Re-using Scene Nodes

JayBanana

Hi,

I'm trying to find a way to re-use a scene node the correct way.

I have a scene with an enemy (chicken) that moves on a path (Path2D/PathFollow2D), I have instanced the enemy scene in the main scene, much the way I would if I was using Unity and prefabs.

With the enemy I wish to re-use it multiple times on different platfroms, but I need to change the path length for each instanced enemy. However, the only way I can see is that I would have to make multiple enemies with different paths, this seems a waste of resourses.

Is there any way to expose the Path2D so that I can edit it in the main scene, without changing the original scene?

Alternatively I could just create multiple versions that are editable in the main scene, however again, this seems like a waste of resources, especially when the only change is the Path2D length/direction.

Is there a better method to organise my scenes/nodes to make the Path2D editable in the main scene, but still being able to re-use them.

I don't wish my main scene to be full of unnecessary nodes, when I should be re-using things as much as possible.

Here's my Layout so far with two instanced copies of the enemy chicken scene:

The enemy chicken Path2D scene:

The script for the enemy which moves the chicken back and forth on the Path for reference:

Thanks.

cybereality

Path2D has a curve property, which is a Curve2D.

https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/classes/class_curve2d.html

You can edit the points in code, for example, getting the last point and moving it's position with set_point_position(). The script should be on the root of the chicken, then you can call it from the main scene or script when you instance the chicken and set the length (you probably want to make a function on the chicken that takes some integer length or value and then edit the point there).

Nanites

I have something similar in my game and did it in the way that for you, would correspond to have a chicken beeing a scene without the path, and then add the path as a child with a set name, that it then will access. Also added an editor warning if no path has been added to the chicken.

I actually wonder if thats a good way of doing it, but it seemed logical with one scene that needs to be "adapted" by another node many times.

JayBanana

Thanks for the ideas, I'll look into things further.