Lets say I have the following game object hierarchy:
Board - The entire view of the game's board, made up of tiles.
Tile - A rectangular boundary within a board, made up of subtiles.
Subtile - A rectangular boundary within a tile.
A Board needs relative dimensions with respect to all of the contained Tile objects.
A Tile needs relative coordinates with respect to the containing Board.
A Subtile needs relative coordinates with respect to the containing Tile.
My current process is to define n Tile objects. Space them out x and y, such that x is the number of Subtile objects in a row and y is the number of Subtile objects in a column. Then, when I place Subtile objects, I just multiple the x or y by the containing Tile object's starting coordinate.
This process, so far, works well enough. However, to avoid complication and errors, I'd love to be able to simply lay out a Subtile object, where (0, 0) would be the top-left of the Tile object.
Without just abstracting my positioning a bit and adding classes for, say, SubtileVector or something, which would keep an additional variable for offset relative tile, is there an easier way to do this?
Likewise, when I want to see how big my board is and center my camera in the middle of it, I just end up calculating to that position. Is there any way to have my board always act as the containing box for these tiles, and be able to just do something like Board.Position.Center and get the exact center coordinates?
Yes there is. You can make a board game object, parent it to tile game objects, who on their turn are parent to subtile objects:
Board, parent to
Tile, parent to
Subtile
The good news is you can use the relative coordinates of tile and subtile using using their
transform.localPosition
Related
I am trying to understand how Unity decides what to draw first in a 2D game. I could just give everything an order in layer, but I have so many objects that it would be so much easier if it was just drawing in the order of the hierarchy. I could write a script that gives every object its index, but I also want to see it in editor.
So the question is, is there an option that I can check so that it uses the order in the hierarchy window as the default sorting order?
From your last screenshot I could see you are using SpriteRenderer.
The short answer to the question "is there an option that I can check so that it uses the order in the hierarchy window as the default sorting order?" would be no, there isn't by default*.
Sprite renderers calculates which object is in front of others in one of two ways:
By using the distance to the camera, this will draw the objects closest to the camera on top of the rest of the objects in that same order in layer, as per the docs:
Sprite Sort Point
This property is only available when the Sprite Renderer’s Draw Mode is set to Simple.
In a 2D project, the Main Camera is set to Orthographic Projection mode by default. In this mode, Unity renders Sprites in the order of their their distance to the camera, along the direction of the Camera’s view.
If you want to keep everything on the same sorting layer/order in layer you can change the order in which the objects appear by moving one of the two objects further away from the camera (this is probably further down the z axis). For example if your Cashew is on z = 0, and you place the walnut on z = 1 then the cashew will be drawn on top of the walnut. If Cashew is on z=0 and the walnut is on z = -1 then the walnut will be draw on top (Since negative is closer to the camera). If both of the objects are on z - 0 they are both equally as far away from the camera, so it becomes a coin toss for which object gets drawn in front, as it does not take into account the hierarchy.
The second way the order can be changed is by creating different sorting layers, and adjusting the order in layer in the sprite renderer component. But you already figured that out.
*However, that doesn't mean it cannot be done, technically...
If you feel adventurous there is nothing stopping you from making an editor script that automates setting the order in layer for you based on the position in the hierarchy. This script would loop through all the objects in your hierarchy, grab the index of the object in the hierarchy, and assign the index to the Order in Layer.
I don't think Unity has such feature (https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/2DSorting.html).
Usually you shall define some Sorting Layers:
far background
background
foreground
and assign Sprite Renderer of each sprite to one of Sorting Layers
I want to create 2d game. The game is similar to the Scale Puzzle. I've already created nearly all the functionality. Only the last remains.
.
This is example.
And that's how I draw shapes.
.
I click inside a white square, and after 1 seconds a square is drawn regardless of the position of the ball. (x,y).
Square is created programmatically, and it is added to the parent element "SquaresList" with name New Game Object.
How can i do, so that the violet field becomes larger, and in the middle of the screen.
I made it so that for every 3 clicks, "SquaresList" increases Scale by 0.25f, and get negative position of the ball. Example:
SquareList.transform.position = new Vector2(-ball.pos.x, -ball.pos.y)
This does not work correctly.
What options can be? (intersections, find the max/min point, math formulas) ?
Hi NoName :) Your method
SquareList.transform.position = new Vector2(-ball.pos.x, -ball.pos.y)
would work perfectly if your object does not inherit other objects and there positions. To fix this make sure that you reset the position of all other game objects that you use as containers.
I saw some documents saying that there is no concepts of length in Unity. All you can do to determine the dimensions of the gameobjects is to use Scale.
Then how could I set the overall relative dimensions between the gameobjects?
For example, the dimension of a 1:1:1 plane is obviously different from a 1:1:1 sphere! Then how could I know what's the relative ratios between the plane and the sphere? 1 unit length of the plane is equal to how much unit of the diameter of the sphere!? Otherwise how could I know if I had set everything in the right proportion?
Well, what you say is right, but consider that objects could have a collider. And, in case of a sphere, you could obtain the radius with SphereCollider.radius.
Also, consider Bounds.extents, that's relative to the objects's bounding box.
Again, considering the Sphere, you can obtain the diameter with:
Mesh mesh = GetComponent<MeshFilter>().mesh;
Bounds bounds = mesh.bounds;
float diameter = bounds.extents.x * 2;
All GameObjects in unity have a Transform component, which determines its position, rotation and scale. Most 3D Objects also have a MeshFilter component, which contains reference to the Mesh object.
The Mesh contains the actual shape of the object, for example six faces of a cube or, faces of a sphere. Unity provides a handful of built in objects (cube, sphere, cyliner, plane, quad), but this is just a 'starter kit'. Most of those built in objects are 1 unit in size, but this is purely because the vertexes have been placed in those positions (so you need to scale by 2 to get 2units size).
But there is no limit on positinos within a mesh, you can have a tiny tiny object od a whole terrain object, and have them massively different in size despite keeping their scale at 1.
You should try to learn some 3D modelling application to create arbitrary objects.
Alternatively try and install a plugin called ProBuilder which used to be quite expensive and is nowe free (since acquired by Unity) which enabels in-editor modelling.
Scales are best kept at one, but its good to have an option to scale - this way you can re-use the spehre mesh, or the cube mesh, (less waste of memory) by having them at different scales.
In most unity applications you set the scale to some arbitrary number.
So typically 1 m = 1 unit.
All things that are 1 unit tall are 1 m tall.
If you import a mesh from a modelling program that is the wrong size, scale it to exactly one meter (use a standard 1,1,1 cube as reference). Then, stick it inside an empty game object to “convert” it into your game’s proper scale. So now if you scale the empty object’s y axis to 2, the object is now 2 meters tall.
A better solution is to keep all objects’ highest parent in the hierarchy at 1,1,1 scale. Using the 1,1,1 reference cube, scale your object to a size that looks proper. So for example if I had a model of a person I’d want it to be scaled to be roughly twice as tall as the cube. Then, drag it into an empty object of 1,1,1 scale this way, everything in your scene’s “normal” size is 1,1,1. If you want to double the size of something you’d then make it 2,2,2. In practice this is much more useful than the first option.
Now, if you change its position by 1 unit it is moving effectively by what would look like the proper 1 m also.
This process also lets you change where the “bottom” of an object is. You can change the position of the object inside the empty, making an “offset”. This is Useful for making models stand right on the ground with position y=0.
I have tried to find any information on how the Unity assigns pivot points to object but all I keep finding is threads on how to move pivot points and that it can't be done. I am creating a 2D game with a background that is randomly created with meshes that are wrapped in empty GameObjects. These objects are organically shaped but they have a property that returns a rectangle that bounds the object so that they can be placed in a way that they are not overlapping. The trouble is that the algorithm assumes that the pivot point is going to be the center of the object. What I would like to know is how does Unity decide where the pivot point will be set to so that I can predict how much I will need to move my mesh inside the parent object so that the pivot point will be in the center of the bounding rectangle.
Possible fix:
Try create the meshes during runtime and see if it always places the pivot points at a certain corner or at least relatively speaking the same location.
If it does that you would know where the pivot point is and could take it into account in your code, if you also know the size of the mesh you spawn.
So I think most general and correct answer that I can come up with is that unity assigns the pivot point to the center of the GameObject that you apply the Mesh to. The local coordinates of the vertices of the mesh depending on how you create them mighht place your mesh so that its logical center is not the same as the that of the empty GameObject that it is attached to. What I did to fix the issue was to make a vector from local point (0,0,0) to the center of bounding rectangle and translate the vertices I use to make my mesh by that vector inverted. It wasn't perfect but by far close enough to ensure that I won't have any overlapping meshes.
I want to make isometric, tile-based, iPhone games with cocos2D.
Sprites need to be drawn on-top of other sprites that are "behind" it. I'm looking for the best way to do this.
I'd like to avoid the painter's algorithm because it involves sorting all the sprites every frame which is expensive.
The Z buffer algorithm is supported by the GPU and cocos2D so this is what I'd like to use, but there is a problem. Some sprites, like buildings for example, occupy multiple tiles. Assigning a Z value to such sprites is difficult.
These are the options I've thought of:
Comparing two buildings and determining which one is "in-front" is
easy. So buildings can be sorted then assigned a Z value based on
the sort order. This wouldn't be any different from the painter's
algorithm. The OpenGl ES Z buffer wouldn't be necessary.
Assign a Z value to each building based purely on its location on
the map (without knowledge of where other buildings are). I'm
finding this difficult. I think it is possible, but I haven't been
able to come up with a formula yet.
Use multiple sprites for images that occupy more than one tile, so
all sprites will be exactly the same size. Z orders can then be
easily assigned based on what tile the sprite is occupying. The
problem with this solution is that it makes the game logic much more
complicated. All operations on a single building will have to be
repeated for each sprite the building is made-up of. I'd like to
treat each object as a single entity.
Modify the cocos2D code to allow sprites to have multiple Z values
at different points. If a sprite can have multiple Z values based on
what tile a particular part of the sprite falls on, then calculating
a Z value for that section is easy. I won't need to compare the
sprite to any other sprites. I believe this is possible by using
multiple quads for each sprite. The problem with this is that it is
a bit complicated for me since I am new to OpenGL ES and cocos2D. I
don't completely understand how all of the internal data structures
work. Although it seems like the most elegant solution if a formula
cannot be found.
I will up-vote any suggestions or references to helpful resources.
For #2, you can compute the Manhattan distance of the center of the object and use this value as the z-value of that object. It will work as long as you avoid very long objects in your map like 5x1 object or worse. But if you really need a long object to be placed in a tiled map, managing the z-order of objects in the map by setting a z-value using a formula is impossible.
To prove this:
1.) Place two 2x2 objects in a map horizontally and leave a unit tile between them.
2.) Place a 3x1 object between them. Let's name the 2x2 objects to A and B, and the 3x1 object to C.
3.) If you just rotate C(not changing its position), z-order of A and B interchange.
-If B is now in front, some objects behind B will be in front of A because of just the rotation of C. And it's costly to know which objects in back of both A and B previously will become in front of A after C's rotation.