Northstar Overlay Settings

v1.0

The Northstar Overlay Settings is a Scriptable Object which holds all the data instructing the system how to draw icons in the Screen Overlay, Edge Overlay, and Navigation Bar systems.

Create an object by right-clicking in the Project view and select Create/Northstar/Overlay Settings. You can also duplicate an existing object, and rename it.

Expect to have multiple Northstar Overlay Settings objects! While you'll have a default settings object, individual Tracked Targets and other icons which need to have unique values will each have their own settings object.

The project ships with multiple settings objects handling the demo scene and the various navigation bars, along with a default settings object.

Screen / Edge Overlay

Each of these sections have the same options, though the settings apply only to the Screen Overlay or Edge Overlay respectively.

The icon is a Sprite which will be used as the default icon. Often Tracked Target Overlay components will override this value for specific objects.

The Color option lets you set the color. The alpha value of the Color is ignored. Opacity is controlled through the Opacity float value.

You can also set the Size of the icon.

For both Size and Opacity, you can toggle on the use of a curve to handle modifying these values based on the distance the player is to the object. The min distance, closest to the player, is on the left, max on the right.

In the screenshot above, the size of the icon quickly falls to 0 when the player is nearly at the max distance, but is otherwise at full size value. However the Opacity will fade out both when the distance is close to the min and max value, with a gentler falloff at the max value.

The min/max distance is set in the Options section, detailed below.

Edge Arrow

When the icon is on the edge, there is a second arrow icon, closer to the edge, which optionally rotates to point toward the direction of the Tracked Target.

If you want to not use the arrow, make sure the icon field is null, and no arrow will be displayed.

You can select the Sprite to use, along with the color. When an icon transitions from Screen Overlay to Edge Overlay, as the Tracked Target gets closer to the edge of the screen, the arrow will transition from an "Initial" state to it's final state. Initial Color is the starting color for the arrow icon.

You can also choose to Rotate the icon toward the Tracked Target, which will allow the arrow to point at the targets direction offscreen.

The Size and Opacity options are the same here as they are for the Screen and Edge overlay. However, each aspect also has an Initial value. This will allow you to have the icon grow, or fade in, as the Tracked Target transitions from Screen Overlay to Edge Overlay.

In the screenshot above, the icon starts smaller, and invisible, and grows as it fade in.

Navigation Bar

The Navigation Bar options have the same Size, Opacity, and Icon/Color options as the others, along with unique options specific to the Navigation Bar.

When the Fade At Edges toggle is true, the icon will fade when it gets close to the edges of the Navigation Bar. The specific positions where the fade starts and ends (fully transparent), can be set at the Fade Angle option on the Navigation Bar object.

When the Clamp Position at Edges option is on the icon will be stuck to the edge of the Navigation Bar, indicating the direction it is closest too. It will switch between left and right sides when it is behind the player and the player is rotating, so they get an indication which direction is the shorter direction to turn in order to face the Tracked Target.

Y Position determines the position of the icon on the Navigation Bar.

Move with Rotation determines whether the icon will move with the players rotation. This is usually set true for Tracked Targets!

When Move with Rotation is false, the X Position value determines where on the Navigation Bar the icon should be positioned.

Options

The Distance values for Screen Overlay and Edge Overlay determine the nearest and farthest distance from the player in order to display the icon. In the example above, icons will be displayed so long as they are within 200m from the player position.

Individual Tracked Targets can override these values. Check the demo scene to see how the Berries use a very different distance value than other Tracked Targets.

Edge Offset determines how far from the edge of the screen the icon will appear. If an arrow is being used, this is where the arrow will appear.

Offset from Arrow is an additional pixel offset for the Target icon, when the arrow is being used. This value is ignored if the arrow is not in use.

In the example above, the Tracked Target icon for the target itself will be 70 pixels from the edge of the screen.