is not marked static. That is what I had and was super confused - some 3d objects were correctly scaled while others appeared too tiny on the device. Turns out the tiny ones were static, the others not...

I guess it makes sense, the canvas scaler might try to scale up your objects, but when they are static it will render the pre-scaled meshes, which were smaller.