How do I get an area node to follow a character node

[graceful sinew]

I'm new.

[grim grove]

Hi there! So depends on what the goal is, could you elaborate on what your trying to do? Do you mean like having the area node change position along with the character? Or like an NPC that follows the character lagging behind some distance?

[graceful sinew]

like it goes to the player

every frame

[kind furnace]

Alright here is what you could do.

1: Make the Area a child of the player, causing it to update positions along with the player.

2: In the _process(delta): or _physics_process(delta): functions, you can write the line:
Area.global_position = Player.global_position

_process(delta): is called every frame while _physics_process(delta): is called a consistent 60 times a second. Process looks smoother but physics process will technically be more accurate no matter how laggy or fast your PC is. For this case, I would use physics process as an area is normally not visible during gameplay.

Ping me if you need more help @graceful sinew

[graceful sinew]

isn't this just making the node have the same position as the player

@kind furnace

[kind furnace]

Thats right

what do you mean "goes to the player"?

I interpreted your question as a teleport every frame

do you want it to slowly travel to the player? I can tell you how to do that

@graceful sinew

[graceful sinew]

yeah

travel

[kind furnace]

👍 okay let me explain:

[graceful sinew]

i did it before

but

it was a lot of code

[kind furnace]

var speed = 4.0

func _process(delta):

Area.global_position = Area.global_position.lerp(Player.global_position, delta * speed)

should work

"lerp" is also known as linear interpolation.

it is a function that can be used in several ways to make one value (in this case, the position of your area) slowly reach the value of another (player position)

[kind furnace]

is this what youre looking for?

you might have to mess with the speed variable a bit to get it to work

[graceful sinew]

what do i set area and playerto

[kind furnace]

"Area" is a reference to the area node. If this script is attached to the Area, then you dont need to type area and you can just put global_position instead.

"Player" is a reference to the player, so you can say:

@onready var player = $Player (Drag in player from the scene tree)

@export var player: KinematicBody2D (Works in 3D too, assign player in the inspector)

i recommend the onready method

[kind furnace]

so in short, area is a reference to the area node, and player is a reference to the player node

dont know why i made it so word-y lol

[graceful sinew]

this?

[kind furnace]

yes, that should work

you can mess around with the speed variable if needed

theres also a way to make Areas visible when testing if you need

@graceful sinew

[graceful sinew]

it didnt work

@kind furnace

[kind furnace]

probably a mistake on my part, let me test some things out real quick

did it give an error? did the area just not move? @graceful sinew

[graceful sinew]

it didnt move

[kind furnace]

try setting the speed to like 400 or something

i did put it in to multiply by delta which is a ridiculously small value on its own

this is a simple recreation scene and it works fine. The speed is a bit high tho-

@graceful sinew

try adding a child mesh or texture to your area so you can properly see whats going on, if you havent already.

[graceful sinew]

@kind furnace why is it 3D

[kind furnace]

Why is what 3d? Did you put a 3d mesh instead of a 2d one by accident or something?

[graceful sinew]

the mesh

[kind furnace]

ah make sure you add a MeshInstance2D (the icon should be blue) instead of a MeshInstance3D

select the mesh and in the inspector, make a new box mesh. It should be a square that you can drag to make larger. You could also do a sprite2d if you have a texture to use instead.

[graceful sinew]

it is

blue

and i have a sprite

@kind furnace

[kind furnace]

it shouldnt be 3d. at the very top of the godot interface, make sure you have 2d selected

[kind furnace]

just do a box mesh for now

[graceful sinew]

but my game osnt 3D

@kind furnace

[kind furnace]

yeah, you can have a 2d mesh

let me open godot and show you

[graceful sinew]

a box is 3d

[kind furnace]

just click it lol

it will make a 2d square

in my case it did

[graceful sinew]

it did

still did noth8ing tho @kind furnace

[kind furnace]

ah just remove the mesh then, make a sprite2d instead

[graceful sinew]

i already had one

[kind furnace]

oh then nvm

my bad

[graceful sinew]

its okay

[kind furnace]

in your code:
global_position = global_position.lerp(vector2(0, 0), delta * speed)

try this instead to ensure its not an issue with the position it is trying to get.

this should cause the mesh to travel to the origin of your map, level, whatever it might be

[kind furnace]

my bad, make Vector2 capitalized

the V in Vector2 specifically-

[graceful sinew]

the thing disappeared

when i ran it

[kind furnace]

did it go to 0, 0?

try decreasing the speed to a very low value

[graceful sinew]

oh

yeah it went to zero zero

*traveleed

[kind furnace]

okay thats a step in the right direction. set Vector2(0, 0) back to player.global_position in that script

you could've also set the player variable wrong somehow, lemme go back

[kind furnace]

once again look at this example scene i made. Try dragging your player, hold control, then release into the top of your script to get a reference in case thats the issue.

[graceful sinew]

I fixed it

[kind furnace]

👍

congrats man

[graceful sinew]

this image

the onready variable was grabbed froma different scene