TextMesh

Description

The TextMesh component allows you to display text in 3D text mesh component.

This component dynamically generates a mesh that fits the text specified as input, it is great to make world space UI like displaying names above characters like the example below.

Note that Text Mesh Pro is now the preferred solution for creating 3D text as it's more feature complete compared to TextMesh.

Additional resources: text mesh component.

using UnityEngine;

public class CharacterNameTag : MonoBehaviour
{
    public string characterName = "Player";
    public Vector3 nameOffset = new Vector3(0, 2, 0);

    GameObject nameTag;

    void Start()
    {
        // Create a new GameObject for the name tag as a children
        nameTag = new GameObject("NameTag");
        nameTag.transform.SetParent(transform);

        // Add a TextMesh component
        var textMesh = nameTag.AddComponent<TextMesh>();

        // Set text properties and make sure it stays centered.
        textMesh.text = characterName;
        textMesh.fontSize = 32;
        textMesh.characterSize = 0.1f;
        textMesh.anchor = TextAnchor.LowerCenter;
        textMesh.alignment = TextAlignment.Center;
    }

    void Update()
    {
        // Make sure the name tag follows the offset
        nameTag.transform.position = transform.position + nameOffset;

        // Make sure that the name tag is always facing the main camera
        if (Camera.main != null)
            nameTag.transform.rotation = Quaternion.LookRotation(nameTag.transform.position - Camera.main.transform.position);
    }
}

Properties

Inherited Members