Instancing and hierarchical transformation of an assembly of physics blocks -

I am procedurally generating structures made of physics blocks and I am wondering how best to instantiate and transform complex assemblies of these blocks prior to simulation. Is it correct to assume that Entity parenting won't work, since that might interfere with the transformations of the blocks during physics simulation?

For example, once this wall of discreet blocks is generated, the player may want to instantiate it and rotate the copy:




What would be the best way to do this? Could it be that there is hierarchical transformation through parent/child components that gets removed when "building" the structure mode is done and as PhysicVelocity components are being added?

 

For dynamic bodies the Translation and Rotation components are assumed to be in world space. So, as you say, adding a Parent component will cause problems.

If the hierarchy is there while placement is happening, then when placement finishes and physics components are to be added, the LocalToWorld matrix of each block could be read and decomposed. Then when the Parent components are removed the Translation and Rotation components can be set from the decomposed matrix. This sort of thing happens when GameObject information is converted to ComponentData structs in the PhysicsShape conversion system and you can check out the local package code in <Project>\Library\PackageCache\com.unity.physics@x.y.z\Unity.Physics.Hybrid\Utilities\PhysicsShapeExtensions.cs

That might be overly complicated for your own specific needs though. The simpler option is just to get Translation and Rotation values using the

Unity.Physics.Math.DecomposeRigidBodyTransform

function.
For example:

Code (CSharp):

1.                     var worldFromBody = Math.DecomposeRigidBodyTransform(GetComponent<LocalToWorld>(entity).Value);
2.                     position = new Translation { Value = worldFromBody.pos };
3.                     rotation = new Rotation { Value = worldFromBody.rot };

Alternatively, if all the blocks have already been stripped of their hierarchy and you want to move a block that already has the Translation, Rotation and Physics components setup, then the sample RagdollDemo script does something like similar to moving a bunch of independent entities as if they were one unit when placing the final body parts of the ragdoll. The code uses a positionOffset, a rotationOffset and some common position to shift and rotate all the bodies e.g.

Code (CSharp):

1.             for (int i = 0; i < entities.Length; i++)
2.             {
3.                 var e = entities[i];
4.  
5.                 Translation positionComponent = EntityManager.GetComponentData<Translation>(e);
6.                 Rotation rotationComponent = EntityManager.GetComponentData<Rotation>(e);
7.  
8.                 float3 position = positionComponent.Value;
9.                 quaternion rotation = rotationComponent.Value;
10.  
11.                 float3 localPosition = position - oldCommonPosition;
12.                 localPosition = math.rotate(rotationOffset, localPosition);
13.  
14.                 position = localPosition + oldCommonPosition + positionOffset;
15.                 rotation = math.mul(rotation, rotationOffset);
16.  
17.                 positionComponent.Value = position;
18.                 rotationComponent.Value = rotation;
19.  
20.                 EntityManager.SetComponentData<Translation>(e, positionComponent);
21.                 EntityManager.SetComponentData<Rotation>(e, rotationComponent);
22.             }
23.         }

 

Thanks, @steveeHavok - these are great ideas! And I am happy to hear about Math.DecomposeRigidBodyTransform, which I wasn't aware of.