Movement area outline

Questions & Answers
1

Hi

I´m working on a turn based strategy game. Right now I display the area a character can move using projectors (for terrain adaptability of the tiles). Every tile is an empty with a projector attached and every projector within the movement area is being turned on to display a single tile (see screenshot). You can imagine that this is really unperformant (I read something about that a mesh has to be rendered again for every projector it receives).

I wanted to just make an outline (by using a line renderer for example) of the area where a character can move (similar to XCOM 2) have no idea how to do that. Can anyone help? The area is stored within an array of transforms.

71164-scrnshot.jpg
71164-scrnshot.jpg3000×2000 411 KB

If it somehow helps here’s the code which generates the area:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

namespace Grid
{
    [System.Serializable]
    public class AreaBuilder: MonoBehaviour, AreaBuilderInterface
    {
        public Grid grid;

        public ArrayList traversed;

        public LayerMask layerMask;

        public void buildArea(Vector3 start, int min, int max)
        {
            GameObject startTile = this.grid.getTileAtPosition(start.x, start.z);
            ArrayList openList = new ArrayList();
            openList.Add(startTile);
            this.traversed = new ArrayList();
            ArrayList withinMinArea = new ArrayList();
            this.traverseTiles(openList, withinMinArea, min, max, true);
            if(this.traversed != null)
            {
                for (int i = 0; i < this.traversed.Count; i++)
                {
                    GameObject currentCell = (GameObject)this.traversed*;*

currentCell.GetComponent().enabled = true;
}
}
}

private void traverseTiles(ArrayList openList, ArrayList withinMinArea, int min, int max, bool useRaycast)
{
if(max == 0)
{
return;
} else
{
ArrayList tempOpenList = new ArrayList();
for (int i = 0; i < openList.Count; i++)
{
GameObject currentTile = (GameObject) openList*;*
Tile.AbstractTileController projectorTile = currentTile.GetComponent<Tile.AbstractTileController>();
for (int j = 0; j < projectorTile.neighbors.Count; j++)
{
GameObject currentNeighbor = (GameObject) projectorTile.neighbors[j];
if (currentNeighbor == null)
{
continue;
}
if (useRaycast)
{
RaycastHit hit;

Vector3 currentCorrectedPosition = new Vector3(currentTile.transform.position.x,
currentTile.transform.position.y + 3f, currentTile.transform.position.z);
Vector3 neighborCorrectedPosition = new Vector3(currentNeighbor.transform.position.x,
currentTile.transform.position.y + 3f, currentNeighbor.transform.position.z);
Debug.DrawLine(currentCorrectedPosition, neighborCorrectedPosition, Color.red, 60);

Vector3 checkDirection = neighborCorrectedPosition - currentCorrectedPosition;
int ignoreLayer = ~(1 << 9);
Ray ray = new Ray();
ray.origin = currentCorrectedPosition;
ray.direction = checkDirection;
if (!Physics.Raycast(ray, out hit, Vector3.Distance(currentCorrectedPosition, neighborCorrectedPosition), this.layerMask))
{
if (!this.traversed.Contains(currentNeighbor))
{
this.traversed.Add(currentNeighbor);
}
if (!withinMinArea.Contains(currentNeighbor) && min < max)
{
withinMinArea.Add(currentNeighbor);
}
if (!tempOpenList.Contains(currentNeighbor))
{
tempOpenList.Add(currentNeighbor);
}
}
}
}
}
max–;
this.traverseTiles(tempOpenList, withinMinArea, min, max, useRaycast);
}
}

public void dropArea()
{
foreach(GameObject tile in this.traversed)
{
tile.GetComponent().enabled = false;
}
}
}
}

2

Is your array of transforms a series of point locations that define the perimeter of the area? If so, then it seems like you need a script that would loop through your transform array and call the LineRenderer.SetPosition method similar to the following:

lineRenderer.SetPosition(0, new Vector3(Position1.transform.position.x,Position1.transform.position.y,Position1.transform.position.z));
lineRenderer.SetPosition(1, new Vector3(Position2.transform.position.x,Position2.transform.position.y,Position2.transform.position.z));

So you’d probably end up with code like the following:

int posCount = 0;
foreach (var curTransform in transformArray) {
    lineRenderer.SetPosition(posCount, new Vector3(curTransform.position.x, curTransform.position.y, curTransform.position.z));
    posCount++;
}

According to the Unity docs, LineRenderer should be the only renderer on a game object, so you might need a child game object if your game object for your area has other responsibilities. Hope this helps.

3

hi @Zodiarc
did you successfully get the XCOM look for your movement area outline?
i’m want to learn to make it too