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Question by cassius · Nov 14, 2012 at 02:06 AM · coroutineprofileryield

Does This Coroutine Make Sense?

I'm new to the concept of coroutines. Within one of my scripts I check to see if a variety of different objects are close enough to the camera to enable them. If they are not, they remain disabled. The script checks the distances every X seconds.

I was noticing within Profiler that the script was taking about 2.5ms-3.5ms to process and would like to cut it down, so I modified my code (below).

Can anyone tell me if doing it this way is a good idea or not? I guess I'm specifically referring to the way the conditional statements "yield" within CheckShowOrDontShow(). From what I understand, yield will basically exit the coroutine, then next frame return to where it left off. The result is that the Profiler shows it as taking 0.15ms-0.3ms now. Great! Just not sure if I'm missing something or causing problems elsewhere.

 function Start () {
     cachedVisibleDistance = visibleDistance;
     player = GameObject.Find("Player/Ship/Ship");
     for (var child : Transform in transform) {
         // Lets us specify which child to enable/disable based on distance.
         child.transform.gameObject.SetActiveRecursively(false);
         theObject.Push(child.gameObject);
         theLocation.Push(child.position);
         theStatus.Push(false);
     }
     arrLength = theObject.length;
 }
 
 function LateUpdate () {
     if(tempTime <= Time.time) {
         // Cache the player's position so we don't have to access it every loop in CheckShowOrDontShow().  Saves CPU (Profiler)
         cachedPlayerPosition = player.transform.position;
         CheckShowOrDontShow();
     
     tempTime = distanceCheck + Time.time;
     }
 }
 
 function CheckShowOrDontShow() {
     // Get the distance to all the objects which enable or disable based on distance
     for (i=0;i<arrLength;i++) {
         if (player && theObject) {
             if(theStatus[i] == false) {
                 if(Vector3.Distance(cachedPlayerPosition, theLocation[i]) <= visibleDistance) {
                     /* Then we tell it to enable.
                     Alternatively, we could just enable and disable materials, but I
                     feel like completely disabling the objects may save resources. */
                     theObject[i].SetActiveRecursively(true);
                     theStatus[i] = true;
                 }
                 yield;    // Check Profiler to see if this helps with processing time
             } else {
                 // We should also disable currently enabled objects if they're farther than visibleDistance
                 if (Vector3.Distance(cachedPlayerPosition, theLocation[i]) > visibleDistance) {
                     theObject[i].SetActiveRecursively(false);
                     theStatus[i] = false;
                 }
                 yield;    // Check Profiler to see if this helps with processing time
             }
         }
     }
 }
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Answer by whydoidoit · Nov 14, 2012 at 09:32 AM

That's a great use of coroutines. Perfect multi-frame shifting of effort is a very good idea.

I would suggest that you square visibleDistance at the start and then check (cachedPlayerPosition - theLocation[i]).sqrMagnitude because square roots are recursive and expensive. There's some more advanced info on coroutines available on Unity Gems

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avatar image cassius · Nov 14, 2012 at 05:03 PM 0
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Thanks a bunch, $$anonymous$$ike!

Just to clarify on your suggestion, are you suggesting the following revisions?

  function Start () {
       visibleDistance = visibleDistance*visibleDistance;
       cachedVisibleDistance = visibleDistance;

and then swapping out

  if(Vector3.Distance(cachedPlayerPosition, theLocation[i]) <= visibleDistance) {

with this?

  if((cachedPlayerPosition - theLocation[i]).sqr$$anonymous$$agnitude <= visibleDistance) {

I'll be sure to check out Unity Gems. Thanks for the tip.

avatar image whydoidoit · Nov 14, 2012 at 05:04 PM 0
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Yeah that's what I was thinking... I normally have a visibleDistanceSquared kind of variable myself.

avatar image cassius · Nov 14, 2012 at 05:19 PM 0
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Oh I see. According to the Unity docs, Vector3.Distance(a,b) is the same as (a-b).magnitude and that "calculating the squared magnitude ins$$anonymous$$d of the magnitude is much faster." I didn't realize either one of those so thanks for bringing that to my attention, $$anonymous$$ike.

Cheers, will mark this as answered. :)

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