C# using sprite gameobject as a cursor

Hello,

I'm working on a top-down shooting game that uses nothing but 2D sprites, and I'm starting work on shooting/aiming for the game, and I need a cursor. It's a little crosshair that (later on) will be set up to animate, change its colour, and even disappear depending on certain conditions. I originally used Unity's own GUI solution with a certain degree of success, but I decided to make it part of the game world for various reasons, e.g. so it could be affected by the player camera's zoom level and I could achieve a meaty pixellated look.

After experimenting and some googling, this is my code:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. public class PlayerCrosshair : MonoBehaviour
3. {
4.     private Vector2 mouse = new Vector2(0,0);
5.     public float moveSpeed = 1f;
6.    
7.     void Start ()
8.     {
9.         Screen.showCursor = false;
10.     }  
11.    
12.     void Update ()
13.     {
14.         CrosshairPosition();
15.     }
16.  
17.     void CrosshairPosition()
18.     {
19.         mouse = Input.mousePosition;
20.         mouse = Camera.main.WorldToScreenPoint(mouse);
21.         transform.position = Vector2.Lerp(new Vector3 (transform.position.x , transform.position.y, -5f), mouse, moveSpeed * Time.deltaTime);
22.     }
23. }

The script is attached to the crosshair object, and I want it to attach itself to the mouse's current position with a slight smooth transition between its old and new position.

When I run the game, the crosshair seemingly disappears from the game, and this happens in the inspector:



See the transform. The transform starts at (0,0,0) when everything's in the scene view, but then that happens whilst running.

I can't imagine what I'm doing wrong in my script, but then again I'm newish to scripting. Could anyone lend me a little hand? The player's movement/turning/camera in my game is working wonderfully, but I can't get much further unless this is solved.

 

UPDATE

Please pardon the bump, but I've done some more fiddling and now the cursor works, but just look at this, this is bizarre:



The cursor works exactly as I want it to (for now), but its only shows/works in the scene view and not in the game view. Why would this be?

My new code below:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. using UnityEngine;
3. using System.Collections;
4.  
5. public class PlayerCrosshair : MonoBehaviour
6. {
7.     private Vector3 mousePos;
8.  
9.     void Start ()
10.     {
11.         Screen.showCursor = false;
12.     }
13.  
14.     void Update ()
15.     {
16.         CrosshairPosition();
17.     }
18.  
19.     void CrosshairPosition()
20.     {
21.         mousePos = Input.mousePosition;
22.         mousePos = Camera.main.ScreenToWorldPoint(mousePos);
23.         transform.position = mousePos;
24.     }
25. }
26.  

Screen.showCursor = false; isn't the cause of my problems, I just tested it.

 

It looks like the ScreenToWorld function isn't getting a full argument. You have to also pass it a Z value, or world units from the camera. I would change the mousePos variable assignment to something like

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. float playerDistance = Vector3.Distance(Camera.main.position, player.position)
3. mousePos = new Vector3(Input.mousePosition.x,Input.mousePosition.y,playerDistance);

I'm doing this from work so there might be some discrepancies in the code.

 

AAHA YES it works now!

New code is as follows:

Code (csharp):

1. using UnityEngine;
2. using System.Collections;
3.  
4. public class PlayerCrosshair : MonoBehaviour
5. {
6.     private Vector3 mousePos;
7.     private GameObject player;
8.  
9.     void Start ()
10.     {
11.         Screen.showCursor = false;
12.         player = GameObject.FindWithTag("Player");
13.     }
14.  
15.     void Update ()
16.     {
17.         CrosshairPosition();
18.     }
19.  
20.     void CrosshairPosition()
21.     {
22.         float playerDistance = Vector3.Distance(Camera.main.transform.position, player.transform.position);
23.         mousePos = new Vector3(Input.mousePosition.x,Input.mousePosition.y,playerDistance);
24.         mousePos = Camera.main.ScreenToWorldPoint(mousePos);
25.         transform.position = mousePos;
26.     }
27. }

Thanks a bunch, man. Now I can finally make progress!

Off to make a basic weapon/damage system and to learn about raycasting...

 

No problem! Good luck!