So, the system i had set up would use a spawned game-object with a 3d text on it that would be fed the proper numerical value as a string so that it would give the player an indication of how much damage each particular weapon deals per shot (or explosion, casting, etc.)
Thing is, it got to the point where it was being buried under the effects. works fine for things like a handgun but for a grenade or claymore mine, it's being lost. I was looking at how to change the colour but that still didn't help because the particles for the effects were still rendering above the damage indicator.
as such, i think i'm going to have to re-node the entire thing and start from scratch.
So, i was looking at using the GUI system to help me with that. I've made a working health bar but to be honest i'm not really a fan of that kind of approach (since i feel it adds to some of the tension not knowing specifically how healthy/damaged an enemy is) and having it be displayed and following the enemy is working.
thing is, i've come up against a couple issues which i would like to have some feedback on how to address (and also to help clean up how it's done... spawning X damage indicator objects is a little more intensive than just having a gui system set up for this.)
first would be as follows... How can i make it so that i can change the colour of the gui text? so, this way i can give the player an indicator as to whether they've done regular damage (yellow) or crit-damage (red.) Also, it'd help open the door for when the player recieves healing (same principle/approach but using green instead.)
secondly... How would you animate it? i would like to get an effect similar to how WoW does it (where the text will float upwards and then after a set period, fade away.) The main thing i've been facing is that if i were to use a single GUI object or something like that, it's one object and though i can see how i'd animate it, it would only be one instance of damage and i'm not sure how to really approach it to get all manner of gui text objects doing it.
Thirdly... any cues on how to use something other than the standard text font? Don't get me wrong, the font that's in there currently does work well enough but later on down the road in the development process i'm going to likely want to change the font to something that fits a little better into the visual aesthetic.
So, any and all feedback will certainly be appreciated.
Oh, and to really kick it into third-gear, if there was a way to maybe make the font size reflected to show the general proximity to the screen... so, an enemy that's further away would have a smaller text than an enemy that would be closer.
i do realize this might be a very complicated thing but if we can crack it i'll post screens of how it was achieved so anyone that might face a similar issue can find the solution.