GetComponent - Root Hierachy

Questions & Answers
1

Hello,

In my hierarchy I have a tank, within that tank (as a child) I have a health bar (plane).

Also in my hierarchy, I have a game empty with a script attached to it called ‘Controller’.

Is there a way for my tank health bar script (which is attached to the health bar) to grab a variable from the Controller script?

Hierarchy:

  • GameEmpty / Controller

  • Tank / HealthBar / HealthBarScript

I don’t want to use static variables. I was looking at the GetComponent, but that only seems to work when grabbing a variable on the object, or within (child).

Please help,

Thanks

3

You can either use GameObject.Find and GetComponent, or FindObjectOfType. If there’s just one Controller script, then FindObjectOfType is more direct.

var controllerScript = FindObjectOfType(Controller);
controllerScript.someVariable = x;
2

It’s somewhat tricky. In the HealthBarScript do the following:

  var ctrl:Controller = gameObject.GetComponent(Controller);
  // read or set any variable in Controller using ctrl:
  health = ctrl.Health;

I don’t know if the var ctrl can be defined outside functions and initialised by Start(), but if it can be done it will optimize runtime performance.