Scene Objects
Last updated
Last updated
An Object in Incari is any entity which can be added to a Scene. "Object" is a broad term used to describe a number of different components, each with their own purpose, behaviors, and characteristics.
For in-depth descriptions of each type of Object, see the Table of Contents below.
Objects in a Scene are managed in the Scene Outliner. There they can be created, deleted, edited, and organized. For more detail, see the Scene Outliner section.
Attributes define specific characteristics of entities in Incari and can be modified in the Attribute Editor. Particularly, there are several sets of Attributes that are shared throughout Objects. These are explained in detail in the Common Attributes section:
Object: The Name, Type, and Opacity of an Object are shown here.
Tag: Metadata that serves as an identifier for an Object or several of them.
Sprite: They determine how an Object is visualized in a Scene.
Transformation: They define the position and rotation of an Object in a Scene.
Prefabs are an important and useful type of Object. They are composed of a combination of Objects and allow the user to create several Instances of this combination, enact changes across all of them, or apply individual characteristics via overrides. For more information, see the Prefabs section.
In the Logic, it might be necessary to make references to specific Objects. For this, each Object in a Scene gets assigned an Object ID, which is a unique identifier. The Object ID of an Object can be obtained from said Object's Node, which is created by dragging an Object from the Scene Outliner to the Logic Editor.
For handling and modifying Objects in the Logic, there is a special category of Nodes: the Object Nodes. These Nodes allow the user to obtain and set Attribute values for Objects, and they receive as input the Object ID of the target Object.
Objects in a Scene are organized in a tree. This means that every Object except for the Root Object has a parent and all Objects may have children.
The picture below shows an example. Here, Object1 is the parent of Object4 and Object5, Object2 is the parent of Object6, and Object3 has no children.
Every Scene has a Root Object, which is the parent of all Objects that are on the first hierarchy level. Thus, all Objects in a Scene are descendants of the Root Object. To obtain the Object ID of the Root Object, use the Get Root Node.
In the Scene Outliner, there are three ways to make an Object the child of another:
Drag an existing Object and drop it on top of the Object that will be the parent.
Right-click the Object that will be the parent, click on Create on the drop-down menu that appears and select the Object to create as a child.
Moreover, Objects in the Scene Outliner can be dragged and dropped anywhere in the Scene structure, as can be seen in the following example:
There are a few Nodes that allow the user to obtain and use information about the structure of Objects in a Scene. These are:
Get Children: Returns the children of an Object.
Get Parent: Returns the parent of an Object.
Has Children: Returns a Boolean indicating whether an Object has children.
For more information about trees, visit the Tree (data structure) page on Wikipedia.
Select the Object that will be the parent and create a new Object by clicking the plus icon on the top left and selecting the Object to create as a child.
