Unity: Insert Parent Script

A script for grouping a bunch of objects together with a new partent GameObject

Jun-26-10, 5:54 pm by Hanford
File under: tech, game design, Unity

Here's a unity script I modified from the Unify Wiki. it groups selected game objects together. My modification does a few extra things:

1. The newly created parent GO's position is set to the position of the first selected GO. This makes the parent's transform controls appear closer to the group than if it was at 0,0,0. It also got rid of a bug I was seeing where grouped objects would flicker like mad as you approached them if it's parent transform was a zillion miles away from them.

2. The new parent GO is renamed to match the first object in the selection. This should make it easier to find in the Hierarchy, since it won't jump around as much.

3. The new parent GO is set as the active selection. Again, to make it easier to find.

I didn't add it back to the Wiki because, well, I wasn't 1005 sure I wrote all this code correctly. Let me know if you find any problems.

using UnityEngine;
using UnityEditor;
using System.Collections;
// HL: Mar11, 2009: I took this from the Unity Wiki. I made some changes so that
// 1. The newly created parent GO's position is set to the position of the first selected GO. this should solve the flicker bug I ran into.
// 2. The new parent GO is renamed to match the first object in the selection. This should make it easier to find in the Hierarchy.
// 3. The new parent GO is set as the active selection. 

public class InsertParent : ScriptableObject
{
    [MenuItem ("GameObject/Insert Parent %g")]
    static void MenuInsertParent()
    {
		Debug.Log("trigger!"); 
		Transform[] transforms = Selection.GetTransforms(SelectionMode.TopLevel |
            SelectionMode.OnlyUserModifiable);

        GameObject newParent = new GameObject("_Parent");
        Transform newParentTransform = newParent.transform;
		
		// HL:  experimental code, positions game object at location of first selected item:
		newParentTransform.position = transforms[0].position;  
		newParentTransform.name = transforms[0].name + " set"; // rename it so it ends up in roughly same location in the list.  
		//--AA-- End HL code. 
        if(transforms.Length == 1)
        {
            Transform originalParent = transforms[0].parent;
            transforms[0].parent = newParentTransform;
            if(originalParent)
                newParentTransform.parent = originalParent;
        }
        else
        {
            foreach(Transform transform in transforms)
                transform.parent = newParentTransform;
        }
    
	Selection.activeObject = newParent; 	 /// HL: sets the new parent GO to be the actively selected item in the UI.
	}
}

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Lucas Meijer wrote: Jun-27-10, 2:04 am

Nice. btw: no need to make the class a ScriptableObject.

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