How can I hide a GameObject without active=false?

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As far as I know, there are two ways to hide a GameObject.

The most popular way is GameObject.SetActive(false); But this method will disable all functions of it, and that is not my option.

Second way that I didn't successfully make it worked is GameObject.renderer.enable = false; Because I always got error message said : "MissingComponentException: There is no 'Renderer' attached to the "island01" game object, but a script is trying to access it." when I assign false to it. I don't understand why. There is a renderer object in GameObject indeed. Why I always got this error message?

I just want hide GameObject without set active property false. I believe that renderer.enable should be the answer, but I just can't assign value to it. Anybody knows the way?

Answer 1

Best Answer

Answer by Eric5h5 · Mar 05, 2013 at 01:56 AM

GetComponent<Renderer>().enabled = false is correct. If Unity tells you that there's no renderer attached to that object, then you can be 100% sure that there is no renderer attached to that object. Most likely the renderer is on a child.

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naive231 · Mar 05, 2013 at 02:35 AM 1

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I think my description lost some important conditions. I assign renderer.enable property on a GameObject that contain a NGUI's UISprite object only. So I tried parent object and child object both, and all them gave me the same error message. $$anonymous$$y thought is maybe both of them do not have renderer component indeed. Finally I set UISprite's enable property to false, and it works as expected. So, is it an answer? XD

Eric5h5 · Mar 05, 2013 at 02:41 AM 0

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Yes, in that case the error was because there was no renderer component at all. :)

Answer 2

Answer by illustir · Oct 21, 2015 at 02:30 PM

I found fiddling with the renderer to be not foolproof across 2D/3D.

My solution which looks to be fairly solid is to set the scale to [0] (and in the normal case to work with a scale that is [1]).

 // Hide button
 GameObject.Find ("ShareButton").transform.localScale = new Vector3(0, 0, 0);

 // Show button
 GameObject.Find ("ShareButton").transform.localScale = new Vector3(1, 1, 1);

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engri · Sep 21, 2016 at 10:20 AM 0

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thanks. This is the solution i need.

vikiridi · Jun 27, 2018 at 03:37 AM 0

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GENIUS! Absolutely GENIUS! I love this solution! Just what I wanted!!! How did I not think of this myself....

Nixtheworld · Aug 11, 2019 at 11:50 PM 0

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This is brilliant! Thank you soooo much.

fafase · Aug 12, 2019 at 06:19 AM 0

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One side effect, object is not visible but is likely to be kept in the rendering process. Not sure if Unity discard when scale is 0 (doubtful). $$anonymous$$oving out would result in object being out of camera frustum so not rendered.

Answer 3

Answer by RowanG1 · Mar 01, 2018 at 09:48 AM

Temporarily moving the object to behind the camera might be a solution.

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Answer 4

Answer by ajwesson0 · 2 days ago

As @Eric5h5 said, GetComponent<Renderer>().enabled = false is correct, but this will only work for 3D objects. If you are trying to do this with UI, then you will want to use GetComponent<CanvasRenderer>().cull = false. (Or if you don't know which your object is, try both and check the result of GetComponent.)

(Setting the scale to 0 will technically get what you want, but only if you don't care about performance because the renderer is still going to try and render it. Similarly, moving the object outside of the camera's view still means the culling logic needs to do math to realize it should be culled.)

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How can I hide a GameObject without active=false?

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