Floating Origin
The floating origin system allows you to create large scenes in your game without experiencing the shaking of the camera and UI that typically occcurs when the player gets too far from the scene center.
The problem exists because, at larger distances, more bits in the floating point number are used up by the whole number part of the position values, and fewer bits are available for decimal points.
The way that the floating origin system deals with this is by periodically moving the player back toward the center of the scene, and adjusting the relative position of everything else to make it look as if nothing changed.
Scene Setup
To set up a scene to use the floating origin:
Add a Floating Origin Manager component anywhere in your scene. This is a singleton, so there must be only one of them in the scene at any time.
Customize the Max Distance From Center value (how far the camera gets from scene center before repositioning)
Floating Origin Objects
A floating origin object is any object that must be re-positioned relative to the player when the floating origin is updated.
Usually this includes any part of the visible scenery that changes position relative to the player, including asteroids, space stations, ships, projectiles, missiles, environment assets, and more
Object Setup
To create a floating origin object, simply add a Floating Origin Object to it. It will automatically be repositioned when the origin moves.
It may simplify things to create static stuff such as environment objects under one root Transform, and add a Floating Origin Object component to it.
Events/Functions
When a Floating Origin Object is moved, it can sometimes result in glitches involving things that rely on world-space position information.
To avoid this, the Floating Origin Object component contains two functions you can override to manage problems:
On Pre Origin Shift - called immediately before a floating origin position update.
On Post Origin Shift - called immediately after a floating origin position update.
You can store state information in the On Pre Origin Shift function and restore or modify it in the On Post Origin Shift function.
The Floating Origin Object component already automatically manages Trail Renderers and World Space Particles placed anywhere in its hierarchy.
Getting The Floating Origin Position
If the player keeps getting moved back to the center as they move away from the origin, it may be difficult to know what the actual position of an object in the scene is.
You can easily access this information with the following code:
Activating/Deactivating The Floating Origin
Sometimes you may want to temporarily deactivate the floating origin manager, for example when playing a cutscene that would be interfered with by a floating origin shift.
To do this, you can activate or deactivate the floating origin with the following code:
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