Digital Workshop

What is the smallest possible object that can be used as a collision trigger.

I have several rows of test objects. In each row I want to highlight one or more of these objects. That's not the problem. Using collision triggers, and variables, the highlighting works as required.

The pencil vector which I use as one of the collision objects has to be large enough to be attractive to the end-user, so it's size can only be reduced so far.

The challenge is that the whole of the pencil acts as a trigger object, and this means that the sharp end of the pencil and the blunt end can simultaneously intersect with other objects on vertically adjacent lines.

In an attempt to restrict the active portion of the pencil, I added another vector as just the sharp pencil tip, and assigned this tip as the active collision object. By doing this, I precented the simultaneous interaction with objects in adjacent lines.

Unfortunately, while this sounds good in theory, it does not work.

Does anyone have any idea of how I can define a very small object as a trigger and include it withing the vector object that is the pencil?

I hope I have explained this in a meaningful way. If it will help, I'll strip down what I want to do to its simplest form and post the imp file.

Hi,

Thank you for your enquiry.

I'm not sure that I fully understand your query, but could you not group together the sharp and blunt ends of the pencil within a frame, enable the 'Ignore transparent area' option in the properties of the frame, then use this frame as the collision object?

If this does not answer your query, could you possibly provide me with an example publication which demonstrates the problem?

I hope this helps. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further queries.

Kind regards,

<< "but could you not group together the sharp and blunt ends of the pencil within a frame, enable the 'Ignore transparent area' option in the properties of the frame, then use this frame as the collision object?" >>
------------

Hi Robin,

Hope Ray does not mind me taking the liberty to jump in here...

I can vouch for knowing about this issue quite well. See the combined attached screenshot, of what I found had to be selected in the Objects Collision Enter.

Two vectors were placed in the Frame (as you'll see from the screenshot). The problem was that the Frame had to be selected also, and this meant the frame triggered the collision action. (not desirable) If the just the 'tip' of the pencil was selected (re: screenshot) it would NOT activate the collision enter trigger.

Now tonight... I assigned "ignore transparent area" of the Frame -- tried again... same problem of the Frame triggering the collision. I then unchecked the tick box, and it suddenly all worked as expected!

Now for the idiosyncracy... I went back and unchecked on the frame "ignore transparent area" and things still work as we hoped. I then toggled on and off in the testing the Frame checkbox for the collision. What is extremely baffling is now this is working. I can assure you there was no program/assignment error on my part before. It seems once things got working, it seemed to flush out whatever was causing things not to work as expected before. Very strange...

UPDATE EDIT: Now it's decided not to work! I had to redo all the above again *with* the Frame collsion enter to get things working. I have this glitch saved in an IMP, to prove it's not any medication I'm on.

I can supply this IMP file privately at your request with Ray's permission.