Question How to deposit an item?

I am trying to figure out a way to have a player deposit an object (dirty plate) they are carrying into another stationary object (dishwasher) which would then turn the dishwasher on and have it shake.

I tried googling but I couldn't find a tutorial, guide, or how-to. I believe it's because I'm not using the right terms or lingo. What would this process of "depositing an item and triggering an event" be called and what would be involved? If there is a tutorial, then please point me in the right direction if possible.

 

Probably use phrases more like "pick up item" or "drop item"



Tutorials and example code are great, but keep this in mind to maximize your success and minimize your frustration:

How to do tutorials properly, two (2) simple steps to success:

Step 1. Follow the tutorial and do every single step of the tutorial 100% precisely the way it is shown. Even the slightest deviation (even a single character!) generally ends in disaster. That's how software engineering works. Every step must be taken, every single letter must be spelled, capitalized, punctuated and spaced (or not spaced) properly, literally NOTHING can be omitted or skipped.

Fortunately this is the easiest part to get right: Be a robot. Don't make any mistakes.
BE PERFECT IN EVERYTHING YOU DO HERE!!

If you get any errors, learn how to read the error code and fix your error. Google is your friend here. Do NOT continue until you fix your error. Your error will probably be somewhere near the parenthesis numbers (line and character position) in the file. It is almost CERTAINLY your typo causing the error, so look again and fix it.

Step 2. Go back and work through every part of the tutorial again, and this time explain it to your doggie. See how I am doing that in my avatar picture? If you have no dog, explain it to your house plant. If you are unable to explain any part of it, STOP. DO NOT PROCEED. Now go learn how that part works. Read the documentation on the functions involved. Go back to the tutorial and try to figure out WHY they did that. This is the part that takes a LOT of time when you are new. It might take days or weeks to work through a single 5-minute tutorial. Stick with it. You will learn.

Step 2 is the part everybody seems to miss. Without Step 2 you are simply a code-typing monkey and outside of the specific tutorial you did, you will be completely lost. If you want to learn, you MUST do Step 2.

Of course, all this presupposes no errors in the tutorial. For certain tutorial makers (like Unity, Brackeys, Imphenzia, Sebastian Lague) this is usually the case. For some other less-well-known content creators, this is less true. Read the comments on the video: did anyone have issues like you did? If there's an error, you will NEVER be the first guy to find it.

Beyond that, Step 3, 4, 5 and 6 become easy because you already understand!

Finally, when you have errors, don't post here... just go fix your errors! Here's how:

Remember: NOBODY here memorizes error codes. That's not a thing. The error code is absolutely the least useful part of the error. It serves no purpose at all. Forget the error code. Put it out of your mind.

The complete error message contains everything you need to know to fix the error yourself.

The important parts of the error message are:

- the description of the error itself (google this; you are NEVER the first one!)
- the file it occurred in (critical!)
- the line number and character position (the two numbers in parentheses)
- also possibly useful is the stack trace (all the lines of text in the lower console window)

Always start with the FIRST error in the console window, as sometimes that error causes or compounds some or all of the subsequent errors. Often the error will be immediately prior to the indicated line, so make sure to check there as well.

Look in the documentation. Every API you attempt to use is probably documented somewhere. Are you using it correctly? Are you spelling it correctly?

All of that information is in the actual error message and you must pay attention to it. Learn how to identify it instantly so you don't have to stop your progress and fiddle around with the forum.

 

Thank you for the tips! I'm able to write a quick snippet to allow the player to pick up and drop items as well as to "equip" them.

The current obstacle I'm facing is after that part.

Specifically where the player would "use" the picked up plate on the dishwasher and triggering an action. How does this process work?

Do I set the picked up plate to disappear once the dishwasher is interacted with while holding the plate = true, then once the plate disappears, script the dishwasher to perform an animation if the picked up item is now false?

 

It comes down to what kind of game design you want.

Often games simply require you to possess a dirty dish, stand next to the dishwasher, and a UI comes up saying "Wash dish" and then the dirty dish disappears and a new clean one appears. For an example of this, see the Plate Up! game demo off Steam.

More complicated games like Escape From Tarkov will spawn a new physics object in game in front of you and send it forward to drop onto something. Or else they will have you open the dishwasher and pretend the dishwasher has an inventory inside it, and you open both inventories and transfer the item.

Where and when and how that happens is really entirely up to you. Each step you want will require a separate approach.

It's all just design and effort.

 

or you could just have the player eat out instead..

 

Personally I would have a List in the dishwasher script, something named "dishesToWash", or something like that. And when you interact with dishwasher you add the dish to that list, and of course disable(not destroy(object pooling*)) actual said dish object.

One could argue just use have an integer, but I'm assuming each dish would have a certain amount of time to wash? Like Kurt said, it's all on how you want to structure it.

but while said List, or integer, is greater than 0, then dishwasher would "turn on" for set amount of time. Then minus by one(when dish fully washed) the integer, or RemoveAt(0) from the list. And when said List or integer is 0, dishwasher then turns off.

 

Go step by step. First step could be to instantly return a clean plate when the player bumps into the dishwasher. Then try to build in a delay. Then try to let an animation play during that delay. And so on.

 

This is so critical for gamedev. Always go for the MVP first because:

1) it might be perfectly good enough

2) you might decide you don't like that mechanic at all or that it breaks something else.

3) games need to be fast and responsive... few players "get joy" from how it takes five to ten seconds to climb into a Grand Theft Auto Car after you've done it 3 or 4 times.

Thin, light, fast, iterate, test, repeat...