Is there a way to make an instantiated text follow a game object? - unity3d

Question

I'm currently experiencing a coder's block right now as I'm trying to instantiate text on a game object, specifically a Zombie prefab. I've gotten down the enemy's position for the text to be spawned but can't seem to make it follow the zombie's movement as it walks towards the player.
This is my 'Word Spawner' script.
public GameObject wordpb; // my word prefab
public Transform canvas; // connected to a canvas ui that has world camera set
public EnemyOne enemy;
public DisplayWord Spawn()
{
Vector2 targetPos = new Vector2(enemy.transform.position.x, enemy.transform.position.y);
GameObject wordobj = Instantiate(wordpb, targetPos, Quaternion.identity, canvas);
DisplayWord displayWord = wordobj.GetComponent<DisplayWord>();
return displayWord;
}
and this is where the DisplayWord class is derived from.
public Text text;
public void SetWord(string word)
{
text.text = word;
}
public void ThrowLetter()
{
text.text = text.text.Remove(0, 1);
text.color = Color.red;
}
public void ThrowWord()
{
Destroy(gameObject);
}
My best guess is that I should be implementing a void Update method in which I use transform.Translate? Or should I put a placeholder that acts as a child class to my Zombie prefab and attach the DisplayWord script there? Please help a poor soul out.

Answer 1

How does the text relate to the Zombie game object? Knowing what the text is for in relation to the zombie might inform the best way to make it follow the game object.
If the text is something like a worldspace nametag, instead of translating in Update you could make the text a child of the game object it needs to follow. It might not be the most elegant solution but if you give each text its own worldspace canvas you could assign the text as a child of the zombie, or, if you know you'll always have text following a zombie, you could just add a worldspace canvas and text to the zombie prefab...
To instantiate as a child you'd need to rework your word prefab to be its own worldspace canvas with your text as its child.
You can assign a parent when you instantiate:
wordobj = Instantiate(wordpb, enemy);
Or set the parent after instantiation:
wordobj.transform.SetParent(enemy.gameObject.transform, true);
The second parameter in SetParent is 'worldPositionStays', and controls whether the child object keeps its world position (true) or whether it's transform is evaluated relative to its new parent's transform. You could make it work either way: if you leave it 'true' you don't need to change the rest of your code, but I think if you make it false you don't need to get the enemy GameObject's position... The same is true for Instantiate when a parent is assigned but no transform position/rotation. So I think you could skip the step of finding the enemy's position and rewrite your Spawn code to:
public GameObject wordpb; // my word prefab
public EnemyOne enemy;
public DisplayWord Spawn()
{
GameObject wordobj = Instantiate(wordpb, enemy, false);
DisplayWord displayWord = wordobj.GetComponent<DisplayWord>();
return displayWord;
}
You'd need to assign the newly instantiated canvas's worldspace camera to make this work...