Find active Child gameobject out of multiple gameobjects

Question

I have a parent (Extras Container) with multiple child gameobjects. I want to add much more gameobjects to this later: alt text

They're all inactive at start, but they all have their own buttons that set them to be active. However, I only want one child gameobject to be active at one time. So when one button gets pressed, all the other gameobjects should be disabled.

So what I want is: When a button is pressed, that child gameobject is active and becomes the "currentObject." All other child gameobjects become inactive. If the same button is pressed, no child gameobjects are active and no objects are the "currentObject."

I have some code that works for now, but it seems extremely inefficient for multiple gameobjects down the road. I just want to find the active child gameobject and set it as the "currentObject."

     public void Update()
     {
         if (currentObject != null)
         {
             currentText.text = currentObject.name;
         }
 
         if (currentObject != cube)
         {
             cube.SetActive(false);
 
             if (currentObject != null)
             {
                 cube.transform.position = currentObject.transform.position;
             }
         }
 
         if (currentObject != sphere)
         {
             sphere.SetActive(false);
             if (currentObject != null)
             {
                 sphere.transform.position = currentObject.transform.position;
             }
         }
 
         if (currentObject != capsule)
         {
             capsule.SetActive(false);
             if (currentObject != null)
             {
                 capsule.transform.position = currentObject.transform.position;
             }
         }
 
         if (currentObject != cylinder)
         {
             cylinder.SetActive(false);
             if (currentObject != null)
             {
                 cylinder.transform.position = currentObject.transform.position;
             }
         }
     }
 
     public void ToggleObject()
     {
         if (currentObject.activeSelf)
         {
             currentObject.transform.position = originalPos;
             currentObject.SetActive(false);
         }
             
     }
 
 
 // HOOKED UP TO THE BUTTONS
 
     public void AddCube()
     {
         currentObject = cube;
         ToggleObject();
     }
 
     public void AddSphere()
     {
         currentObject = sphere;
         ToggleObject();
     }
 
     public void AddCapsule()
     {
         currentObject = capsule;
         ToggleObject();
     }
 
     public void AddCylinder()
     {
         currentObject = cylinder;
         ToggleObject();
     }
 }

Answer 1

Here is how I would go about this to make this as easy to work with for tons of children objects as possible. Instead of using separate functions for each, you can use the same function for all of them, passing in the desired index of the object you want. The only weird part is the initialization, because you have to activate all the objects to get their corresponding child indexes.

 public GameObject extrasContainer;
 
 private GameObject currentObject;
 private GameObject[] childrenObjects;
 
 void Start(){
     //Loop through once to activate all children so we can correctly get their child index
     foreach (Transform t in extrasContainer.GetComponentsInChildren<Transform>(true))
     {
         if(t.activeSelf && t.parent == extrasContainer.transform) currentObject = t.gameObject; //Save whichever one you have activated at the start
         t.gameObject.SetActive(true);
     }
 
     //Loop through again to save their child indices
     childrenObjects = new GameObject[extrasContainer.childCount];
     foreach (Transform t in extrasContainer.GetComponentsInChildren<Transform>(true))
     {
         if(t.parent == extrasContainer.transform) childrenObjects[t.GetSiblingIndex()] = t;
     }
 
     //Loop through once more to deactivate the children
     foreach (Transform t in extrasContainer.GetComponentsInChildren<Transform>(true))
     {
         if(t.gameObject != currentObject){
             if(t.parent == extrasContainer.transform) t.gameObject.SetActive(false);
         }
     }
 }
 
 public void ChooseObject(int index){
     if(index < extrasContainer.transform.childCount){
         GameObject newObject = childrenObjects[index].gameObject;
         if(newObject != currentObject){
             if(currentObject != null) currentObject.SetActive(false);
             newObject.SetActive(true);
             currentObject = newObject;
         }
         else{
             currentObject.SetActive(false);
             currentObject = null;
         }
     }
 }

So if you have your objects ordered like you do in your screenshot and you want to activate the cube, you would call ChooseObject(0);. If you want to call this function from a button, you can set the associated index value in the inspector. The nice thing about this is that when you want to add new objects, you don't have to write any new code. Just put your new object as the last child object of the extras container, and give the corresponding button the ChooseObject callback with the index of the new object.

Answer 2

Answer by prakyathd801 · Nov 10, 2020 at 11:30 AM

 if(childName.gameObject.activeSelf)
             {
 //Do something
             }

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Find active Child gameobject out of multiple gameobjects

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