Need to count a number of programmatically created objects in separate script

Question

I have a game that creates and places a random number of "pickups" on a plane at random places.

I then have a script on the "Player" game object that uses OnTriggerEnter to tell when an item has been "picked up" and compares a count (the score) to the number of objects that are created:

void OnTriggerEnter(Collider other)
{

    // Get all game objects with the Tag "Pickup"

    if (other.gameObject.CompareTag ("Pickup")) {

        // Deactivate objects that are touched/collected
        other.gameObject.SetActive (false);

        // add to count
        count++;

        scoreText.text = "Score: " + count;

        //TODO: fix this statement; pickupCount is always 0 here, why?

        if(count >= pickupCount){
            winText.text = "You Win!";
        }

    }

}

The problem I am facing is that during building this worked fine, I built the project and it outputted "You Win!" after picking up 1 "pickup", I found out this is because for some reason the value of pickupCount is now always 0.

pickupCount = GameObject.FindGameObjectsWithTag("Pickup").Length;

My guess is that because the Playerscript checks at Start() and the SpawnScript creates at Start() that the reason the number is always 0 is because at the time of checking there are in fact no "pickups" created. My question is then, how do I check for the total number of these pickups without doing it in an update function?

SIDE NOTE

I know I could just change the OnTriggerEnter() function to be something like this:

void OnTriggerEnter(Collider other)
{

    // Get all game objects with the Tag "Pickup"

    if (other.gameObject.CompareTag ("Pickup")) {

        // Deactivate objects that are touched/collected
        other.gameObject.SetActive (false);

        // check number of pickups left
        pickupCount =  GameObject.FindGameObjectsWithTag("Pickup").Length;

        // add to count to show the score
        count++;

        scoreText.text = "Score: " + count;

        if(pickupCount <= 0){
            winText.text = "You Win!";
        }

    }
}

But it is more a case of curiosity now more than anything. Is what I am asking even possible?

DMGregory · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-15 00:33:42Z

I'd be inclined to do this with a static variable on a script attached to your pickups:

public class CountedPickup : MonoBehaviour {

    static int _pickupsRemaining;
    public static int PickupsRemaining { get { return _pickupsRemaining; } }

    void OnEnable() {
        _pickupsRemaining++;
    }

    void OnDisable() {
        _pickupsRemaining--;
    }
}

Now your player script (or any other) can check CountedPickup.PickupsRemaining == 0 to check how many are left to collect.

This will work even if this component doesn't know anything about what kind of pickup it is (it just represents the idea that this pickup should be included in the count, even if you mix & match different types of pickups in one level), and whether you Instantiate() & Destroy() pickups, or just toggle them on and off with gameObject.SetActive()

jhocking · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-14 16:27:10Z

0

This isn't necessarily the most elegant approach to this problem, but to respond to this part of your problem:

My guess is that because the Playerscript checks at Start() and the SpawnScript creates at Start() that the reason the number is always 0 is because at the time of checking there are in fact no "pickups" created.

Note that it's pretty easy to make some code execute once at a later time. There are multiple approaches, but the simplest is Invoke.

answered Jun 14, 2017 at 16:27

jhocking

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