Description of the issue:
When following the tutorial listed as the 1st in the guides section (The Basics – Niantic Lightship) the creation of a empty game object named SceneManager is said to be not required any more as of ARDK 2.3 and the step 9 is struck through. But here is the issue, that SceneManager game object is referred to again and again through the tutorial (I.E. Step 10, Step 11, Step 12, Step 13 and Step 14). This makes moving forward impossible as there is no mention of the object that is to be selected instead of SceneMaster. (Potential fix to documentation and video required)
I realize the solution to this will be a simple fix but think it’s important to get the tutorials working seamlessly so new developers like me will feel accomplished and be able to take full advantage of the ARDK.
Thank you for pointing this out to us! I apologize for the frustration this has caused and agree that it’s vital we have clear, easy-to-follow tutorials to help guide everyone in their ARDK journey. I have passed along your feedback to the team so they can modify the tutorials to reflect the fact that the SceneManager game object is no longer required with ARDK 2.3.
To get it working in the meantime, you can either follow the original tutorial and create a SceneManager game object as Naveen mentioned, or you could attach all the ARDK components (ARSessionManager, ARCameraPositionHelper, etc.) to the Main Camera instead.
Thank you again for bringing this to our attention.
So glad to hear that the feedback goes to the team. Those early engagement moments are so critical and I want Lightship and other AR dev environments to flourish and become useful in the hands of those that will craft our future, cuz it’s coming and AR feels like it will be an important cornerstone.
I did just ignore the recommendation to not perform step 9.
I have a bit more input for that same basics tutorial.
The script to be copied has some typed objects that are not fully qualified causing me to get 3 fatal build errors preventing forward progress. This is with the current Unity build 2021.3.12f1 personal.
Luckily someone asked about this in the forum so I got the solution Error CS104 question.
The fix is to insert the following lines at line 11 of the tutorial SceneManager script
using Vector3 = UnityEngine.Vector3;
using Quaternion = UnityEngine.Quaternion;`
Again please read these as a common desire to make this easy for everybody including me. Along this intro tutorial I hit some undocumented roadblocks that didn’t happen on the tutorial (like the iOS dev environment is not installed, installing was easy but getting it to show up as installed required closing and opening the project, not obvious, adding the script to the scene manager is quick and confusing in the video and in the steps). I know this may sound like I want hand holding and while it helps to see all the steps for me. I am again motivated by thinking of what others might run into. I write software for a living or I did. Dang that’s the 1st time I have written out that I am retired. But I feel pretty technical and I want this to be simple and inviting to all skill levels because this marriage of Unity and Lightship seems so ready for every level of user.
If you are interested I made my own version of the Basic Steps tutorial with some steps spelled out a bit more and in checklist style. I built this for a couple reasons, one is I kept thinking I screwed something up so I deleted and recreated the project a few times(checklist helps), and the second more important reason is I had talked up Lightship to some friends, 2 of the which hit the roadblocks and stopped.
We completely agree that it’s extremely important to ensure that developers’ first experiences with Lightship are not only engaging but also free from these types of frustrations. We hope that anyone exploring Lightship will be inspired to continue experimenting with it.
I would like to ask a follow up question in regards to the build errors you experienced. Did you make any modifications to the script or include a ‘using System.Numerics’ namespace to the code? I copied and pasted the code into my own new project and did not receive any build errors, but I was able to reproduce the errors if I manually added a ‘using System.Numerics’ namespace. If you could please provide a bit more detail as to the process you took leading up to those errors, it will help us ensure that other developers do not run into the same problem.
I have taken note of the other roadblocks you mentioned (like the iOS dev environment not being installed, etc.) and added them to the feedback I sent to the team earlier. If you and your friends (or any other developer reading this post), had any other specific roadblocks, please feel free to add them to this thread with as much detail as possible so we can improve this tutorial and others moving forward.
Thank you again for helping us improve the Lightship experience for everyone.