How do I add an object to the node tree at a specific position

Question

I'm making a skiing game, and a part of that is programmatically adding snow to the scene in a specific place. It will all be the child of a single node.

I was looking through the Flappy Bird code but when it instances a scene, it only uses the function add_child(). There doesn't seem to be a way to set its position.

Here is the project on github.

Answer 1

So first I would create a scene called "flag_scene". In that scene, have your code for making the flags do what you want. Every time the script I posted below is ran (and if it's put in main scene), it creates a copy of the flag scene, sets it in whatever position you want, and does the actions you assigned it to do in the script (attached to flag_scene.tscn)

onready var flag_scene = load("location of flag.tscn")

var timer_raw = 0
var timer

func _procces(delta):
    timer_raw += delta
    timer = round(timer_raw)

    if timer > 4:
        spawn_flag() #call every 4 seconds
        timer_raw = 0

func spawn_flag():
    flag = flag_scene.instance()
    flag.set_pos([where you want the flag])
    # If you use Godot 3.0:
    # flag.position = [where you want the flag]
    add_child(flag)

Answer 2

As you already noticed, when you call add_child(), there isn't a way to input the position at the same time.

To change the position, you modify the position variable on the instanced node.

scene_instance.position = Vector2(x, y)

The structure that this gives instancing/placing code looks something like this.

scene_instance = scene_being_instanced.instance()

# All modification you want to happen *before* the node(s) are added
scene_instance.position = Vector2(x, y)

self.add_child(scene_instance)

# All modifications you want to happen *after* the node(s) have been added

For more information, I recommend taking a look at the Node documentation.