Mixedrealitytoolkit-unity: SpawnSyncModel Clarification Regarding Changes in Children

[kyleWillson]

I am trying to implement the sharing service and am having troubles wrapping my mind around the SyncSpawnModels. So for this initial test I would have 2 Buttons (btnA, btnB) and 2 primitive game objects (cubeA, sphereB). Where pressing a button displays or hides the corresponding game object (setActive(!activeSelf)). So below is an image of the setup I would like.

First off, from what I can find online, the only way to have shared game objects is to use the PrefabSpawnManager to spawn a prefab of it. Is this correct? So there would be no way to share a locally placed Object, aka I don't have to spawn a prefab in order to share?

Secondly and most importantly, when I use the PrefabSpawnManager to create the TestDisplayContainer the displaying/hiding of the game objects does sync up. So if I press Button A on Client A, the cube disappears to Client A, but it is still there for Client B. Why is this? I figure I need to modify and create my own SyncSpawnModel to account for any children a game object. Is this on target? And how would I do that? My initial thought is to make a "SyncSpawnContainer" class that might have an array of children Game Objects? But honestly I am completely lost as to how to do it, so if anyone can provide some insight that would be greatly appreciated.

[StephenHodgson]

First off, from what I can find online, the only way to have shared game objects is to use the PrefabSpawnManager to spawn a prefab of it. Is this correct?

yes

So there would be no way to share a locally placed Object, aka I don't have to spawn a prefab in order to share?

Not with the sharing service, no.

[StephenHodgson]

I'd love to go more in depth for an answer but I don't have time right now.

[kyleWillson]

That definitely helped shape my dev path, which I think is to extend CustomMessages so that it knows when something was toggled. At least the way I think I have to do this, is not going to be the easiest. So if you could, when you get some free time go into more depth because I can't find much documentation out there.

[StephenHodgson]

You're on the right path with the custom messages. CustomMessages can do what you need, but the SyncModel will be better if you have lots of things you're trying to sync.

[kyleWillson]

O thank god! I did not want to do CustomMessages for that exact reason. There are a lot of objects to sync, so I will try and dig around to see what I can learn about SyncModel in the mean time

[kyleWillson]

Alright I tried one way where I created a SyncSpawnedContainer, where I created an extension of SyncPrefabObject that had the following extra fields:

[SyncDataClass]
public class SyncSpawnedSceneContainer : SyncSpawnedObject

{

    [SyncData] public SyncTransform[] ChildrenTransforms;

    [SyncData] public SyncString[] ChildrenNames;

    [SyncData] public SyncString[] ChildrenParentPaths;

    [SyncData] public SyncString[] ChildrenObjectPaths;

    public GameObject[] Children;

    ...

}

But for that to work I had to do a little work around in PrefabSpawnManager.Spawn() so the Model could iterate through the Prefab's children and populate the values:

if (dataModel.GetType() == typeof(SyncSpawnedSceneContainer))

{

    ((SyncSpawnedSceneContainer)dataModel).InitializeChildren(prefabToSpawn);

}

This obviously isnt the proper technique, so I saw "Defining the SyncModel" here, which might suggest that I need to create a SyncArray for my Prefab. And I would essentially create an array of SyncSpawnedObject's for each Child of the prefab parent?

Does that sound closer?

[kyleWillson]

I figured it somewhat out with adding to the custom SyncSpawnedSceneContainer. A lot of debugging and probably further questions to come...

[StephenHodgson]

Glad to hear! sorry I couldn't answer all your questions right away.

I'm going to do a livestream in a next few weeks that covers the sharing service. PM me on Linkedin or Slack if you wanna know more.

[kyleWillson]

No worries, I'm actually kind of glad I got it on my own.

And I am definitely interested, I think I sent you a request on LinkedIn.

[StephenHodgson]

Yeah I agree, learning it on your own is usually the best way. Give you a better understanding, but having someone at least give you hints on what to look at is good too.

[reillydonovan]

Kyle would you mind elaborating on your workflow? I can't seem to wrap my mind around how to properly structure a project using the sync system. Any suggestions would be very helpful, thanks!