crispigt.

Held paddle and other object

2026-04-22
visualanimationnetworkingunity

Fixed how held objects attach to the player so the paddle actually looks like it's being held rather than floating somewhere vaguely in front of you.

Added a GripPoint child transform to the player prefab. Grabbable objects now snap to that grip transform instead of just hanging at a generic distance. On the paddle side I added a holdOffset and a blade tip transform so we have a defined anchor point on the paddle itself. That way you can adjust exactly where the paddle sits in the hand without hacking the object's origin.

The other important fix was moving the held-object follow into LateUpdate. Unity runs animation bone updates before LateUpdate but after Update, so if you move the held object in Update it's one frame behind the hand. Moving it to LateUpdate and writing directly to the transform (while the rigidbody is kinematic) gets rid of that lag entirely.

Also hardened the networking side a bit. Ownership transfers to the grabbing client on pickup and goes back to the server on release. While the paddle is held all its colliders are disabled so it can't accidentally push the boat or clip into geometry. Ship collision is also ignored during the held state and restored on release. Makes the whole thing a lot less janky in multiplayer.