What does GetComponent exactly mean?

Unity Engine
1

:vv pls explain it for me, i have gone to a lot of places but i can’t find the answer

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When you have a reference to a GameObject, and you want a reference to a component that is attached to that object, you use GetComponent.

3 Likes
3

I’m having trouble believing that if I’m honest. A quick Google search brings up docs, YouTube videos, Unity Learn on the exact subject.

https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/getcomponent

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4

To be fair to the OP they might be wanting a more basic english explanation which programmers can forget a lot of the time, in this case, it’s the command you use to grab whatever is on the right panel when you click any gameobject in Unity. Though really if this is the problem the OP should look at programming glossaries if they’re having trouble understanding all of this.

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Pretty much everything you do in your Unity game is done by a Component attached to a GameObject. GetComponent grabs you a reference to one of the Components on a GameObject.

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In practical terms, suppose you want to change your color. A gameObject has a Renderer (you can see it in the Inspector) which has a material which has a color. So we need to go through the Renderer. Technically the Renderer is a Component (as Lethn points out, since it’s in the Inspector for that object). So you have to use GetComponent to get it: transform.GetComponent<Renderer>().material.color= …

Or say your ball has a Rigidbody component and want to change the speed. You need to get the rigidbody using getComponent: myBall.GetComponent<Rigidbody>().velocity=…

GetComponent needs to be used with those funny <>'s because it just does, since the explanation for that is overly complicated and not actually helpful yet.