User placed objects in scene?

Unity Engine
1

Hello all! I know this is possible. What I would like to be able to do is to have the ability for the end user to pick from a GUI, with pre-made objects and be able to interactively place them within a scene. A sort of sandbox with a kit-of-parts for the end user to play with.

The closest example I could find/think of was Playstation Home’s ability to customize a virtual apartment with furniture, etc. The user would be able to pick an object an interactively translate, rotate in 3d space and ‘drop’ the object into the scene.

I know the scenario is broad, but I was wondering if there was anyone doing this sort of thing already and maybe they could give me some pointers/advice. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

Cheers,

Gary Haus

2

On the placement side of things, you probably want to use Camera.ScreenPointToRay in conjunction with Input.mousePosition.

For the GUI side of things, either check out Shaun’s GUIBuilder or wait for Unity 2’s built-in GUI system.

3

i’m doing something similar too - what muriac said works great. also if you look at my explosivo entry* the crosshair is a 3d object that snaps to the hit normal at the mouse position and instantiates a bomb at that spot on mouse click.

*you can get it here (i still can’t upload to the wiki for some reason ; )

http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=5864&start=150

4

Thanks guys! I will be looking at this stuff and try to understand it more. I wish I was more versed in coding stuff sometimes. Thank you both very much!

Gary

5

one other tidbit of info - when you have a grabbed object make sure you switch its layer to ignore raycast or it’ll mess up the mouse position controls.

may seem obvious but i missed that at first in the game i’m working on ; )

6

This sounds a lot like my explosivo entry: http://www.unifycommunity.com/wiki/index.php?title=Unity_Explosivo!#Independence_Day_Soldier

I am sorry I cannot release the source of it yet but I will as soon as I can.

7

Yes, it’s possible in Unity 1.6.2. :slight_smile:

We developed a really full featured, easy to use, drag and drop engine for this with Unity similar to what you’ve said. There is a web backend where users and data is securely saved, and there is even an administrator interface to the backend. We are open to licensing the engine, but the specific skin and content etc. is specific for our client.


(Dragging and dropping a new model into the scene)


(Dragging and dropping a decoration (texture) into the scene)

Cheers,
-Jon

8

WOW - that looks great, Jon.

9

WOW is right! That GUI is awesome! Looks almost like Aqua :smile:

10

Wow is right! That is some amazing work there Jonathan! Could you PM me about specifics regarding licensing some of the tech you have developed there to use in our simulations? Very interested! Thank you!

Gary Haus