Aiming Spawners

Spawners are one of the most powerful objects in Blocksmith. They are used to instantiate, or spawn, objects in a scene while the game is playing. This can be anything from launching fireballs to spawning in scenery to make an infinite runner!

This help page will show how to set up a spawner with a projectile, and then how to have that spawner constantly launch objects at the player.

Explore the companion experience How To: Aiming Spawners which shows each step in the process.

How to Build an Auto-Aiming Spawner

One obvious use of spawners is to have them launch projectiles that the player needs to dodge. Getting them to constantly aim at the player needs specific events, and can be a little tricky to set up. One alternative, if you don't care about an auto-aiming spawner, is to set the spawner group to animate so it always fires in different directions.

  1. Build and group a projectile that the spawner will launch. It is recommended to keep them simple (not overloaded with shapes or events), since a lot of them could be spawned into the scene at the same time. Always remember: the more objects and FX in a scene, the worse for performance.

Pro Tip: Add a Trigger with events to respawn the player and destroy the "parent" projectile when it detects something (or use the Hit Target event). That way it will respawn the player but also delete itself if it hits anything.

  1. Add a spawner to the scene and rotate in the direction you want it to launch the object. Then choose the object you want to launch and attach it to the spawner.
  2. Add events to the spawner object to have it launch the projectile. This can be done in several ways including:
  • A periodic interval event
  • A custom timer
  • A trigger or other detection object
  • A raycast when it "sees" the player
  1. Group the spawner with some visual 3D model to make it clear where the object will spawn from, since spawners themselves are invisible when playing.
  2. Use the following event to have the 3D model + spawner group point to the player while not rotating on any other axes:
On: Update
Then: Myself 
Point To -> select the Player in the scene
+
Then: Myself
Rotate To
X=0
Y=Myself -> Y Rotation
Z=0
  1. Duplicate the spawner group several times around the scene to have multiple spawner aiming and spawning objects at the player!

What can you do with them?

We can use these spawners to give our obstacles a feeling of intelligence. We can have bosses that target the player more effectively and more objects throughout our games that react to player position on the fly.