mesh.parent seems to mess up vectors of children

[georage]

http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#3HNIJ#1

I am trying to create a Fischer Price type toy with three meshes. I was thinking I could combine the three meshes and have one solid mesh and just move one mesh. Originally I tried connecting them with joints to give the character parts a little movement but the joints were way too loose.

After creating and positioning my three meshes, whenever I try to make one mesh a parent it changes the location of the children. That seems very weird. 

Any ideas on how to combine these meshes? I tried another method (forget what it was called) and it said it was deprecated and to use child/parent.

I want the option of making the meshes different colors too.

Thanks for any tips.

 

 

[JohnK]

Try setting parents before positioning.

[georage]

Thanks, I figured it out. 

The trick is to make the lowest mesh the parent. Or at least that worked for me. I will try your method.

It is very strange that children inherit the x and z values of the parent, but not the y value. It seems the values would be absolutes until the render loop runs.

http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#3HNIJ#4

 

EDIT: I tried JohnK's suggestion (setting the parent after creating the meshes but before positioning them and it did not work. The playground linked above is the only way I could get it to work.

 

Edited July 12, 2016 by georage
I tested JohnK suggested

[Wingnut]

Hi again, g!

http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#3HNIJ#5

I tried a little parenting myself.  In this animated version...

http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#3HNIJ#6

...I am moving ONLY body1.  Feet1 and head1 come along for the ride... due-to parenting.

Anything seen there... that helps?  Hope so.

[georage]

Very cool Wingnut, thanks. Very helpful.

I think part of my problem was trying to create the meshes at a non-zero spot ... i was creating the hockey players in their positions instead of at center ice. Changing the x and z positions of the meshes before parenting was rocking my brain!

[georage]

Thanks to everyone's help I have this working reasonably well, but only the parent mesh seems to have collisions? 

Right now when the toy players fall over only their feet collide with other player feet. I would like the body and head to also give collisions.

I tried adding impostors to the children in the makePlayer function but things got really weird ... the players started flying apart like the parts were exploding! 

 

[GameMonetize]

Summoning @RaananW

[RaananW]

Did someone call me?

Physics? Yei! Parenting? YEAH! 

So, this is how it is done - http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#3HNIJ#14

You set impostors to all of the child meshes, and then set an impostor to the parent. The parent then "removes" the other impostors and creates a single compound. Now the body1 impostor controls all three together.

Click your mouse and see what happens when you apply impulse to the body. I noticed a small bug (which was not intended) regarding the physics impostors of the others (which are simply removed and not available), but that shouldn't stop you from developing your great game.

[georage]

Thanks! I got collisions working on all the player meshes. Things are really bouncy still but I will play with the restitution values and see if I can tone it down. Thanks again!