Health Bar

Introduction

Introduction

Health bars are common UI elements in games. A similar element to health bars are progress bars. Even though the two are used in different situations, the layout for these two is the same.

Creating the Component

First we'll define the component:

1. Open Gum

2. Open or create a new Gum project

3. Right-click on the Components folder

4. Name the component HealthBar

5. Resize the HealthBar component so it is wider than it is tall. For example, assign a Width of 200 and Height 32.

Adding a Background

Next we'll add a background to our HealthBar Component

1. Drag+drop a ColoredRectangle into the HealthBar

2. Select the newly-created ColoredRectangleInstance

3. Select the Alignment tab

4. Click the Fill Dock button

   
5. Change the ColoredRectangleInstance color to black

   

Now we have a black background to our HealthBar

Creating an Inner Container

The HealthBar displays its current health with another rectangle. This second rectangle will be contained inside a container, which will provide a boundary. To add an inner container:

1. Drag+drop a Container onto the HealthBar

2. Select the Alignment tab

3. Click the Fill Dock button

4. Change Width and Height to -8 to provide a 4 pixel margin on each side.

Adding the Foreground Rectangle

Finally we'll add the foreground rectangle which displays the health:

1. Drag+drop another ColoredRectangle onto the ContainerInstance

2. Click the Alignment tab

3. Click the Fill Dock button

4. Change the following values:

   1. X Units to Pixels from Left

   2. X Origin to Left

   3. Width to Percentage of Container

   4. Width to 100

Now, the Width value can change between 0 and 100 to indicate the health percentage.

Exposing the Width of the inner rectangle may be needed to change instances of each HealthBar.