This plugin allows you to create spawn areas and spawn groups for your game.
A spawn area is an area that comes in different shapes that can be customized to spawn items in it in multiple ways.
- Rectangle – A rectangle is a shape with 2 parallel sides and 2 other parallel sides that are perpendicular to the first 2 sides.
- Circle – A circle is a shape with a center and a radius.
- Line – A line is a shape that has a specific length.
- Point – A point is a shape that has no length, width or height. It is just a Vector2 position somewhere in the scene.
- Plane – A plane is a shape that lies on a flat surface. It has multiple sub-shapes:
- Rectangle – A rectangle is a shape with 2 parallel sides and 2 other parallel sides that are perpendicular to the first 2 sides.
- Circle – A circle is a shape with a center and a radius.
- Line – A line is a shape that has a specific length.
- Line – A line is a shape that has a specific length.
- Box – A box is a shape with 6 sides that are all perpendicular to each other.
- Sphere – A sphere is a shape with a center and a radius.
- Point – A point is a shape that has no length, width or height. It is just a Vector3 position somewhere in the scene.
There are two spawn locations that can be used to spawn items in a spawn area:
- Inside – Spawns the item inside the spawn area.
- Perimeter – Spawns the item on the perimeter of the spawn area.
A raycast can be used to test if an item can be spawned on an area or body. Using a line or plane shape is recommended for when using a raycast since there is less logic to calculate a random point on the shape.
- For a large world map, you could spawn random animals in random locations on the map.
- For a zombie game, you could spawn zombies around the perimeter of a the player's location (outside of the player's view).
A spawn group is a group of spawn areas that can be used to spawn items in them in multiple ways.
- All – Spawns the item in all spawn areas in the spawn group at the same time.
- Random – Randomly picks a spawn area from the spawn group and spawns the item in it.
- Round Robin – Cycles through the spawn areas in the spawn group and spawns the item in the next spawn area in the cycle.
- Weighted Random – Randomly picks a spawn area from the spawn group based on the spawn area's weight and spawns the item in it (the weight is be set on the spawn area).
- Seed – Randomly picks a spawn area from the spawn group based on the seed and spawns the item in it.
- A spawn group can be used to spawn items in multiple areas at the same time. For example, you can create a spawn group with multiple spawn areas and spawn an enemy in each them at specific times throughout the gameplay.
- For a player that dies and re-spawns, you can create a spawn group with multiple spawn areas and spawn the player in a random spawn area in the spawn group.
- A player that collects power-ups can have a spawn group with multiple spawn areas and spawn a power-up in a random spawn area in the spawn group.
- A tower defense game could have a spawn group with multiple starting points for the enemies to spawn from. The enemies could be spawned in a round robin style so that they spawn from each starting point in a cycle.
- For a large world map, you could split the areas into smaller areas and create a spawn group with multiple spawn areas. You could then spawn random animals in random locations in the spawn group.
A spawn area can be created by adding a SpawnArea2D or SpawnArea3D node to a scene.
Creating an item in a spawn area is an easy task. You just have to add the SpawnArea2D or SpawnArea3D node to the scene and add get the reference to the spawn area in the code. Once you have the reference, you can optionally connect to the spawned signal to get the item that was spawned. At any point, you can call the spawn method on the spawn area to spawn an item in that spawn area.
Note: Using a SpawnArea2D or SpawnArea3D uses the same code with the only difference being the node type.
extends Node2D
@export var item_scene: PackedScene
@onready var spawn_area := $SpawnArea2D
func _ready() -> void:
spawn_area.spawned.connect(_on_spawned)
spawn_area.spawn(item_scene)
func _on_spawned(item: Node) -> void:
print("Spawned item: ", item.name)Creating an item in a spawn group is exactly the same as creating an item in a spawn area on the code side. The only difference is that you have to add the SpawnGroup2D or SpawnGroup3D node to the scene and add the spawn areas as children of the spawn group.
The spawn group will select a spawn area from the spawn group and spawn the item in it based on the spawn style that is set on the spawn group.
extends Node2D
@export var item_scene: PackedScene
@onready var spawn_group := $SpawnGroup2D
func _ready() -> void:
spawn_group.spawned.connect(_on_spawned)
spawn_group.spawn(item_scene)
func _on_spawned(item: Node) -> void:
print("Spawned item: ", item.name)