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Physics Raycast gives hit in wrong place
Hello. In my game I need to get distance from the path (which is in my case a LineRenderer fed with path points). As I did not find any better solution to get distance from LineRenderer in Unity I am doing it this way:
I am generating a mesh collider for followed line (based on its points) perpendicular to X-Z plane with some hight.
From point where I want measure distance to path I am sending 360 Raycasts (every 1° degree) in all directions.
From all successful hits (I am checking Physics.Raycast return value and a tag of hit object if it is "Path") I am selecting hit with the smallest distance.
And that works for most of the time. The problem is that lately I have found out that in some cases the shortest ray is actually wrong - especially close to the place where path is curved. Then I have added Debug.DrawLine() to see what ray hits are actually sensed. It turned out that some of successfully returned hits, event if the tag of collider is "Path" stop in the middle of the distance to the LineRenderer in empty space. Hence sometimes the shortest distance to the followed path is false.
Please see attached screenshots:
In the second image you can see that few rays are actually stopped in the middle of the distance to mesh collider which they "hit". I have removed from the scene all other objects than the center of rays and actual path - to do not interrupt the rays to hit a mesh collider. Code for sending rays:
private float GetDistanceFromRefLine () { Vector3 currPos = getLinePosition (vehicle.GetFrontAxlePosition ()); float dist = Mathf.Infinity; RaycastHit hit; Physics.queriesHitBackfaces = true; foreach (Vector3 dir in raysDirections) { if (Physics.Raycast (currPos, dir, out hit, 100)) { if (hit.collider.tag != "Path") continue; Debug.DrawLine (currPos, hit.point, Color.red, 1); if (hit.distance < dist) { dist = hit.distance; } } } return dist; }
Generating LineRendered mesh procedure:
private void CreateLineMesh () { int count = line.positionCount; if (count < 2) { return; } Vector3[] points = new Vector3[count]; line.GetPositions (points); Vector3[] verticsArray = new Vector3[(count * 2 - 2) * 3]; int[] trianglesArray = new int[(count * 2 - 2) * 3]; int j = 0; for (int i = 0; i < count - 1; i += 1, j += 6) { Vector3 point1 = new Vector3 (points[i].x, 2f, points[i].z); Vector3 point2 = new Vector3 (points[i].x, -2f, points[i].z); Vector3 point3 = new Vector3 (points[i + 1].x, 2f, points[i + 1].z); Vector3 point4 = new Vector3 (points[i + 1].x, -2f, points[i + 1].z); verticsArray[j] = point1; verticsArray[j + 1] = point2; verticsArray[j + 2] = point3; verticsArray[j + 3] = point3; verticsArray[j + 4] = point2; verticsArray[j + 5] = point4; trianglesArray[j] = j; trianglesArray[j + 1] = j + 1; trianglesArray[j + 2] = j + 2; trianglesArray[j + 3] = j + 3; trianglesArray[j + 4] = j + 4; trianglesArray[j + 5] = j + 5; } mesh.Clear (); mesh.vertices = verticsArray; mesh.triangles = trianglesArray; mesh.RecalculateNormals (); mesh.RecalculateBounds (); Destroy (meshCollider.sharedMesh); meshCollider.sharedMesh = mesh; }
The same behavior is existing in Unity 2019.4.22f1 (LTS) and 2020.1.0f1. I am working on Linux (maybe this is something relevant).
More screenshots:
image1, image2, image3, image4, image5
Do you think that it is maybe actual Unity bug?
I have no deeper understanding of this but here's Just few things to check..
It seems the actual collision mesh continues straight line even if it seems to bend.
So, is the linerender moving or morphing? How often / when are you generating the mesh?
If the mesh is moving or morphing (vertex values are changing while tris order can remain same) I have found a need to update also the meshcollider by setting the istrigger and convex values again.. otherwise the mesh data don't match the actual collider anymore.. However if you generate the mesh from scratch all the time this probably has nothing to do with it... but anyway might be worth checking.
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