Trouble accessing variables from another script

I'm trying something relatively simple, and cannot figure it out.

I have my player object, with a script called PlayerStatus, that maintains his attributes (like strength, dexterity, intelligence, and health). in a child object of player is his projectileLauncher object. I'm trying to access the attribute variables from PlayerStatus in projectileLauncher.js, but keep getting NullReferenceExceptions no matter what I try.

Here's a simplified version of the projectileLauncher.js code:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. private var player : GameObject;
3. private var strength : int;
4.  
5. function Start(){
6.  
7.     player = GameObject.FindWithTag("Player");
8.     var strength = player.GetComponentInChildren(PlayerStatus).strength;
9.  
10. }
11.  

What am I doing wrong?

 

It looks like your code is finding the parent object, but then you are looking for the component in the parent's children. Try this:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. private var player : GameObject;
3. private var strength : int;
4.  
5. function Start(){
6.  
7.     player = GameObject.FindWithTag("Player");
8.     strength = player.GetComponent("PlayerStatus").strength;
9.  
10. }
11.  

[/code]

 

Whoops! Sorry, I was never actually using GetComponentInChildren, I tried that as a last ditch effort, and accidentally pasted that into my forum post.

My code is exactly what you posted, but still giving me a NullReferenceException. To be specific, it says "NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object".

 

Help me Ulognep, you're my only hope!

 

Make sure the names are all exactly right. "player" and "Player" are different, for example. So check:
+ Player
+ PlayerStatus
+ strength

And make sure the tag has been assigned to the player game object.

Good luck!

 

Check, check, and check. Still nothing

And I know that the player var is successfully caching a reference to my Player object, because I'm successfully playing animations later in the script with player.animation.

 

That's an error I am intimately familiar with and it has ALWAYS been a misspelled or case different spelling of what I am trying to access.

Maybe post a screen shot and all the relevant code so we can see what's going on a little better.

 

Try splitting this line:-

Code (csharp):

1. strength = player.GetComponent("PlayerStatus").strength;

...into two lines:-

Code (csharp):

1. var status: PlayerStatus = player.GetComponent("PlayerStatus");
2. strength = status.strength;

This won't actually solve the problem, but when you get the null reference error, you can tell from the line number which variable is null. This will tell you whether it was the FindWithTag or the GetComponent call that failed. When you've established that, it is much easier to track down what is ultimately causing the error.

 

I am completely retarded, and figured this out

my Player object is set up sort of like the FPS Character Controller prefab, where the controller and control script are on the parent, and the graphic (in my case, the animated character model) is a child of the object with the controller/control scheme.

I had the player model tagged Player (which is why I was able to access the animations), and not the parent object (which had the PlayerStatus script on it). I switched to just finding the go's by name, and am caching references to both the Player and the PlayerModel in Start() now, so I can access both my stat variables and my animations