GameObject System, Coming from GameMaker

[kburkhart84]

I’ve looked over and read most of the documentation, and I’ve worked a bit with Unity, though nothing all that big just yet. I originally had been using C++ with Vanilla OpenGL, and then I used the Irrlicht Engine for a time, and for the past few years, I’ve primarilly used GameMaker. But now I’ve been thirsting for real 3d and GM doesn’t provide that very well, so I’m looking more into Unity, but there are a few things I’d like to clarify so my mindset can adjust.

I understand in general how the GameObjects work, and the component system as well. But, I’m not understanding this detail. If I’m let’s say creating an Asteroids game, and I have the camera following the ship around(because the game space is bigger than a single screen size area). I would drag that ship into a variable on the camera’s “follow” script so that said script knows what to follow. But then that ship gets destroyed and recreated off of a prefab after the explosion. I understand that I’d need to have the camera check if the ship exists in order to follow it, but then once it gets recreated, would that variable suddenly update to reflect the “new” ship, or will I have to manually search for it via the “FindObject…” functions?

Also, since I mention those FindObject… type functions, I’m curious about things. For example, when you create objects using Instantiate off of prefabs, the name gets “Clone” attached to it, which would be fine, but when searching for objects by name, will it not find the “clones” because of it?

Lastly, I’m looking to replace the timeline system that GameMaker has. It basically allows you to do things(functions or Drag Drop) at set time intervals, all nicely set up in the IDE. It also allows them to be paused, restarted, reversed, etc… Does Unity have something similar. I’ve seen the CoRoutine system, and I think I could create this result using a function that yields every other line, but it seems to be the “hard” way to do it. I’ve also seen something about animation events. I didn’t get into that much detail, but does this Animation system do what I’m looking for. I’d at least need to be able to call some code at set moments in time with an easy set up as possible.

Sorry for the wall of text guys. I’ve looked at tutorials and documentation, but none of them seem to explain what I’m needing. Also, none of them have a “coming from GameMaker” point of view, and I think that would actually be a money maker If there is a tutorial/article that better explains the GameObject system, etc… please feel free to point me to it.

Thanks in advance.

[JasonB]

but then once it gets recreated, would that variable suddenly update to reflect the “new” ship, or will I have to manually search for it via the “FindObject…” functions?

In theory, if our camera is called FollowCamera, our script is called FollowPlayer, and the variable for the player is called FollowTarget, then when you instantiate your player you could do something like this:

GameObject newplayer = (GameObject)Instantiate(PlayerPrefab,[position],[rotation]);
GameObject.Find("FollowCamera").GetComponent<FollowPlayer>().FollowTarget = newplayer;

As long as FollowTarget is a public variable, of course.

[kburkhart84]

@JasonB

In theory, if our camera is called FollowCamera, our script is called FollowPlayer, and the variable for the player is called FollowTarget, then when you instantiate your player you could do something like this:

GameObject newplayer = (GameObject)Instantiate(PlayerPrefab,[position],[rotation]);
GameObject.Find("FollowCamera").GetComponent<FollowPlayer>().FollowTarget = newplayer;

As long as FollowTarget is a public variable, of course.

So it wouldn’t switch automatically to the new one I assume. It isn’t that I’m trying to avoid a couple lines of code, rather I’m interested in more detail about how it all works.

[JasonB]

There’s no way it would know how to automatically fill the variable with the new player without writing any code.

Once you run GameObject.Destroy on the player, it’s going to set the follow target variable to null, so obviously it needs new data plugged in to resume following something, hence the second line in my example where it plugs the new instantiated player into the variable.

[kburkhart84]

@JasonB

There’s no way it would know how to automatically fill the variable with the new player without writing any code.

Once you run GameObject.Destroy on the player, it’s going to set the follow target variable to null, so obviously it needs new data plugged in to resume following something, hence the second line in my example where it plugs the new instantiated player into the variable.

I figured, but I thought maybe since it had been assigned in the editor it would be a reference maybe to the object itself, not the specific instance of it. That’s fine though. What about my other things.

[JasonB]

Coroutines can be used to do something complex that requires timed pauses using yield return new WaitForSeconds, but they can’t be run backwards or anything fancy like that.

You could probably do something like that with animation events. Animation events are pinned to an animation at particular times and each event can be set to run a particular function. Animations CAN be sped up, slowed down, reversed, etc. You won’t be able to do anything complex like a time travel mechanic, but if you’re just trying to sequence a cutscene or something it could probably work.

[kburkhart84]

@JasonB

Coroutines can be used to do something complex that requires timed pauses using yield return new WaitForSeconds, but they can’t be run backwards or anything fancy like that.

You could probably do something like that with animation events. Animation events are pinned to an animation at particular times and each event can be set to run a particular function. Animations CAN be sped up, slowed down, reversed, etc. You won’t be able to do anything complex like a time travel mechanic, but if you’re just trying to sequence a cutscene or something it could probably work.

Yeah, I’m not trying anything to do anything too fancy. As long as I can easily create time based events it should do it. I’d like to use it for example to time enemy creation in a space scrolling shooter or something similar.