Question

I’m using Unity3D to setup an “experiment” (university related) where I designed a maze and users receive subliminal cues (visual arrows displayed on the screen) that should appear just for 14 milliseconds and then disappear.

I already designed the 3D maze and it’s really minimal (I don’t need anything fancy for the experiment), therefore I can achieve 1000fps when I navigate with a 1st person controller into it (the framerate won’t be a problem). I’m planning to program a script in C# to display these arrows when some objects are triggered.

I’m wondering if in Unity it’s possible to display objects just for some milliseconds (in my case, 14ms) with an acceptable accuracy… If so, which approach should I use? Any ideas or previous experiece with similar issues?

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

Use coroutines to display objects just a amount of time:

void *AnyTrigger*() // eg. replace with OnTriggerEnter if using triggers
{
    StartCoroutine(ShowObject(14f / 1000f));
}

IEnumerator ShowObject(float timeInSeconds)
{
    // Show object here
    yield return new WaitForSeconds(timeInSeconds);
    // Hide object
}

Accuracy

The accuarcy of the time in which the object is shown depends highly on the system which you are using. If you are running Unity3D on a fast system it might be very accurate. If the system is slow the time is very likly to be over 14ms.

Examples( not accurate ):

• Fast system, 950-1000 frames per second: Likly between 0ms and 1ms
• Medium system, 300-600 frames per second: Likly between 0.8ms and 3.6ms
• Slow system, 50-100 frames per second: Likly between 5ms and 20ms