Sendmessage/GetComponent (read variable only) help

Questions & Answers
1

EDIT - Answer helped - created knew unknown problem.

Skip slightly past First answer, under the 3rd body of codes I reply with a new issue in regards to a myTransform conflicting with Ref’ to another object (neither are interacting in the script as far as I know - it throws a null error) any help would be great guys.

Ok so I’ve got something else I want to learn. I’ll try my best to explain the situation because I’m getting a bit deeper and deeper… my goal is still to chop down a tree using click moving pathfinding.
What I’ve got so far

  1. Hover over, change color, on exit change back.
  2. If clicked check player dist, if out of range, leave cutDown false
  3. If within range, set cutDown to true
  4. GOAL - send a message, or access cutDown in ChopTree to Player to determine if true so I can 1) Disable Movement, 2) Face Tree - I think I’ll be fine in regards to LookAt calls once I do get to determine if I am really ready to cut down a tree.

These scripts are in a slightly mangled state at this time since I’ve been trying so many methods. Not looking for someone to write the script for me, looking for a better job at reading variables from another script. I looked over Sendmessage and Component in the ref - I understand Component and like I said how to change values - I only want to read… I’ve tried both methods but I can’t seem to get the syntax right or find what I need as most examples involve a FP view, or 3rd with direct character control and not pathfinding control… Sorry for the long wall of text but I wanted to explain in detail rather then not.

CharacterAnimation script

enter code hereusing System.Collections;

public class CharacterAnimations : MonoBehaviour {
	//THE SCRIPT THAT IS IN THE SAME OBJECT IS CALLED "AIFollow" I do a public attach here.
	//Attach to AIFollow to get speed
	public AIFollow script;
	//Bool for is movving happenin to enable run animation?  If stop'd no run.
	public bool isMove;
	//Keeps track of movement
	Transform myTransform;
	//Stores the transform at last vector
	Vector3 lastPos;

	
	void Start()
	{
		//ref the script AIFollow at the start
		script = GetComponent<AIFollow>();	
		//declare move at false at start
		isMove = false;
		//establish a way to track this object
		myTransform = transform;
		//establish a way to store last vector from object
		lastPos = myTransform.position;
	}
	
	void Update(){
		
		if ( myTransform.position != lastPos )
              isMove = true;
		else
              isMove = false;
		//After checking to see if update was the same as old position, MAKE them the same.
		lastPos = myTransform.position;
		
		//If old vector was the same, move will be false and this will be bypassed.
		if (Input.GetKey(KeyCode.LeftShift) && isMove != false){
			script.speed = 14;
			animation.CrossFade ("mRunning");
		}else{
			script.speed = 5;
		}
		
		//if its bypassed and shift is not down, walk
		if(script.speed == 5 && isMove != false){
			animation.CrossFade("mWalking");
			
		}
		//since it was bypassed, and ismove is false, he cannot be moving.  Display idle animation.
		if (isMove == false){
			animation.CrossFade("mIdle");	
		}
	}
	//Function to make character get msg and turn toward tree sending it.
	void LookAtTree(bool cutDown)
	{
		Debug.Log("CutDown MSG IN");
	}
}

ChopTree script

enter code hereusing UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class ChopTree : MonoBehaviour {

	//set tree health
	//private int treeHealth = 30;
	//Cut tree down
	public bool cutDown = false;
	//ref Player
	public GameObject Player;
	//distance to tree?
	public float playerDist;
	//store orginal color
	private Color startcolor;
	//display GUI text
	private bool showGUI = false;

	
	
	void Start()
	{
		//ref
		Player = GameObject.Find ("Reiss");
	}
	
	void Update()
	{

	}

	//Mouse over event to store color of tree, change red, and then show chop tree
	void OnMouseEnter(){
		startcolor = renderer.material.color;
		renderer.material.color = Color.red;
		showGUI = true;
	}
	
	//Mouse over event to remove GUI display and return to normal color
	void OnMouseExit()
	{
		renderer.material.color = startcolor;
		showGUI = false;
	}
	
	//information about the GUI to display and where to display it.
	void OnGUI()
	{
		if (showGUI)
		{
			//displace text in center screen
			GUI.Label (new Rect(Screen.width/2-50,Screen.height/2-50,100,20),"Chop Tree?");
			//check if mouse is down and within distance
			if(Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0))
			{
				float playerDist = Vector3.Distance(Player.transform.position, this.transform.position);
				CheckDistance();
				//Debug.Log(playerDist);
				if(playerDist < 13)
				{
					//if true going to start animations and damage to tree
					cutDown = true;
					SendMessage("LookAtTree",Player);
					Debug.Log(cutDown);
				}
			}
				
			if (cutDown)
			{
					
			}
		}
	}
	
	//Attempting to use a function call to check distance so update doesn't do it all the time.
	public float CheckDistance()
	{
		float playerDist = Vector3.Distance(Player.transform.position, this.transform.position);
		return playerDist;
	}
}
2

Generally I usually find the best way to access variables from a different script is to use the GetComponent way of doing things. Let’s say for example you wanted to access the ‘cutDown’ bool from the ChopTree script. You would first make sure the variable is public (which it already is), and then in the other script you would do the following:

public GameObject exampleObject;
private ChopTree exampleScript;

void Start()
{
exampleScript = exampleObject.GetComponent<ChopTree>();
}

void Update()
{
//now to access the variable you would simply do
exampleScript.cutDown
}

alternatively if you have different scripts that you want to have include the same function name, but you don’t know what the script is called you could use what is called an abstract class.

Hope this helps.