5.10 - Remote Attachment

Table of Contents

• 5.10.1 Adding Existing Components to a Remote Entity
• 5.10.2 Adding New or Modified Components to a Remote Entity
• 5.10.3 Overriding the Remote Attachment Process

As described in "Configuring VR-Forces Components on Remote Entities", in VR-Forces Configuration Guide, remote attachment is a mechanism that lets you attach sensors, controllers, and actuators to remote entities.

Depending on your objectives, you may or may not need to write code to take advantage of this capability.

Note:

While remote entities can be configured with various types of components (sensors, controllers, actuators, and systems of components), keep in mind that there are cases in which remote attachment will not make sense. Some examples of limitations to the remote attachment mechanism:

• You would not attach a movement system to a remote entity, because that movement system would have no effect on the network state of the entity.
• Some components have built in expectations that they will be attached to a locally simulated entity. Sensors and weapon systems that depend on certain articulated parts in the host entity might not work properly in a remote environment, especially if those articulations are not being published by the entity.
• Some components may require a certain orientation of the entity to be effective, and will be unable to communicate desired orientation to the remote host entity.

5.10.1 Adding Existing Components to a Remote Entity

If you just want to equip a remote entity with an existing component or system, then you will not need to write any code. For details about how to configure remote attachment, please see "Configuring VR-Forces Components on Remote Entities", in VR-Forces Configuration Guide.

5.10.2 Adding New or Modified Components to a Remote Entity

If you want to customize existing VR-Forces components for remote attachment, or you want to create new kinds of components to attach to remote entities, then you will need to write some code and configure the new components for attachment. Create or extend existing components through the toolkit as you would normally. There are numerous API examples included with VR-Forces that demonstrate how to create or extend components in VR-Forces. Once the new components are available though a back-end plug-in, configure the new components for remote attachment as described in "Configuring VR-Forces Components on Remote Entities", in VR-Forces Configuration Guide.

5.10.3 Overriding the Remote Attachment Process

Typically, you will not need to override the remote attachment process itself. However there are a few hooks in the process which you may want to override and insert your own code, as follows:

• Upon new arrival of remote entity: DtRemoteComponentAttachmentManager::addRecentArrival()
• Determining whether or not remote attachment should take place: DtRemoteComponentAttachmentManager::addRemoteConfigurationToObject()
• Deferred initialization (actual attachment of components to remote object): DtRemoteComponentAttachmentManager::doDeferredInitialization().

To override any of the above functions, you will need to create a derived DtRemoteComponentAttachmentManager class. Create a derived DtVrfObjectManager class, and override its createRemoteComponentAttachmentManager() member function to have it create an instance of your derived class.

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