Assign a 'Transform' target to prefab by finding a 'GameObject'

Question

I've read through other posts, and I know what needs to be done, I just can't find a way to do it. I'm pretty new to unity and game programming in general.

I have a 'Transform' object that is being used to calculate prefabbed enemy's angle of rotation and direction of travel. I can't seem to find a way to assign the target through scripting.

 enter code using UnityEngine;
 using System.Collections;
 
 public class seekTarget : MonoBehaviour {
     
     public Transform target;
     public float speed;
     public float moveSpeed;
     public float moveStep;
     public float range;
     public float distance;
 
     void Update() {
 
         Vector3 dir = target.position - transform.position;
         float angle = Mathf.Atan2(dir.y,dir.x) * Mathf.Rad2Deg;
         transform.rotation = Quaternion.AngleAxis(angle, Vector3.forward);
 
         float moveStep = moveSpeed * Time.deltaTime;
         distance = Vector3.Distance (target.position, transform.position);
 
         if (distance > range) 
         {
             transform.position = Vector3.MoveTowards (transform.position, target.position, moveStep);
         }
 
     }
 
 }

I've tried using the GameObject.FindGameObjectByTag("Player"); line, but when I try that it says I can't convert from 'Transform' to 'GameObject'

When I try to make the 'target' a 'GameObject' from the start, none of my vector functions will work.

I've tried explicitly typecasting as well, to no avail.

What am I missing?

Answer 1

Answer by robertbu · Feb 14, 2014 at 03:29 PM

If you are absolutely sure that at least one of the 'Player' tagged objects exist in the scene, you can do:

 target = GameObject.FindGameObjectByTag("Player").transform;

Getting something by tag is efficient enough to do every frame, but if the 'Player' tagged object never changes to a new game object it would best to do the assignment in Start().

If there is a chance that the 'Player' game object will not exist, you can do:

 GameObject go =  GameObject.FindGameObjectByTag("Player");
 if (go != null) {
     target = go.transform;
 }
 else {
     target = null;
 }

But if you need to handle this situation, you also need to handle target being null in the rest of your code.

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Luvs2Dummy · Feb 14, 2014 at 04:28 PM 0

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Of course, I was missing something as simple as '.transform' .. Thank you, kind stranger!

Assign a 'Transform' target to prefab by finding a 'GameObject'

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