Question by kedwinm · Feb 05, 2013 at 06:20 AM · ios vectors

Adding dynamic, "glowing" links/vectors between collectibles

A friend and I are developing our first Unity game on our own (we're both artists familiar with the engine, but not programmers by trade), and I have an visual effect in mind for collectibles.

Imagine a series of "coins", or what-have-you, and as the playable character passes through multiples in quick succession, a "glowing" (not saying it needs to be actually a glow effect, but as long as it can be faked through a texture/shader/whatever) link is drawn between those that have been picked up...so if there are, say, 3 coins collected in under a second, they sort of cluster together before animating to their appropriate UI display.

The visual I'm envisioning is as if they were a constellation of collectibles, which would fit the general "earthy"/mystical yet abstract aesthetic of the project.

Is there a feasible way to accomplish this? I guess it'd be drawing some sort of vector one by one, as the collectibles are passed through and then maybe generating some sort of skinny plane with a texture for each vector? Or it's just generally not something that could work on mobile well?

Any help or leading me down the proper path would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks!

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Fattie · Feb 05, 2013 at 06:30 AM 0

Yes, it is possible you need to get the package VECTROSITY from the asset store.

It is what everyone uses to do glowing lines, glowing arrows and the like.

Also, in Unity there is a thing called LineRenderer. Check it out. (It is a bit fiddly to program, if you are brand-new to programming.) Often you can use LineRenderer for what you describe.

But "Vectrosity" is a more permanent, flexible solution.

Hope it helps!

robertbu · Feb 05, 2013 at 06:39 AM 0

Take a look at the demos for the Vectrosity. The things I've done with Vectrosity run fine on iOS. If you have a very limited number of lines, you can roll your own line drawing by creating thin, two-triangle planes.