How to mask an object?

Unity Engine
1

Hi,

I am making a board game where I want to show only a portion of the board on the screen, so that I have some space for placing other player controls etc. And when the player clicks on scroll buttons, the board scrolls accordingly but within its confined area. I know we could use a plane on top of the board and have a custom mesh. This is just a vague idea in my mind Anyone knows exactly how to go about it? Or at least guide me to the right direction?

Thanks much!

2

It sounds like you could just overlay your GUI controls ontop of the screen, making it seem like you are using that space.

Your camera could be point at the board, and you give it some bounding limits. For example, pressing up could move your camera along the x-axis. But, when x >= 10, it does not move anymore.

3

This was my initial idea as well but then I realized, it won’t give me the kind of results I want. I have a lot more controls and other information thrown on to the screen which need to stay where they are while the user scrolls the board. I know there is a neater way to do this. It’s just that I am unable to figure it out :(.

4

You can make a second camera to display only the GUI elements. They will not move. Here is a game that shows what I am talking about. http://www.certainlogicstudios.com/projects/nano-something/final

5

hmmm that’s interesting. How do you control multiple cameras? And is it possible to make the game board be seen only in a specific part of the screen (as if contained within a specific area), as opposed to the one in your example where it spans the entire screen?

6

yes:

7

Thanks guys for the replies, although I figured how to make a cut out of a plane and use it as a mask over my board. I modeled a simple 3D plane in Maya, made a small cut-out of this plane with the tools available there. Then I imported the object as an fbx asset into Unity and use this as the mesh filter for my plane. This made the areas (that were cut out in the object) transparent in the plane. Also, I made this plane the child of main camera, so that the plane moves with the camera. So now I can have my board behind this plane and when I scroll the camera left-right, up and down, it appears as if the board is scrolling within the cut-out portion of the plane!