Question How do layers work?

I've looked into this different times, but it seems like they constantly don't work, so I'm guessing I just don't fully understand layers. I have a bow, every single piece of the bow has the "Weapon" layer. In project settings, under physics, I have turned off literally every single box for weapon, so it "should" interact with nothing. However, it bashes into everything. I have a wall with a default layer, and the bow is colliding with it. I also have my player with a player layer, and the bow interacts with it, which is annoying because it affects running. I'm guessing I'm missing something, but I thought the grid of boxes in project settings determined whether different layers would interact physically with each other. What am I misunderstanding? And how do I actually make different physical objects not interact with each other? Thanks.

 

Show us a screenshot of your layer configuration.

 

It sounds a lot like you have added rigidbodies and colliders to things you shouldnt have. Please post screenshots of your hierarchy and inspector on the object in question, as well as layer configuration in physics settings.

 

https://imgur.com/a/wmIWafB

 

I think we'd need to see a screenshot of your objects in the editor. Is a rigidbody or collider a parent or child of the bow?

 

So it's a little hard to get all the necessary data in, but here's the bow itself which has the rigidbody and the collider.
There is a small sphere collider with a rigidbody on the string, but only for grabbing purposes to draw it back, also that's not the part that's giving me trouble (the handle is the main big collider you see on the bow object itself, which collides with everything, even though it shouldn't).
There are no other colliders or rigidbodies within the hierarchy of the bow. And as you can see, the only parent for the bow is an empty, being used for organizational purposes.
Also every single object in the bow hierarchy is on layer "Weapon".
https://imgur.com/a/D81chsG

 

I got the pic in the previous message. Any ideas why the layers are still interacting with each other? It's a pretty simple rigidbody and collider setup, with the layer "Weapon" not check with anything, and yet it's interacting with everything. Any ideas why? It's kind of ruining a lot of my game. Even my arrows are interacting with stuff they shouldn't, which hinders firing them at times.

 

Well it doesn't look that simple! I can't see what layer your bow is on and since you have those HVR scripts for interaction they would be using physics as well. Does the layer change when you hit Play mode?

You are correct that if your layer is disabled it should not be interacting with anything. So, some part of that hierarchy or script is not on that layer.

 

If you setup a simple project it would work. I use layers in mine and they work as expected. I suggest it could be some child gameobject has a collider and it is not on the weapon layer. Or something in your scripts is changing the layer.

 

I mean you have a bunch of HVR scripts interacting with who knows what, but seeing as they are clearly intertacting with physics, I recommend actually getting in touch with author of those scripts first. When saying "layers interact with each other" you have to eliminate 3rd party code first to be sure its a unity issue. This is a 3rd party issue more likely than setup issue.