Is there a chance to use switches on groundtextures? Without using colliders or tags.

Question

Hi,

I'm working on an open-world-game with a big map. The terrain is a "single gameobject", without extra gameobjects for cliffs, paths etc. Therefore I cannot tag them to have effect on my footsteps. Is there another way to do it without creating and placing colliders on the whole map? Is there a chance to use switches for textures?

 

Thanks for your help!

Regards,

Nils

Answer 1

Hey Nils, 

Yes it is possible, but it's a quite demanding process. 

If you are using Unity, you believe you can... Raycast on the surface below the player and get the 3 vertices of the "hit" polygon. Then compare the "material" of each vertex to see which material they all have in common, and set the Switch based on that. We actually tried using this method in the Wwise Adventure Game, but scrapped it because it wasn't very performant. Instead, we split the map mesh into areas, created a "tag"-like script called "SoundMaterial" where you set the switch, which worked way better.

Honestly, unless they absolutely NEED the entire map to be one mesh, I would try convincing them to break it up into pieces, cause it's not only audio that would benefit from not having to scan a gigantic mesh. 

Also, if you're stuck with using triggers, then ProBuilder is a great tool in Unity for creating custom shapes. 

Let me know if this helps! 

Cheers, 
Mads