Questions about the action 'InitialRandomSpaw'

[liuxz-cs]

Excuse me, I have some question about the parameter of the action InitialRandomSpaw. In the parameter numDuplicatesOfType, we wet the count of each objects. And the count is the max number of the object of the specific type because of the spawn failures sometimes. So if we set the cound bigger than 0, is it likely that the number of the object in the type is 0? If so, how can we avoid that the actual number of a object type is 0?

And what's the relationship between the parameter numPlacementAttempts and the count? Does the numPlacementAttempts mean the number of the attempts of spawn of each object of the specific type? So, actually, the platform trys to spawn a object type for totally count * numPlacementAttempts times？

[winthos]

The numDuplicatesOfType is the number of attempted duplicates of an object that currently exists in the scene. It cannot be used to spawn in new objects that are not already present in the scene, as it makes a copy of an object that already exists. Because of this, you will never have the total number of objects be 0 for a specific object, because this parameter will only work if the original object(s) already exist by default in a scene.

Additionally, numPlacementAttempts is not at all related to the number of duplicates of an object specified by numDuplicatesOfType. What happens is, you pick an object to duplicate, and for each duplicate up to the numDuplicatesOfType, it will try and place that copy of the object on some free receptacle surface in the room. This is where numPlacementAttempts comes in. The higher the numPlacementAttempts is, the more spawn points on a receptacle will be tried to see if an object or a copy of an object will fit. When an object is shuffled by InitialRandomSpawn, what happens is a number of potential points within/on a receptacle are tried to see if an object can fit without colliding with anything. The numPlacementAttempts limits how many of these potential positions are checked, as checking all of the available positions will take a long time. This is an expensive collision check, so increasing the numPlacementAttempts will likely result in better success of moving an object to a new position, but it will cost performance.

To summarize, numDuplicatesOfType will be the maximum number of duplicates of an existing object that could exist in a scene. Higher numPlacementAttempts values allows greater accuracy to find a free position on a receptacle for either placing new duplicates specified by numDuplicatesOfType, or for just shuffling the positions of existing objects, at the cost of performance.

[liuxz-cs]

The numDuplicatesOfType is the number of attempted duplicates of an object that currently exists in the scene. It cannot be used to spawn in new objects that are not already present in the scene, as it makes a copy of an object that already exists. Because of this, you will never have the total number of objects be 0 for a specific object, because this parameter will only work if the original object(s) already exist by default in a scene.

Additionally, numPlacementAttempts is not at all related to the number of duplicates of an object specified by numDuplicatesOfType. What happens is, you pick an object to duplicate, and for each duplicate up to the numDuplicatesOfType, it will try and place that copy of the object on some free receptacle surface in the room. This is where numPlacementAttempts comes in. The higher the numPlacementAttempts is, the more spawn points on a receptacle will be tried to see if an object or a copy of an object will fit. When an object is shuffled by InitialRandomSpawn, what happens is a number of potential points within/on a receptacle are tried to see if an object can fit without colliding with anything. The numPlacementAttempts limits how many of these potential positions are checked, as checking all of the available positions will take a long time. This is an expensive collision check, so increasing the numPlacementAttempts will likely result in better success of moving an object to a new position, but it will cost performance.

To summarize, numDuplicatesOfType will be the maximum number of duplicates of an existing object that could exist in a scene. Higher numPlacementAttempts values allows greater accuracy to find a free position on a receptacle for either placing new duplicates specified by numDuplicatesOfType, or for just shuffling the positions of existing objects, at the cost of performance.

Okay, so only if there already exists an Apple can I use InitialRandomSpawn and numDuplicatesOfType to get the duplicates of Apple. Then, if I set the count to be 2 in numDuplicatesOfType and all the spawn attempts are successful, what's the number of Apple, 2 or 3? I want to ask about the mearning of count, does it mean the total number or the duplicate number except the one that already exists?

[winthos]

Ah I see. The numDuplicatesOfType sets the max total number of objects including the original. So for your example, if you set the numDuplicatesOfType of an apple that originally exists in the scene to 2, you will end up with at most 2 total apples, one duplicate and the original apple. This is a little unintuitive, so we will add a warning in our documentation to make this more clear.

[liuxz-cs]

Ah I see. The numDuplicatesOfType sets the max total number of objects including the original. So for your example, if you set the numDuplicatesOfType of an apple that originally exists in the scene to 2, you will end up with at most 2 total apples, one duplicate and the original apple. This is a little unintuitive, so we will add a warning in our documentation to make this more clear.

Okay, thanks a lot!