Unity: Instantiating prefab appears at wrong location

Question

I'm creating a simple text-based puzzle that will have a varied number of clues, determined at runtime. I figured I should do this by instantiating a number of prefabs. Here's what it looks like right now.

Notice the transform values. The prefab in Assets has the exact same values.

To test to see if I could instantiate a bunch of Puzzle objects at runtime, I created this simple loop:

     for (int x = 1; x < 6; x++)
     {
         Debug.Log(15-x);
         Instantiate(puzzle, new Vector2(0, 15 - x), Quaternion.identity, GameObject.FindGameObjectWithTag("Canvas").transform);
     }

The idea being all the clones would stack beneath the first Puzzle object. However, this is what happens when I run it:

The clones are being stacked at the wrong position. I used the debug log to confirm the correct values are being used for the vector, and I've tried using Vector3 as well. There are a lot of similar questions on the unity forums, but none of those solutions worked for me. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

You definitely should use a parent element with a vertical layout group, and spawn your new elements as child of it. It will do exactly what you want — Jichael

prashant prashant · Accepted Answer · 2019-08-22T04:55:37

To set positions of canvas elements you need to use the anchoredPosition of the RectTransform.

So you need to get your target element's anchoredPosition so you can position the next elements with respect to that.

    public RectTransform firstPuzzle;
    public GameObject puzzle;

    private void InstantiatePuzzle()
    {
        for (int x = 1; x < 6; x++)
        {
            RectTransform spawnedPuzzle = Instantiate(puzzle, GameObject.FindGameObjectWithTag("Canvas").transform).GetComponent<RectTransform>();
            spawnedPuzzle.anchoredPosition = new Vector2(firstPuzzle.anchoredPosition.x, firstPuzzle.anchoredPosition.y - (50 * x));// 50 is the gap you want it to be.
        }
    }

Assign the reference of the first element(Puzzle) which is currently in the inspector and it will start positioning the next elements below that with a gap of 50.

Here is the output.

Unity: Instantiating prefab appears at wrong location

1 Answers