TowerDefense ToolKit 4

@Tsurugi,

Is the wave preview in the example scene working properly? I have no problem with mine. I dont know why but for some reason your script is not the same as mine, from your previous post your line doesnt match up with mine. That is probably why the problem

by disable I mean delete it or comment it (just add a double backlash in front of the code "//"). There are a few lines of "TweenScale.Begin(generalButton.spawn..." in UInGUI.cs, make sure you disable them all.

Not all the example scene uses ScoreManager, only the endless mode does. If you want to use the score system, make sure you have a ScoreManager component in the scene.

 

@g0tNoodles,

I'm not really sure what you are trying to do. Disable the range indicator when in FPS mode? At any rate, you are looking at the right function. If you dont want the range indicator to show up, this is what you need to do in the function. Before it does anything, check if your game is in FPS or TD mode , if it's the former, just return null before it execute the rest of the code.

 

i copied and pasted my UInGui to one of your example scene and the wave info problem occurs... the problem is that at the very beginning of the game (before i even start the game) the next wave info will display and when i start spawn the wave info displays will go back to normal....

 

Copy your UI to the example scene wont help. The UI is a standalone component. If anything is wrong with it, the problem is either within the script itself or the ui object arrangement itself. So if the default NGUI UI doesnt have the problem, then the problem definitely lies with your. It's either you break the hierarchy arrangement somehow mess up some of the setting.

Yes, in the example, the next wave info will display even before you start the game. It just show the first wave.

 

Hi Songtan, by "upgrade" I just mean to have the tower stats change when you press the "upgrade" button. However the button does not automatically appear on any of my scenes anymore (neither does the "Sell" button). I am using the standard UI, not the NGUI. I have created several tower levels in the TowerEditor. I am trying to work off the scene that was called "ExampleLinearMultiPathLoop." It seems like the scene is designed to use the Perk system for tower upgrade. For this game, I don't want to use the Perk system. I just want to click on a tower, and click "upgrade" or "sell."

Also, how do I adjust the "error" for creep position on the track? Right now, they appear up to 1 meter away from the track in the horizontal directions.

I have a request / suggestion as well. How about a "hide box". When creeps enter this box, weapons no longer target them. This would be used to create tunnels through terrain features. That way, when the creep enters the tunnel and cannot be visibly seen, the turrets that are in range will stop aiming at the creeps.

 

First off, you can easily remove the perk system and ability system by removing PerkManager and AbilityManager from the scene. Then about the creep, you can change how spread out they are on the track by adjusting the dynamicWP value on the path component. If you want them to line up perfectly, just set the value to zero.

Regarding the tower button though, it sound quite strange to me. There's only one reason why each of the button is not showing up as far as I can see. Either your tower is still being built, this would disable both upgrade and sell button. Or you didnt edit the tower upgradeStat on TowerEditor hence some value is not setup properly and thus the game doesnt think that tower can be upgraded. Just to make sure, does the same issue occur on any example tower?

I'll give "hide box" addition some thought. I have some vague idea how to approach it but you never know until you really try it. Plus I'm quite busy recently. So I'll see what I can do but no promise here. Hope you understand.

 

DynamicWP! Thanks that's what I was looking for!

I finally got it. The buttons were off the bottom of the screen by a large margin. I found them when I ran the game in full screen mode. Thanks for your trouble shooting suggestions though! I think that's what made me try the alternate screen size.

I totally understand. It's not something I need, I just was looking at your comments with TDTK2 and you had said you were still working on it and open to new ideas, etc. I happened to think of using a tunnel and figured I'd suggest it.

Thanks for your help!

Patrick

 

So all is well now I take it. Have fun!

 

I have been trying to import models to use for "crrep", with varying success. Some work well--and are able to be destroyed, and others simply waltz right through the level.

What are the scripts/properties needed to allow the creep to be destroyed? I've tried to re-do the things I found in the prefab creep. Or, an easier question would be: can I simply drag a model in to a copy of a prefab, and have the new version work but with the new model used? I haven't been able to figure that out--

Also, I assume one can add additional things to a "creep" like perhaps a shader to represent force field strength?

Still dealing with the basics, but not quite as basic...

Thanks!

eaj

 

There's only one criteria for the creep to be destroyed. That is to get its HP to zero. But you have to make sure everything you want to destroy is within the hierarchy of the gameObject (a child object so to speak). If a creep cant be destroyed, first make sure you have no error message in the log. Then check if the creep has got its HP deducted from attack. You can check that easily if you have a HPbar overly on the creep like the default prefab. If it's not taking damage, then it's either that it has got tons of HP and the damage barely make a difference, or tower has no damage at all, or the armor type it has negates the damage type of the tower completely. One of those...

The easiest way (as you suggested), one that I would recommend and one that I do myself, is just to duplicate a prefab (you get to keep the original) and swap out the model of the prefab. This way you can easily keep the setting of the overlay and in fact most of the basic setting. But do remember to adjust the collider of the creep and change the animation and animation body, if there's any.

Finally, yes, you can add whatever you want to a creep. Particle effects, mesh with custom shader, etc. Just make sure you add it as a child object so it get destroyed when the creep is destroyed.

 

On the subject of creeps; how do I assign an ID? I have the icon setup on the actual creep itself but when playing the game, the icon shows something completely different.

 

You dont really need to bother about the creep ID. I dont think it will have anything to do with the icon. Are you using default UI or NGUI in game? If you are using NGUI, have you assign the icon to your NGUI atlas? Also, please make sure the icon name match with the one you assign to the atlas. Otherwise NGUI wont be able to find the right sprite to display.

However If you are using the default UI or have done the right setup, this could very well be a bug. Does it happen to one particular creep only or all the creeps? I have to say I just ran a quick test on my own project and all seems to be working well. So it might be helpful if you can show me a screenshot of what you got in CreepManager and what you got in the game. But first off, please check with default UI. If it works properly on default UI, I bet the problem lies with the NGUI atlas sprite setup.

 

My apologies for being vague. I am using the standard GUI and as far as I am aware, I have everything correct (but I must not have if it works fine for you). Here are some pictures of what it looks like for me.

 

Alright, thanks for the images. I'll look into it this evening.

 

Hi, I noticed the creeps have twice the amount of default fullHP when it is placed into the game. For example if I set full HPdefault as 100 it will become 200 when the game is played. The damage and hp of towers works fine though.

 

Ah, my bad, I forgot to reset some value back when I'm was working on it. Just change the creepHP value in GlobalStatsModifier.cs to 1 and that should fix it.

 

Hello;

I tried modifying a creep prefab without success--and tried making a new one from scratch. The best I can do is to get the thing moving on the path, but no damage. The guns aren't firing. I ran this on the multi-path multi-platform example map. I have done nothing to change the towers. They just don't shoot at this model. Please see if you can find what I am doing wrong! Also, it moves around as if on roller skates--and doesn't walk. The model is animated, but I don't see any other settings in the model itself to change.

Thank you!

 

Well, I cant figure out what you did wrong if I dont have any information about what you have done. Can you send me the prefab you are working on? You can send it to my email.

Here's the precise step by step instruction you can try to follow:
1. get a default creep into the scene (drag it to HierarchytTab)
2. delete the 'body' gameObject and put in your custom model instead
3. adjust the position, rotation and scale of the model. Make sure it looks forward towards +ve z-axis.
4. save the creep as a new prefab (just drag it to ProjectTab).
5. assign the prefab to CreepManager and open CreepEditor
6. in the animationBody slot, select the model gameObject (the gameObject with animation component on it)
7. assign whatever animation you have of the model to the appropriate animation slot.

And that's it. If the turrets are not firing at it, then the problem probably lies with your tower. You can try with default tower prefab, they should work.

 

Thanks. Things are working better--followed instructions--I think. I have a new prefab that can be killed, but the only animation it does is walk (replaced idle with walk). When it dies, it stands in place without moving, then just disappears (I removed the explosion effect just in-case). The other animation effects aren't working: no "hit", no "die" although these are part of the model and work there when previewed in preview window. I drag and dropped the animation effects in to the correct places in the "unit creep" script.

Here is what it looks like:

I do have a few questions to make sure I followed directions. I placed the new prefab in the refab folder, but can't find a creep manager per-se. I also assigned it in the Spawn manager, and I suppose that is the creep manager?

I opeded the unit creep script in my prefab and did editing there. Is that what would be Step #5?

Step #6 and 7 I thought went fine, they just don't work as they should in game play.

Thank you!

 

I have to apologize for the fact that video I have to this purpose is not up to date, otherwise this wouldnt have been much easier.

You can find the CreepManager and CreepEditor in the top panel. Same place where you accesss the TowerManager and TowerEditor. So the work flow would be add the prefab to CreepManager so you can access it in CreepManager. After doing the editing in the CreepEditor, you can then assigned it in SpawnEditor. Note that all of this should be done in the editor if possible, unless you are very familiar with the framework.

Strange that the walk animation works but other does not. I hope you dont mind but it would really be helpful if I can get my hand on the model and see how it's structured.

 

Hi, can you give me some pointers for using drag n drop building scheme with touch input too?

 

Basically all you need is in DragNDropRoutine() in UnitTower.cs. The function will trace mouse cursor and position the tower object accordingly, as well as handle right/left mouse click when the build process is finalised/cancelled. You will need to change that to detect touch instead and call the build/cancel when the touch is released. This function itself is actually fairly well documented so you should have no problem understanding it.

Let me know if you need more information.

 

I tried to change the the GetMouseButtonDown in the DragNDropRoutine to GetMouseButtonUp. However, I have to let go my finger or click first and then touch/click again in order to actually do the drag and drop routine. Is there a way to skip this step? For now, if the touch/click is not let go, somehow it will be the tower description tooltip that was dragged lol

Edit: Fixed the problem but changing the GUI.Button to GUI.RepeatButton. But seems like I might have to find a way to efficiently show the tooltip in a touch device as it will still be dragged along but it will only be shown after it was clicked...

 

That is the tricky bit for touch input, to have a tooltip and still have the drag and drop works. Also I'm not sure if default GUI.Button support what you are trying to do. From the sound of it, the event is only called when a cursor is release on it. You may want to implement your own button click logic there (using the custom raycast or something to detect is the button has been pressed on as soon as the finger is held down). And I dont think you should use GUI.RepeatButton, it will be called repeatedly as long as the button is held down, effectively trying to initiate a DragNDrop tower every frame. There's no telling what will happen.

Anyway, As a start, if you want to use touch input exclusively or even just to make sure everything works correctly, I would suggest you to drop Input.mousePosition and GetMouseButtonUp(). Instead use Input.touch[0].position and Input.touchCount==0.

Also, you should disable the default tooltip altogether. Instead you will need your own tooltip logic. The default one relies on the fact that the mouse can/will hover over the button without clicking. What you need is a handle that show the tooltip as soon as the button is hit on and hide the tooltip as soon the the dragNdrop routine is cancelled or completed/

 

Hi, I'm trying to switch to NGUI and I noticed the icons such as tower, creep and resource does not seem to be shown. are there any requirements to show them because they worked fine in normal UI display and when I switch to NGUI only the ones in the package could be shown.

Btw, how do I control the tooltip orientation like the normal UI? I tried to unhide the posOffsetFromButton and edit it but it seems like it will be reset to a value when the scene is played

 

For NGUI, You need to need the new icons to NGUI atlas in order for them to appear in the UI. Those default icon are showing because they have been add to the NGUI atlas.

Unfortunately you cant change the tooltip orientation for NGUI, not without changing the code anyway. You can only adjust the position of the tooltip with respect to the button before playing. The relative position (posOffsetFromButton) will be used to positioned the tooltip to the rest of the build button.

 

Hey songtan, did you manage to have a look at the problem I posted last week?

 

I've sent you a pm about the issue and you never respond. Can you please check if you have got the message?

 

Hi, may I know which part of the ability manager handles the part that allows the ability to be activated in empty space? I'm not sure why but now it can only activate on positions that have build platform on it. I remember back then it could be used outside of them. I believe it might be something wrong with some part of my setting in scene because I have not edited the ability manager script but im confused on what causes it...

I tried to disabling most stuffs I had on scene leaving only ability,build,spawn manager and camera,game control and ngui active. Then the abilities could not be used because it seems like it is only looking for the platform... I looked at the script and it seems like the currentTriggerPos() function handles this and it will look for LayerPlatform or LayerTerrain. Is the activate on empty space part on different function?

Edit: nvm. after comparing the objects of my current scene with a new scene, I found out that the problem is due to the positional zoom in camera control has been unchecked. looking into the script it creates a terrain collider which explains why this happens. thanks anyway.

btw, when I was creating a new scene there is an error regarding resource manager. It seems that it has to have at least 2 resources in order to create a new tdtk scene. Deleting to only 1 resource afterwards is fine though.

 

Fyi, you can manually create the terrain collider. It can be any collider with the terrain layer (as specified in GameControl) set. It doesnt need to be visible as well.

Noted, will fix that in the next update.

 

Hi, I'm trying to create the main menu using the NGUI and I'm learning from the UInGUI script to learn the flow. May I know where does the Utility declare from? I cant seem to find the declaration and it seems like it was not from either Unity or NGUI default function either.

 

It's in a custom script, Utility.cs.

 

thanks, found it.

 

Hi, I'm noticing that when I am in the spawn editor and I click the generate button, it gives me an error. However, if I open and close the window and click the button again, the changes I make will still take effect. Curious to know if its a bug or a problem I should be concerned about.

Here is the error message.

ndexOutOfRangeException: Array index is out of range.
SpawnManager.GenerateWave (Int32 waveNum, Int32 rscCount) (at Assets/TDTK/Scripts/C#/SpawnManager.cs:346)
SpawnEditor.OnGUI () (at Assets/TDTK/Scripts/C#/Editor/SpawnEditor.cs:255)
System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) (at /Applications/buildAgent/work/b59ae78cff80e584/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:222)

 

Thanks for letting me know. I'll try to find out what is wrong.

 

First of all, thanks for the great prototyping tool - got me a prototype up and running in ~15 hours using TDTK, yay!

I'm having some issues though, which are making me consider rolling my own TD system from scratch in the near future:

1. Turret/projectile towers (especially fast reload ones) shoot (sometimes many) redundant shoot objects at a unit (when the projectiles already in transit are enough to kill it) - this is especially bad with medium-speed reloads (~0.8 seconds) where you end up wasting ~1-2 seconds because of it making it difficult to fine-tune especially hard waves that would otherwise be totally possible.
2. I can't seem to manage to create a custom range indicator to save my life (it ends up rotated 90 degrees along Z for some reason, and manually rotating the prefab object in the opposite direction doesn't help)
3. There seems to be a very noticeable delay between losing a target (due to out of range or death) and reaquiring a new target more often than not (up to 2-3 seconds of delay).
4. Intense waves with dozens or hundreds of creeps cause random pauses in creep reactions at waypoints (they just stop, and wait)

I've managed to improve some of the above (completely or marginally) myself (mostly moving to InvokeMethod as to not get tied to the render loop), but the first one is probably holding me back the most... projectile shootobject's are always going to hit the target regardless of 'when' they hit it (unless the unit is faster than the projectile) - so shooting 'more' objects redundantly makes towers less useful overall.

Perhaps I'm better off writing my own tower type functionality? (looks remotely possible based on what I've learned of the code thus far)

Sorry to bombard with issues, I really like TDTK! I think I've just pushed it too far too fast.

Cheers, Mitch

 

I'm glad you like TDTK! And I thank you for your feedback. Now to address the issues you mentioned..

I always thought redundant shot was one of the random factor that is part of an interesting TD (what is the fun of not having overkill or have a very precise damage output). But it seems that I was wrong. It's not the first time I've been told that the tower should not fire a redundant shot. I'll to my best to add an option to enable/disable redundant shot in the next update.

I like to know what are the object you used for the custom range indicator. As far as I'm aware I never adjust the x or z-axis rotation for the indicator in the code. Are you using a shuriken particle system? That by default is having a 90degree rotation in x-axis so you may want to assign a parent to it and use the parent as the indicator. But then it wont scale to the range of the tower... Anyway, let me know so I can help.

Havent really notice this myself. Does the example tower have the same problem too?

Are you using a linear path or a maze? I'll check to make sure.

 

Hey Song, thanks for the super quick response (faster than I expected! )

1) That would be awesome!

2) It's just a textured model I made myself (to reduce the fill rate on mobile devices).

3) As for the delayed targeting, I had a close look comparing how the examples react vs how my scene reacts and the example scenes/towers seem unaffected (with gizmos enabled you can see the example towers instantly choose a new target when the current one leaves the radius or dies - but in my scene with my towers it can be anywhere between instant or up to 2 seconds, I tried reverting the changes I made (coroutines to invokemethod) and that doesn't seem to be the cause... so I guess there's some configuration option I've set on my towers that mucks it up?)

Edit: All of my towers have 1 clip size, 0 reload duration, and a cooldown of 0.5/0.7/1.0 depending. I've set my angle/rotation speed settings to 360 to test (no affect), tried removing all particle effects (no luck), etc... All the stats I figured would affect anything like this (so I'm still a bit lost there).

4) Currently I'm just using a linear path for testing.

 

good work but auto find enmy

 

I've created a new tower but I can't seem to assign overlays. I tried to copy HP/shield/base overlay prefab from other tower but I can't seem to drag them into the tower editor.

 

@Nasrudin, Very sorry for the late respond. I've been away for the past few days. For the indicator, it could still be the same reason I mentioned. Try to parent it to an empty object. Keep the parent (empty object) rotation at 0, 0, 0 and offset the rotation of the child (the mesh) to whatever you need so it look right. Then use the parent as the indicator instead of the child.

As for the targeting delay. It could be the way your creep or tower is setup. I cant really say why until I have a look at your tower and creep prefab. If you dont mind, can you send me a copy of the prefab? I'll try to find out. While you are at it, you can send the indicator along. I'll fix it for you.


@Rawon, You have to drag the object in the project tab, not from hierarchy tab. I realise this could be an issue. I'll try to adress it in the next update. For now I would suggest you to just take the example prefab, duplicate it and swap the model. This way you dont need to re-assign the overlay.

 

Hi Guys,

Probably very simple but can anyone show me how to stop creeps climbing over blocks instead of navigating around them? I have some custom prefabs with 'Unit Tower' script attached as large blocks sitting on the platform and the creeps keep climbing them !

Also, if anyone could shed some light as to why I might be getting the following error during testing..

My turrets seem to otherwise functioning normally,

 

Does your block has a collier? The navigational path is determined based on collider. They need not be a Tower. Just make sure you have a gameObject with a collider blocking the area you want to block.

First what do you mean "during testing"? Does it happen all the time or just once during gameplay? Are you using your own ShootObject and Tower?

 

Thanks for the help! figured out the first issue, towers with colliders don't seem to work but cubes with colliders work no problem.

By "testing' i mean't during debug gameplay in the console.

I do have a ShootObject attached to my TurretObject, attached a screenshot to give you a better idea of how I have it setup.



Doesn't seem to negatively effect game play, still works fine.

On a additional note, is there a feature build in to restrict a towers line of sight and not allow them to shoot through barriers/walls/cubes with colliders etc?

Really appreciate the help! this tdtk is really impressive stuff!

 

That's what I was telling, you just need to place a collider there.

ShootObject are not meant to be attached on anything except the the prefab which is intended to be fired by the tower. Looks to me that the issue is you havent assign any shootObject prefab to the tower. Try do that.

Yes, just set the TurretLosMode to realistic.

 

thank you
thank you
thank you,

 

You are welcome!

 

Has anyone incorporated saving and loading using this kit? I'd like to add a continue function.

 

As far as I know, no. Not with all the more recent feature included anyway.

 

I'm having trouble with destructible towers. On one of your example scenes, ExampleMazeMultiPath, the unit creeps go over the block towers. On another scene, ExampleMazeMultiPath&Platfrom, if you fill the empty gap at the start with a block tower and set the starting creeps to TankIII, the tanks will destroy a block tower and sometimes pass at a normal height. Other times they will climb as if the block tower is still there.

Is it a bug or is it intentional? What I want is simply for the unit creeps to never climb over towers, especially if they are destroyed.