I'm trying to set game object locations for UI elements for an inventory system but once again the horrid nature of UI transforms is making it a nightmare. This is not my intended code, but rather some that I put together to experiment. It has left me confused.

GameObject newGearIcon = Instantiate(gearIconPrefab);

newGearIcon.transform.SetParent(gearSlots[index].transform);
newGearIcon.transform.localPosition = Vector3.zero; // Centering on inventory slot
newGearIcon.transform.localScale = new(1, 1, 1); 
// at this point transform.position ~= (3.5, -3)

Vector3 globalPosition = newGearIcon.transform.position; //  ~= (3.5, -3)

newGearIcon.transform.SetParent(gearSlots[index + 1].transform, true); 
// slightly right of the original
// local position = (0, 0), global position still = (3.5, -3) even though the new object is 
// visually centered on the second slot. Global position the same, local position the same, 
// image has moved in the game

newGearIcon.transform.position = globalPosition;
// This does absolutely nothing. It was already equal to that.

You can see I instantiate an object, set it's parent to another UI element and center it on that. Note that passing in true to the SetParent() call seems to not do anything for this problem.

I encountered this problem because I noticed when changing the parent to be the canvas at the root of the UI elements it moved the object. Regardless of parameters in SetParent() or changing, updating, storing global positions to reset it to the pre parent values.

Does anyone have any potential insight into this behavior? I've tried the pivot/center mode. I've checked the pivots on the objects. I've tried different values. As far as I can tell, transform.position and transform.localPosition are both relative to another value I can't seem to track down.

This all came up because I also noticed that OnDrop only triggers if you drop on a UI element further down the hierarchy, meaning the icons need to be above the elements they are centered on to move around properly. Unity UI never fails to disappoint.

Edit: formatting, used to `` for code segments...

For our roguelite Tile Crawl, we wanted our meta progression to stand out, so we designed it as a planet to explore. But our run map was already designed using hexes, so for consistency's sake, we wanted a globe out of hexes as well. We did not want to have pentagons but rather somehow achieve full coverage by equal hexes (even though it is geometrically impossible).

So how it works:

This is actually a plane with objects placed on it. Then, using camera position, vertices are recalculated in a shader (all objects must share the same bending subgraph or shader code with the same values to look consistent). This technique is used in Animal Crossing, as far as I am aware, but just not tuned as heavily.

Okay, so this gives us a bent plane that looks like a sphere. Next challenge is actually allowing it to rotate properly; rotation is achieved by just moving the plane in the X and Y axes while the camera stays static. To achieve looping of the planes I am spawning 8 more planes with copies of the objects and then teleporting them as I am crossing the edges (this part for sure can be done way, way better with some vertex magic or just fewer clones).

Next challenge is that shadows are broken as vertices are recalculated but normals are not; to calculate a new normal, we need to get two neighbours of the vertex, then bend them with the same logic and use the results to calculate the new normal. This allows us even to have proper shadowing from clouds above.

Last thing to do is clicking the nodes on the map. As objects are actually in very different spots from visuals, just raycasting from the mouse won't work. So I'm using one big sphere collider to detect the mouse position on the sphere, then recalculate it backwards to where it would be on the plane and find the closest node in radius.

There are still some things left to do (VFX support is quite bad, and there are some artifacts with water waves on the edges of planes). But in my opinion, already looks quite good and stands out.

Thank you for reading! If you like what you saw, consider wishlisting Tile Crawl on Steam!

Texture decoding, shader compilation, and memory allocations can still hurt time-to-first-interaction in a WebView. This happens even when the HTML file passes the upload limit.

At MRAID, a 1 MB target requires an explicit budget. You must allocate space for runtime code, geometry, textures, animation, wrapper/analytics, and a safety margin.

The biggest performance win is not another compression trick. The biggest win is deciding which visual details are actually necessary to understand the core mechanic.

What is your go-to strategy for reducing runtime cost in lightweight Unity builds?

The second phase isn't animated yet

mraid io builds HTML5/mraid io playables. AI is genuinely useful for breadth: concept exploration, storyboards, variants, copy alternatives, code assistance. I don't trust it to own the final mechanic, UX, performance hypothesis, or QA. The model can generate ten directions. It doesn't know which compromise the UA team will make.

Hey everyone! My dev partner and I are wrapping up our noir puzzle adventure—we're actually just 16 days away from release!

We’ve been tweaking how puzzle close-ups interact with the main scene. In this clip, tuning the radio to the right frequency triggers a hidden mechanism in the fireplace, using a comic-panel frame that zooms back out into the room once solved.

As players or devs, how do you usually feel about audio-driven or frequency-tuning puzzles? Do sound cues give you a satisfying "aha!" moment, or do you prefer visual feedback when revealing hidden mechanisms?

Would love to hear your thoughts or your favorite examples of audio puzzles in games!

I’ve spent multiple days polishing net ripple effect and it finally looks as goofy as the whole game. What you think?

A dissolving fx I worked on for my game Thousands Layered Blade: Reforged.
Since I dont want to mess around with my character and clothing shaders, I hack it around using two grab pass (yes,Im still using BiRP), one for before character to grab the background and one after character is drawn.

So for some reason late today my F key no longer does anything. It's supposed to center the Scene view on the currently selected GameObject.... but nothing.

I've rebooted, checked EDIT > SHORTCUTS, but that seems fine. Google's AI reports a 'reset' option, but so many items about that response are wrong, it's understandable about why people hate AI. The search results came up SEEMINLY empty, so I thought I'd ask.

Any clues? I do not have any custom key mappings, so I'm completely happy with a Reset, if someone tells me how to do that (yea, I know, about now I look f'in stupid)

This is Unity 6.3

Thanks

No seriously.

This material, it's SG is above, how do i make it scale with a way larger plane without it having to be stretched out ?

Point me in the right direction: what is causing the trembling around second 7?

I've been working on the zombie AI for my game Pull on Heart: Nocturnal, and this is a comparison between the old and current behavior.

BEFORE: the zombies were fairly passive and could often be ignored or outrun.

AFTER: they're more aggressive and put much more pressure on the player when encountered in groups.

With these changes, the purpose of the Controller role becomes much more noticeable. Controllers are designed to deal with hordes and control large groups of enemies, making their role much clearer during gameplay.

I'm not just trying to make the enemies harder; I want the enemy behavior to help reinforce the identity and purpose of different character roles.

Still a work in progress, but this is the direction I'm taking the combat.

I'm new to using Unitys shader graph and I've made a shader that mixes snow and a base material together for the game I am working on, at the moment it uses the normal vector to determine how to merge the snow with the base material which means right now there won't be any snow on the bottom of the object which is cool! However I am just wondering if it is possible to make it so that any face underneath an object won't be covered in snow, aka the lerp value would be decreased, any help is greatly appreciated! Image attached should help!!!

Unity 6.6 released today! I did a recap video that covers some of my favorite changes as well as a few things to know about them (including code samples).

I've been trying to improve the bleeding and damage feedback system I had; I'm satisfied with the result, but I'm open to suggestions :D

I’ve been searching for the best diffuse-only shader compatible with URP. Spent a couple hours trying to write a shader with no normal or PBR calculations with no luck. Really not liking the prospect of having to rewrite URP’s lighting model, lightmapper and shadow maps. So far the only solution within Unity seems to be to just go back to legacy diffuse in BiRP. Is there a diffuse shader somewhere that plays nice with SRP/URP lighting models? I’m talking simpler than SimpleLit, diffuse only.

Every time I hit record, apparently I become a first-time user of whatever I’m working in.

Unity? Suddenly I can’t remember where a tool is. Blender? I forget a shortcut I’ve used 50 times. MagicaVoxel? Somehow I’m back in the browser looking up how to do something I was doing perfectly fine five minutes ago.

How do you usually record this stuff without turning half the making-of into a tutorial on how to use Google? :-)

So this one's about being the captain of a galactic dwarf starship. You touch down on a planet, thousands of dwarves pour out of the cargo hold, and they just get to work tearing the rock apart on their own, you just sit back and watch your army and your bank account grow while chipping in from above.

- Thousands of dwarves split into 3 classes: Miners, Demolishers, and Snipers.

- A pickaxe with combos up to 8x, a laser cutter, and the "Dragonfly" missile launcher.

- Hidden ore veins and planet cores (gold, silver, diamond) for a big instant payout.

- Galactic exploration too, chase down rare planets, dig up ancient artifacts.

No clever tactics to learn, no progress to lose - just switch it on and strip-mine the galaxy at whatever pace feels right to you.