Issues using SkeletonDebugger

Troubleshooting General Help
#1

Hello friends,

I have been following the beginner tutorials in the wiki and got a bit stuck on the https://wiki.jmonkeyengine.org/docs/3.3/tutorials/beginner/hello_animation.html one attempting to make the SkeletonDebugger work. After a while of tinkering with different things I managed to make it work by calling updateGeometricState() on the skeletonDebugger as a final step but I don’t understand why this worked or if am doing the correct thing.

So this is what I have (at the end of simpleInitApp, the rest of the code is exactly the same as the tutorial linked):

skeletonDebug = new SkeletonDebugger("skeleton", control.getSkeleton());
Material mat = new Material(assetManager, "Common/MatDefs/Misc/Unshaded.j3md");
mat.setColor("Color", ColorRGBA.Green);
mat.getAdditionalRenderState().setDepthTest(false);
skeletonDebug.setMaterial(mat);
player.attachChild(skeletonDebug);
skeletonDebug.updateGeometricState();

Could someone explain what is going on in updateGeometricState and if there is another thing am missing to make the skeleton debugger work?

Thanks :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
#2

I found this thread How do I make my skeleton visible? and replacing player for rootNode worked :thinking: Why must the skeletonDebug be attached to the rootNode instead of to the player? My guess is that there is a difference between attaching a child to the rootNode vs attaching to a regular model which requires some additionalUpdate (whatever that means)

#3

I’m not sure what’s going on with the difference between attaching to the scene root vs attaching to the player node - during scene update, both update the same way. If you need to resort to calling methods like updateGeometricState() you’re probably encountering the symptom of something else that’s wrong - that’s an internal engine method that you should almost never call yourself.

There’s no material difference between the root node and nodes further down in the scenegraph - as long as a node is attached, it will be updated by its parent.

#4

If skeleton debugger is attached to the player and the player is attached to the scene… the updateGeometricState() will be called automatically.

10 seconds in a debugger should prove it.