Solar Panel always faces edge-on to sun

[Squiggsy]

helloo I am having a rather confusing issue with the solar panels I am making, after having made some with no issues at all now these new ones always face edge on to the sun, no matter what the local orientation of the object set as raycastTransform is, I have redone the animation multiple times after changing local orientations of panels in blender and tried it with z+ x+ and y+ facing the way I want and yet the panels ALWAYS face the same way irrespective of this. Is there something I am missing to do with what needs to be facing z+?

I have also tried making an empty in unity and parenting it to a panel and changing its local orientation and setting that as raycastTransform with the same result, always the same edge points to the sun...

ok I have done this over and over now, remade it from the ground up making sure everything is lined up the same as the set i made that work, no matter what happens they just point edge on! really confused, thought maybe it was the config because that is the only thing that has remained the same over the multiple version but i can't see anything in it that could possibly cause this so I am stumped.

Edited May 7, 2015 by Squiggsy

[CaptainKipard]

If raycastTransform is the object that rotates dynamically in the game then obviously rotating it in Unity wont work, right? I've never done panels before but if I had to guess you need to rotate the hierarchy UNDER that parent not the parent itself.

[Squiggsy]

If raycastTransform is the object that rotates dynamically in the game then obviously rotating it in Unity wont work, right? I've never done panels before but if I had to guess you need to rotate the hierarchy UNDER that parent not the parent itself.

hmm but surely since its the local orientation I'm changing (in blender) and the local orientation moves with the object, it will always be the same relative to the object regardless of dynamic movement?

the problem is that with panels you have to make a parent chain going from the last panel up the chain to the main parent which is the pivot point, and changing the local orientation of the pivot point will change the way it pivots, which ruins the whole thing.

then again i get very confused trying to get my head around roations in unity and blender because orientations change from one to the other, the thing that is really odd is that I looked back at my first set of panels that work fine and sorted all the local orientations so they were the same as that one, re animated it and still got the exact same result,

[CaptainKipard]

I'm pretty sure the game rotates this object absolutely, not incrementally from what you set it. You're not setting anything. It's like the lookAt constraint. No amount of rotation is going to make a difference.

- - - Updated - - -

Show your hierarchy

[Squiggsy]

here's the hierarchy

and here it is deployed with the local Z+ of what I have set as the raycasttransform facing out from the panel like i'm pretty sure it should.

Edited May 7, 2015 by Squiggsy

[Nertea]

RaycastTransform doesn't aim the panel, the object you specify as the rotator does.

[Squiggsy]

oh I thought the pivot point aims the panel but the raycasttransform tell the panel which way to face?

that could make a lot of sense actually the Z+ of the pivot point is facing the direction that the panels are aiming in game.

does the raycasttransform just determine what area needs to be exposed to light to get power from then?

ah yes actually looking at the one i got to work that is indeed the way its pivot is facing, i overlooked that completely because i was focusing on the raycasttransform

time to undo my animation and parenting in blender and reorient the pivot and try again then!

Edited May 7, 2015 by Squiggsy

[CaptainKipard]

From the name I'd guess raycasttransform is used for sun ray vector calculations used to calculate the proportion of your total potential power generation.

[Squiggsy]

I COULD KISS YOU RIGHT NOW NERTEA

but that would be weird instead I will say a massive thank you, that is exactly what my problem was.

To summarize encase someone comes across this forum post suffering the same problems :

The object set as solar pivot will rotate along its local Y axis and make its local Z+ axis face the sun.

raycastTransform does not determine this (pretty sure the tutorial post on it says that it does, or at least a comment somewhere in it does)

thanks again! now I am nearly ready for a release of my aeroplane launched MiniRocket & MicroSat

Edited May 7, 2015 by Squiggsy