[SOLVED] Creating a primitive in my project is broken

[Charlie_Van_Norman]

If I create a BOX primitive in my existing project A, PlayCanvas | HTML5 Game Engine it creates a visible box with a RENDER component only. No other components.

If I create a BOX primitive in my new project B, PlayCanvas | HTML5 Game Engine it creates a visible box with a MODEL component only. No other components.

Why is there a difference between my two projects? This has a very negative effect, specifically I cannot switch materials on my primitive with a “RENDER” component. Switching materials on my project B is no problem.

Thanks
Charlie

UPDATE 1* It appears RENDER component is a beta feature with a planned replacement of MODEL component. But I don’t want this feature in my project, as it prevents me from changing materials on my primitive cube. How can I turn it off? Render vs Model Component?

[Charlie_Van_Norman]

I made a 30 second screen capture to illustrate the difference

primitive box creation difference in PlayCanvas

[yaustar]

Just to help clarify a few things here:

1. Render component is no longer beta. Going forward, we will be looking to deprecate Model and Animation component and replace it with Render and Anim component.

2. To disable the preset of primitive to Render, disable ‘Import Hierarchy’ in the Asset tasks. (Note that Import Hierarchy uses the Render Component when importing FBXs)

3. Or you can build the primitive from scratch by creating an Entity and adding a Model Component
   

4. To change the material on a primitive on a Render component, use the material property RenderComponent | PlayCanvas API Reference

// initialize code called once per entity
ChangeMaterial.prototype.initialize = function() {
    var matAsset = this.app.assets.find('Test material', 'material');
    this.entity.render.material = matAsset.resource;
};

Project example: https://playcanvas.com/editor/scene/1183667

[yaustar]

I see you are using the script from the tutorials for the model component: Switching materials at runtime | Learn PlayCanvas

You need to change the code so that it accesses the Render component instead.

// More information about materials: http://developer.playcanvas.com/en/tutorials/beginner/basic-materials/
var SwitchingMaterials = pc.createScript('switchingMaterials');

// Create an array of materials to cycle the model through
SwitchingMaterials.attributes.add("materials", {type: "asset", assetType: "material", array: true, title: "Materials"});

// initialize code called once per entity
SwitchingMaterials.prototype.initialize = function() {
    var self = this;
    
    this.materialIndex = 0;
    
    // Change materials every second
    setInterval(function () {
        self.changeToNextMaterial();
    }, 1000);
};


SwitchingMaterials.prototype.changeToNextMaterial = function(dt) {
    // Get the next material asset in the array 
    this.materialIndex = (this.materialIndex + 1) % this.materials.length;
    var material = this.materials[this.materialIndex];        

    // Assign the material to all the mesh instances in the model
    var meshInstances = this.entity.render.meshInstances;
    for (var i = 0; i < meshInstances.length; ++i) { 
        var mesh = meshInstances[i];
        mesh.material = material.resource;
    }
};

[Charlie_Van_Norman]

Thanks @yaustar ! I changed import settings and it’s working as expected. I’ll give the entity.render.meshInstances a try as well.