Is Raycasting the answer? (Noob problem)

Scripting
1

I apologize if this has been asked before or if I’m asking in the wrong section. Just let me know and a can move or remove this this post.

Ok so first of all I’m using Playmaker right, I can understand JavaScript. My JS knowledge is weak though.
I currently working on a Idle cookie clicker kinda game as its the most basic kinda of game i could think of.

The main function of the gave is to give the player money when he clicks a button. So i have a 3D sphere for the cookie. It currently work by checking to see if its collider has been entered by a game object with a collider that should follow the mouse, if the collider has been entered then the cookie can be clicked. I’m using the action “Get Mouse Button down” to detect a click, but the action doesn’t care about where is being clicked (Thats why im using the colliders). I figured by doing this I could also animate the cookie while the mouse is hovering.

The problem I’m having comes to tracking the mouse. Currently im using actions to get the mouse’s X and Y positions and then storing them in a variables called Mouse_X and Mouse_Y. The problem with this is action “Get mouse X/Y” store its as value 0-1, so at most the object the suppose to follow the mouse can move ±1 in any direction. I tried multiplying the X/Y variable based off the aspect ratio i.e 16/9, which sort of works but the object doesn’t directly follow the mouse, it always stays closer to the top-right than the mouse does. actually now that i look at it it doesnt even keep a static distance from the mouse.

I’m not really looking a “heres the script” answer, i more would like advise. I am still a noob so i dont know much about Raycasting, but it sounds like it might be a better solution then what im trying right now. So really what I’d like to know is… Is what I’m trying now a decent solution or should a try Raycasting? And what ever it is could you give me some suggestions on how to make work? Thank you so much for you help. :slight_smile:

Also if you have any suggestions about Playmaker or scripting or anything else really, feel free to let me know.

2

Forget raycasting. It can be used, but there are simpler solutions. Here is how I would tackle it, starting from an empty scene.

  • Create your cookie
  • Add a sphere collider to the cookie
  • Add a EventTrigger component to the cookie. Add OnClick to the EventTrigger. Add a listener to fire off an appropriate method
  • Add an EventSystem to the scene
  • Add a PhysicsRaycaster component to your camera

Now your method will automatically be called every time you click the cookie.

3 Likes
3

Thanks, it worked like a charm :). I’m definitely going to have to read up on the EventSystem and EventTrigger more. Feels like something i definitely want to have a firm understanding of. Well i don’t have anything else to say, so Thanks Again. :slight_smile:

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4

All good. The automatic raycasters are a fairly new feature in the engine. So most tutorials still refer to manually raycasting the old way. But it’s so much easier this way.

And as a side effect this way will play nicely with Unity’s UI system.