Open Radar

 
Summary:
On macOS, if you rotate the transform of an SCNNode whose pivot is not the identity transform, the node rotates around the pivot, just like if you had set the rotation of the node directly. On all other platforms, the node rotates around the center of its parent node instead of around its pivot.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open the attached Playground. It contains a simple scene with three SCNCapsule nodes connected end-to-end, then rotated so they form an upside-down U shape.
2. Run it as a macOS Playground. Observe how the nodes are connected end to end.
3. Switch the Playground to run on iOS or tvOS.

Expected Results:
The capsules are connected the same way as when running on macOS.

Actual Results:
The nodes are not connected the same. They appear to have pivoted around their parent node’s center instead of around their own pivots.

Version/Build:
Xcode 10.2 (10P107d) on macOS 10.14.3 (18D109)

Notes:
In the Playground, you will find:

let demonstrateBugOnIOS = true

If you change this constant to false instead, you will see the workaround I found: adjusting the rotation directly instead of rotating the transform.

I’m not sure which behavior is actually correct here. I guess it would be reasonable that modifying the transform directly would ignore the pivot point, since the pivot is documented as affecting only position, rotation, and scale. However, on macOS, adjusting the transform directly appears to be honoring the pivot, but on iOS, tvOS, and watchOS, something else is happening instead. And whichever the right behavior is, they should probably be consistent across all 4 platforms.

Playground also uploaded here: https://cl.ly/4063bbdb98f4