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Description
Finds a GameObject by name and returns it.
This function only returns active GameObjects. If no GameObject with name can be found, null is returned. If name contains a ‘/’ character, it traverses the hierarchy like a path name.
For performance reasons, it is recommended to not use this function every frame. Instead, cache the result in a member variable at startup. or use GameObject.FindWithTag.
Note: If you wish to find a child GameObject, it is often easier to use Transform.Find.
Note: If the game is running with multiple scenes then Find will search in all of them.
GameObject.Find is useful for automatically connecting references to other objects at load time; for example, inside MonoBehaviour.Awake or MonoBehaviour.Start.
For performance reasons, it is recommended to not use this function every frame.
A common pattern is to assign a GameObject to a variable inside MonoBehaviour.Start, and use the variable in MonoBehaviour.Update.
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First, I need to deactivate a game object and then after 10 seconds, activate it, so I thought coroutines are suitable:
Obviously, I can no longer use GameObject.Find so I use transform.Find to find the inactive game object, but of course .SetActive now does not work, since obj is not actually a game object.
How do I cast the found transform, so that it can be set active again?
I tried obj.gameObject.SetActive(true) but it must be wrong, because the object would not come back to life.
3 Answers 3
The problem is that Unity cannot find inactive GameObjects. GameObject.Find will only find active GameObject. You should either find and store the GameObject in a global variable or make the variable public then assign it from the Editor.
My solution uses a global variable then stores the GameObject in the beginner so that you don’t have to look for it again.
Below is a wrapper I made that finds GameObjects by name, tag or layer even if they are inactive.
You shouldn’t be using these every frame because they are slow. They are good if used in the Start or Awake function.
Find one GameObject:
USAGE:
Find in-active GameObject by Name:
Find in-active GameObject by Tag:
Find in-active GameObject by Layer:
Find all GameObjects (Notice the "s" in the Object from all the function names below):
I know that in Unity you can find an object of a certain type, using myObject = Object.FindObjectsOfType () , but that only returns the first object in the scene it finds of that type.
How do I make it find the object of a certain type and with a certain name?
2 Answers 2
There are different ways you would go about this depending on your particular circumstances.
Ultimately, you can not search for all active game objects based off both type and name, at the same time. You can easily search for all active game objects based off type, and search the resulting list for all game objects of type that use name. You also want to consider whether searching for game objects by tag would be more appropriate for your requirements.
Below, I have provided two methods for searching for game objects by type and name. One can be easily used on the fly, the other is provided as a standalone method, and can be used more dynamically.
Find all GameObject(s) by type and name
To complete the search, simply search for objects based off type, and search through the resulting list for objects that match the name.
Note that you ask to "find objects", and I interpret that to literally mean you wish to have a resulting Object array. Any type you can look for, in this way, will be compatible with Object .
You could also retain the type you originally search for, in this way. In the above example, we could change List finalList to List with no problems. We could also use List finalList , and find the actual gameObject reference with finalList.Add(basicAIList[i].gameObject , if we wanted a list of game objects.
Consider that you may want to search like this multiple times. It might be more useful to have a standalone method that can perform the required search, and take in custom types and names.
We can then call this method as FindObjectsOfTypeAndName ("name to look for") .
I assume that we will always be looking for types that inherit from MonoBehaviour , but this will usually be the case, with custom types. If you need to change this, ensure that you also change the type of MonoBehaviour[] firstList .