Getting the entity

You can find this sample in the tutorial project: Menu -> Getting an entity

Explanation

This C# Beginner tutorial covers how to get the entity object. When a script is attached to an entity in the scene, we can access all properties of that Entity by using the 'Entity' property. We can for instance get the entity's name or we can check if the entity has a parent in the scene.

Code

using Stride.Core.Mathematics;
using Stride.Engine;

namespace CSharpBeginner.Code
{
    /// <summary>
    /// This script demonstrates how to access the entity where the script is attached to. 
    /// We also learn how to access a parent of our entity and how to check if that entity exists.
    /// </summary>
    public class GettingTheEntityDemo : SyncScript
    {
        private string name = string.Empty;
        private string parentName = string.Empty;

        // Executes only once, at the start of the game
        public override void Start()
        {
            // We store the name of the Entity that we are attached to
            name = Entity.Name;

            // We retrieve the parent entity by using the GetParent() command.
            var parentEntity = Entity.GetParent();

            // It is possible that our entity does not have a parent. We therefore check if the parent is not null.
            if (parentEntity != null)
            {
                // We store the name of our Parent entity
                parentName = parentEntity.Name;
            }

            // The above code can be shortened to 1 line by using the '?' operator  
            parentName = Entity.GetParent()?.Name ?? string.Empty;
        }

        // Updates every frame
        public override void Update()
        {
            // Using the 'DebugText.Print' command, we can quickly print information to the screen
            // NOTE: DebugText only works when debugging the game. During release it is automatically disabled
            DebugText.Print(parentName, new Int2(580, 580));
            DebugText.Print(name, new Int2(800, 580));
        }
    }
}