UGTK / Toolkit / Component Module / Follow System Completed

Follow System

Summary

The Follow System makes an object chase a target: another object, the mouse cursor or the finger. The movement is not a plain lerp — it is driven by an AnimationCurve, so the approach can accelerate, ease out or overshoot, and it stops at a configurable distance from the target instead of landing on it.

Four ready-made components cover the usual cases: follow a UI element, follow a world object, follow the mouse, follow the touch.

Content

• Modules Dependencies
• Setup
• How To Use
• 2D means UI, 3D means world
• Testing Scene
• Technical Info

Modules Dependencies

• Generic Component: supplies the Owner, which is the object that actually moves.
• Movement Component: supplies speed and the OnStartMoving / OnStopMoving events.
• Input Compatibility: the mouse and touch variants read input through UGTKInput, so they work with both input backends.

Setup

Drop the prefab of the variant you need as a child of the object that has to move — the component moves its parent, not itself.

3D Follower Component — follows a Transform in the world:

2D Follower Component — follows a RectTransform in the UI:

Mouse Follower Component:

Touch Follower Component:

How To Use

1. Set the speed — how fast the owner travels, before the curve modulates it:

2. Choose instant or gradual. With instantFollow on, the owner is teleported and OnStopMoving fires in the same frame — the curve and the speed are ignored entirely:

3. Set the stop distance — how far from the target the owner comes to rest. It is what keeps a follower from sitting exactly on top of what it follows:

4. Set the tolerance. Without it the owner keeps micro-correcting around the stop distance and visibly jitters; the tolerance is the dead zone that ends the movement:

5. Assign the target — RectTransform for the 2D component, Transform for the 3D one. The mouse and touch variants need no target:

From code: SetTarget(t) / GetTarget(), and StartFollow() to begin a movement.

Curve Mode decides what the movementCurve means:

Good to know:

• The component moves its Owner, that is its parent. Putting the prefab directly on the object to move does nothing visible — it would move the auto-generated parent instead. This is the single most common mistake with this module.
• continuousFollowing restarts the movement when the target moves; without it the owner reaches the target's position at the moment StartFollow was called and stops there, even if the target has left.
• startFollowingOnStart only fires once, in Start. For an object spawned from a pool, call StartFollow() yourself when it is taken out.
• Tolerance too small makes it flicker, too large makes it stop early: it is compared against the stop distance, not against zero.

2D means UI, 3D means world

This is the part the naming hides, and it decides whether the module works for you at all:

• Mn_3DFollowComponent targets a Transform and works in world coordinates. This is the one for scene objects, in both 2D and 3D games.
• Mn_2DFollowComponent targets a RectTransform and copies its position straight across. On a Screen Space - Overlay canvas that position is in screen pixels, which is why it works for UI.
• Mn_MouseFollowComponent / Mn_TouchFollowComponent return the cursor or finger position in screen pixels, with no ScreenToWorldPoint conversion. Put one of them on a world-space object and it flies off to coordinates in the hundreds: they are meant for UI on an Overlay canvas.

To have a world object follow the mouse, do not use these: convert the position yourself with Camera.main.ScreenToWorldPoint and feed a Mn_3DFollowComponent through SetTarget.

Two more details on those two: the mouse variant returns the owner's current position while the cursor is outside the window (so the follower parks instead of jumping), and both dereference Camera.main — a scene with no camera tagged MainCamera throws.

Testing Scene

Open FollowScene.unity: the followers chase their targets, and you can change speed, distance, tolerance and the curve in Play Mode to see each one take effect.

Technical Info

• Back to the toolkit index

© 2026 Marcello De Bonis. All rights reserved

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