Floating origin to handle large worlds in Unity.

FloatingOrigin.cs

// Based on the Unity Wiki FloatingOrigin script by Peter Stirling
// URL: http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php/Floating_Origin

using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.SceneManagement;

public class FloatingOrigin : MonoBehaviour
{
    [Tooltip("Point of reference from which to check the distance to origin.")]
    public Transform ReferenceObject = null;

    [Tooltip("Distance from the origin the reference object must be in order to trigger an origin shift.")]
    public float Threshold = 5000f;

    [Header("Options")]
    [Tooltip("When true, origin shifts are considered only from the horizontal distance to orign.")]
    public bool Use2DDistance = false;

    [Tooltip("When true, updates ALL open scenes. When false, updates only the active scene.")]
    public bool UpdateAllScenes = true;

    [Tooltip("Should ParticleSystems be moved with an origin shift.")]
    public bool UpdateParticles = true;

    [Tooltip("Should TrailRenderers be moved with an origin shift.")]
    public bool UpdateTrailRenderers = true;

    [Tooltip("Should LineRenderers be moved with an origin shift.")]
    public bool UpdateLineRenderers = true;

    private ParticleSystem.Particle[] parts = null;

    void LateUpdate()
    {
        if (ReferenceObject == null)
            return;

        Vector3 referencePosition = ReferenceObject.position;

        if (Use2DDistance)
            referencePosition.y = 0f;

        if (referencePosition.magnitude > Threshold)
        {
            MoveRootTransforms(referencePosition);

            if (UpdateParticles)
                MoveParticles(referencePosition);

            if (UpdateTrailRenderers)
                MoveTrailRenderers(referencePosition);

            if (UpdateLineRenderers)
                MoveLineRenderers(referencePosition);
        }
    }

    private void MoveRootTransforms(Vector3 offset)
    {
        if (UpdateAllScenes)
        {
            for (int z = 0; z < SceneManager.sceneCount; z++)
            {
                foreach (GameObject g in SceneManager.GetSceneAt(z).GetRootGameObjects())
                    g.transform.position -= offset;
            }
        }
        else
        {
            foreach (GameObject g in SceneManager.GetActiveScene().GetRootGameObjects())
                g.transform.position -= offset;
        }
    }

    private void MoveTrailRenderers(Vector3 offset)
    {
        var trails = FindObjectsOfType<TrailRenderer>() as TrailRenderer[];
        foreach (var trail in trails)
        {
            Vector3[] positions = new Vector3[trail.positionCount];

            int positionCount = trail.GetPositions(positions);
            for (int i = 0; i < positionCount; ++i)
                positions[i] -= offset;

            trail.SetPositions(positions);
        }
    }

    private void MoveLineRenderers(Vector3 offset)
    {
        var lines = FindObjectsOfType<LineRenderer>() as LineRenderer[];
        foreach (var line in lines)
        {
            Vector3[] positions = new Vector3[line.positionCount];

            int positionCount = line.GetPositions(positions);
            for (int i = 0; i < positionCount; ++i)
                positions[i] -= offset;

            line.SetPositions(positions);
        }
    }

    private void MoveParticles(Vector3 offset)
    {
        var particles = FindObjectsOfType<ParticleSystem>() as ParticleSystem[];
        foreach (ParticleSystem system in particles)
        {
            if (system.main.simulationSpace != ParticleSystemSimulationSpace.World)
                continue;

            int particlesNeeded = system.main.maxParticles;

            if (particlesNeeded <= 0)
                continue;

            // ensure a sufficiently large array in which to store the particles
            if (parts == null || parts.Length < particlesNeeded)
            {
                parts = new ParticleSystem.Particle[particlesNeeded];
            }

            // now get the particles
            int num = system.GetParticles(parts);

            for (int i = 0; i < num; i++)
            {
                parts[i].position -= offset;
            }

            system.SetParticles(parts, num);
        }
    }
}

It fascinates me, how at least at a surface level this looks relatively straightforward to do in Unity. In terms of getting references to things like all relevant particle systems in the world and then moving them around etc...

One of the blessings that come with a curse in Unreal I've noticed is that you get a lot of very feature rich systems out of the box, but doing something like this is very much non trivial without making relatively significant changes to the engine source.

You are right, the basic idea is very simple, and the continuous floating origin method is simpler than the shifty approach, but designing such an algorithm at the core of a framework for games/sim requires an entirely new structure.