Can you query for a specif part of a meshInstance?

Help & Support
1

Hi,

I’m wondering if there is functionality inside PlayCanvas that let’s you query for a specific part on a model. I know how to query for a GraphNode and set rotation etc, but from a GraphNode I can’t seem to get to the meshInstance to replace/clone a specific material.

I wrote this helper method to iterate through the mesh of a given entity, but was wondering if a more efficient way is available.

findPartByName: function(partName){
        
    // Find the given part and if found, return it.
    for(var i=0; i<this.entity.model.model.meshInstances.length; i++){
        var modelPart = this.entity.model.model.meshInstances[i]; 
        
        if( modelPart && modelPart.node.name === partName ){
            return modelPart;
        }               
    }

    return null;
}
2

That is the way I’d do it. Except maybe slightly more optimized:

findPartByName: function (partName) {
    var meshInstances = this.entity.model.model.meshInstances;
    var numMeshInstances = meshInstances.length;

    // Find the given part and if found, return it.
    for (var i = 0; i < numMeshInstances; i++) {
        var meshInstance = meshInstances[i]; 
    
        if (meshInstance.node.name === partName) {
            return meshInstance;
        }               
    }

    return null;
}
3

Thanks for the help Will…

Have you got any tips on integrating nicely this so I don’t have to repeat this code a lot in individual script files? I tried extending the pc.Entity object (as that has the findXXX methods) but I don’t seem to get that to work.

4

Never mind! After peeking at the sourcecode on Github I found a way to extend the entity object like this:

pc.extend(pc.Entity.prototype, {
    
    findByPartName: function (partName) {
        
        if(!this.model || !this.model.model || !this.model.model.meshInstances) {
            return null;
        }
        
        var meshInstances = this.model.model.meshInstances;
        var numMeshInstances = meshInstances.length;

        // Find the given part and if found, return it.
        for (var i = 0; i < numMeshInstances; i++) {
            var meshInstance = meshInstances[i]; 

            if (meshInstance.node.name === partName) {
                return meshInstance;
            }               
        }

        return null;
    }
});