Can someone show me how to use C# to copy and modify vertices?

I have this code:

Mesh mesh = GetComponent<MeshFilter>().mesh;
Vector3[] vertices = mesh.vertices;
int i = 0;
while (i < vertices.Length)
{
vertices += Vector3.up * Time.deltaTime;
i++;
}
mesh.vertices = vertices;
mesh.RecalculateBounds();​

I have some programming knowledge but not much of C#. I need to know how to "connect" this code to a plane of 40 vertices, and just do a very simple morph of it, for example, make each point move upwards by a limited random amount.

Can someone show me how to do it please?

 

Please use code tags:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/using-code-tags-properly.143875/

Firstly, thats a weird use of a while loop, a for loop just makes so much sense instead.

This should be fairly easy if you just break that code down into steps:

Get the vertices of the mesh:

Code (CSharp):

1. Mesh mesh = GetComponent<MeshFilter>().mesh;
2. Vector3[] vertices = mesh.vertices;

Loop through all of the vertices and move them up at a rate of 1 Unity unit per second.
This is where you would change the amount it moves. Probably using Random.Range()

Code (CSharp):

1. int i = 0;
2. while (i < vertices.Length)
3. {
4.     vertices += Vector3.up * Time.deltaTime;
5.     i++;
6. }

Re-assign the vertices back to the mesh and recalculate the bounds of the mesh.

Code (CSharp):

1. mesh.vertices = vertices;
2. mesh.RecalculateBounds();

 

Thanks for explaining the steps.

I think the reason it shows a while loop is to stop the animation repeating, as a for loop would reset i to zero each frame.