All objects have moved out on coordinate Z

[Fitbie]

Hello! As always, I’m working in Unity and suddenly I notice that some objects that I manually added the Sprite Renderer are not displayed. I look at the Z-coordinate and see: all objects on all scenes moved off-axis Z and are at different coordinates (some -60, some 1, some 70)
What could this be due to? I honestly did not pay much attention to the Z-coordinate before. I use Cinemachine cameras, if it’s important.

[Fitbie]

Note: apparently this is something to do with the camera, for scenes without it all is normal. But I missed the moment when it happened. Tell me if this is normal and will not cause problems in the game?
I tried adding a camera where it was missing and nothing moved.

[Kurt-Dekker]

@Fitbie

What could this be due to?

Some candidate causes:

• you dragged it there in the first place when you put it in scene

• you inadvertently clicked on the blue plate when sliding around with the move widget

• some other editor script moved it

Whatever it is, I would suggest keeping things at z == 0 if you are doing 2D, just to reduce confusion. Also keep this in mind:

Three (3) ways that Unity draws / stacks / sorts / layers / overlays stuff:

orthographic camera rendering order?

Unity draws things a few different ways, regardless of ortho vs perspective. The default 3D Renderers draw stuff according to Z depth - distance from camera. Sprites draw according to Sorting Layer and Sorting Depth (properties of the Sprite Renderer) UI Canvas Renderers draw in linear sequence, as if you were pasting papers atop each other When you mix and match you can get these issues. There are workarounds for all combinations. Google up mixing sprites with 3D objects, and mixing 3D obj…

In short,

1. The default 3D Renderers draw stuff according to Z depth - distance from camera.

2. SpriteRenderers draw according to their Sorting Layer and Sorting Depth properties

3. UI Canvas Renderers draw in linear transform sequence, like a stack of papers

If you find that you need to mix and match items using these different ways of rendering, and have them appear in ways they are not initially designed for, you need to:

• identify what you are using
• search online for the combination of things you are doing and how to to achieve what you want.

There may be more than one solution to try.

Additional reading in the official docs:

Unity - Manual: 2D Sorting

[Fitbie]

@Kurt-Dekker

Some candidate causes:

• you dragged it there in the first place when you put it in scene

• you inadvertently clicked on the blue plate when sliding around with the move widget

• some other editor script moved it

Whatever it is, I would suggest keeping things at z == 0 if you are doing 2D, just to reduce confusion. Also keep this in mind:

Three (3) ways that Unity draws / stacks / sorts / layers / overlays stuff:

https://discussions.unity.com/t/841904/2

In short,

1. The default 3D Renderers draw stuff according to Z depth - distance from camera.

2. SpriteRenderers draw according to their Sorting Layer and Sorting Depth properties

3. UI Canvas Renderers draw in linear transform sequence, like a stack of papers

If you find that you need to mix and match items using these different ways of rendering, and have them appear in ways they are not initially designed for, you need to:

• identify what you are using
• search online for the combination of things you are doing and how to to achieve what you want.

There may be more than one solution to try.

Additional reading in the official docs:

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/2DSorting.html

If I understand you correctly, I can just put all the objects on the Z coordinate to 0. Thank you! The main thing is not to break anything I will familiarize myself with the documentation.

[Kurt-Dekker]

@Fitbie

The main thing is not to break anything

If you’re not breaking anything, you’re probably not working efficiently.

The key is to constantly break and fix stuff to gain more knowledge about how it all works.

[Fitbie]

@Kurt-Dekker

If you’re not breaking anything, you’re probably not working efficiently.

The key is to constantly break and fix stuff to gain more knowledge about how it all works.

Can I ask offtopic questions?

1. I copy the same Cinemachine camera and Main Camera for every scene from start scene (its fast). But on some scenes I can’t change their Z-coordinate (its like freeze), but on others I can. What does this have to do with, I googled everything and couldn’t find
2. I have UI buttons. And when I click on them, they start responding to pressing the Submit key (I have a spacebar). Is there any way to disable them from interacting with the space bar, so that the buttons are only pressed with the mouse? Thank you!

[Kurt-Dekker]

@Fitbie

But on some scenes I can’t change their Z-coordinate (its like freeze), but on others I can.

Can’t change Z of what, the camera? Or something else? A script could be doing it.

@Fitbie

Is there any way to disable them from interacting with the space bar, so that the buttons are only pressed with the mouse?

That’s an interesting question. Perhaps by adding an EventTrigger class to the button you can control more precisely what you respond to?? I haven’t tested it but that’s the first thing that comes to mind.

As for copying stuff around, that’s always a bad way to work.

Additive scene loading is one possible solution:

Right way for performance, divide scene?

I always favor breaking the scenes up and loading additively. reduces overall memory consumption lets multiple team members trample on each other less often ensures clean “reset” of all objects in a fresh loaded scene I’m working on a game now where we each have our own “content” level, the level we’re working on. the content scene has all the lighting baked in. Just press play and that level has one script that additively loads: music scene (just an audiosource on autoplay) the …

Right way for performance, divide scene?

Glad you asked… going this route definitely requires slightly-higher awareness of what scene is what. In no particular order, responding to you questions, When the game or level is over, I try to go to a fresh “end level” scene (not additively!) and clear everything else out (except overall ongoing game manager obviously, as a singleton) when the game gets paused I stop time and bring up a pause scene that sorts above all else, then unload it and restart the time. OR if you quit, I just …

Problem with canvas & UI prefabs

There are underlying reasons this happened and you can track it down by examining everything about each scene's canvas setup and scaling that are different from the other. But keep in mind it might not be super-easily to address it in the general case, especially if you start partitioning your UI into chunks. An alternate workflow is to put chunks of your UI into separate scenes and then load those scenes additively. For instance you might have the following scenes, all loaded additively: …

A multi-scene loader thingy:

Unity additive scene loading example - Pastebin.com

My typical Scene Loader:

https://gist.github.com/kurtdekker/862da3bc22ee13aff61a7606ece6fdd3

Other notes on additive scene loading:

Removing Duplicates on Load Scene

Why not remove the player from ALL your scenes, put him in his own separate scene, then load scenes additively? That way you don’t even need a Player prefab at all, just have a Player scene and load him additively. I tend to break up all my games into partial scenes, all additively loaded by the game manager: UI player enemy manager other stuff? and then finally I load the content scene. The first batch of screens all have scripts that do nothing until the content scene appears and they kn…

Timing of scene loading:

Function called from preloader script doesn't change parent of gameobject (in the second scene)

If line 8 relies on something being present from the scene load in line 7 (in GameController), it won't be: scenes are loaded at the end of frame and would never be available until the next frame, at the very earliest. You can trivially make void Start() into a coroutine by declaring it to return an IEnumerator, then put a while loop (with a yield return null; in it!!!) to wait until the scene loads and you find the "Trains" object, then proceed. Obviously you would need to interlock other t…

Also, if something exists only in one scene, DO NOT MAKE A PREFAB out of it. It’s a waste of time and needlessly splits your work between two files, the prefab and the scene, leading to many possible errors and edge cases.

Two similar examples of checking if everything is ready to go:

Daily Events and content changes

I think multiple scenes are definitely worth chasing. You need to make everything in your game tolerant of perhaps not having stuff ready at the same time, and you have to track things that you need only ONE of: Camera (Main) Audio Listener EventSystem I like to put all of those in the BASE scene if possible, then load other scenes like UI and pause and the level itself, etc. You have to sort of figure out which works for you. You can actually make Start() be a coroutine too, such as lookin…

Unit scripts calling Start function before other scripts

Indeed. I like to use a lot of additively-loaded scenes, so I tend to code my individual item controllers (including the player controller) so that they are happy to wait around if other stuff isn’t ready yet. You can make Start() into a coroutine, which is a super-easy way to get this kind of lazy-sloppy startup that is extremely tolerant of late loading and uneven loading. // typical base framework for all entities bool ready; IEnumerator Start () { // don't proceed unt…

[Fitbie]

@Kurt-Dekker

That’s an interesting question. Perhaps by adding an EventTrigger class to the button you can control more precisely what you respond to?? I haven’t tested it but that’s the first thing that comes to mind.

No, I figured it out on my own.
Put “None” in the “Navigation” field. It fixed problem with triggering UI button on use “Submit” button.
You must have misunderstood me about additive loading. I just copy objects in the editor, nothing is copied in the game. Why do I need additive loading? Or are you on the wrong topic?

[Kurt-Dekker]

@Fitbie

Why do I need additive loading?

I was thinking you meant you had a very specific camera setup and you were copying it from scene to scene.

My suggestion re additive scene was, “Have a camera scene that you load with every level scene.”