Best practices for "selectable" elements in game

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1

Godot Version

4.2.1

Question

I’m currently working on a grid-based top-down 2d game that has elements in the world I can select. So I can move the mouse over and click on items, and then something pops up in the UI when that thing is selected. So I have a sprite like this:

selector

The most straightforward way I can think of to have this sprite follow the mouse (snapping to the grid) and then go onto another sprite is to make it a Node2d in my scene node in my scene. However, this is a UI element and it feels like it should be in my CanvasLayer as a Control nodes. If I do that, however, it seems significantly more work to get it to the correct size and position in the scene, especially if I zoom in or out.

I’ve been having trouble finding other references to how this is most effectively done, but perhaps I’m using the wrong search terms. How “should” I do this? Conceptually it feels like I should use control nodes, but not using them seems easier. I just don’t want to get myself in a pickle later on.

3

@joyfulsquirrel Thank you for the advice. I just tried this out, and I’m seeing the same behavior which I had seen with adding a TextureRect to my canvas, which is that it stays the same size no matter how much I zoom. To be clear, my UI is not a child of my Camera2D – nothing is. And counterintuitively, I just tried to make my UI a child of my Camera2D and that didn’t change any behavior that I could tell.

So I wonder if I left out some critical details in my question, or if I’m doing something wrong?

5

Yes, I’m zooming the camera in and out, and eventually will be panning as well.

And thank you, you’re confirming that it’s not as clear-cut as I thought it was “supposed” to be. By putting my selector in world space with a Sprite2D, I think the display behavior will work without having to script it. I think that’s what I’ll do for this!