Is it possible to display a variable relative to an object at runtime e.g. health in numbers above an enemy?

Questions & Answers
1

What I’m asking was really simple for me to do in other game engines but I haven’t really gotten around to get it to work in Unity.
I’m trying to get all the enemies in my game to display the value of their health variable on top of them at runtime. There can be multiple instances of the same enemy in the game at the same time and most of these objects get instantiated during runtime.

The code I that I have for the enemy so far:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class CreatureScript : MonoBehaviour
{
	public int dir = 0;
	public int changetime = -1;
	private int timer = 0;
	public int mspeed = 2;
	public int side = 0;
	public int health = 2;
	public int attack = 1;
	CreatureScript creatureScript;
	BulletScript bulletScript;
	void OnTriggerEnter2D(Collider2D other)
	{
		if(other.tag == "wall") //Collision with wall
		{
			mspeed = mspeed * -1;
		}
		if(other.tag == "creature") //Collision with creature
		{
			mspeed = mspeed * -1;
			CreatureScript creatureScript = other.GetComponent<CreatureScript>();
			if(side != creatureScript.side)
			{
				health -= creatureScript.attack;
				if(health < 1)
				{
					Destroy(gameObject);
				}
			}
		}
	}
	

	void FixedUpdate ()
	{	
		if(timer == changetime) //set random direction
		{
			timer = 0;
			dir = Random.Range(0,4);
		}
		timer = timer + 1;
		//Change direction
		if(dir == 0)
		transform.Translate (new Vector3(mspeed*Time.deltaTime,0*Time.deltaTime,0));
		if(dir == 1)
		transform.Translate (new Vector3(-mspeed*Time.deltaTime,0*Time.deltaTime,0));
		if(dir == 2)
		transform.Translate (new Vector3(0*Time.deltaTime,mspeed*Time.deltaTime,0));
		if(dir == 3)
		transform.Translate (new Vector3(0*Time.deltaTime,-mspeed*Time.deltaTime,0));

	}
}

I already tried playing around with the new UI System but haven’t really found an option that makes this work yet.

Thanks for your answers in advance.

2

Yes you can position UI elements on screen based on your GameObject’s world coordinates by transforming them into screen coordinates. Here’s an example, although it’s done entirely in script so I would recommend making a text prefab and loading it from the Resources folder unless you’re comfortable with C#:

//using UnityEngine.UI;

void Start()
{
        //Make sure there's a Canvas UI object in your scene named 'Canvas'
        //Note: it is much easier to make a prefab and load it from resources than to do this
        // vvvvvvvvv
        canv = GameObject.Find("Canvas").GetComponent<Canvas>();
        canvTransform = canv.GetComponent<RectTransform>();
        canv.renderMode = RenderMode.ScreenSpaceOverlay;
        GameObject txtObj = new GameObject("Text");
        txt = txtObj.AddComponent<Text>();
        txtObj.transform.SetParent(canv.transform, false);
        txt.font = Font.CreateDynamicFontFromOSFont("Arial", 16);
        txt.alignment = TextAnchor.UpperCenter;
        // ^^^^^^^^^
        txt.text = health.ToString();
}

void Update()
{
        Vector2 screenPoint = RectTransformUtility.WorldToScreenPoint(Camera.main, transform.position);
        txt.rectTransform.anchoredPosition = screenPoint - canvTransform.sizeDelta / 2f;
        txt.text = health.ToString();
}