Unity Plugin
Points of Interest
General
A Point of Interest is simply a spot in the world. It is exactly defined through its geographical position, not an area, a shape, or borders. Nevertheless, COALA can generate POIs out of shapes if it is needed. (Tip: You can simulate this by abusing the Thoughtfish.Coala.Core.Shape class. Add a bunch of positions, then access the point through the center property.)
Before you can generate a POI with COALA, you have to define it in the Points of Interest section in the back-end.
The POI Config asset
As already mentioned here, you can use the POI Config asset to convert the POI data from a COALA response to an object in the scene/world. This configuration asset is designed in a way that lets you use any prefab as a POI. This gives you great flexibility for whatever your POI should do. The only limitation is your imagination! Some examples could be
a Point of Interest that only reacts to the player if they are close enough
an interactable POI through clicking or performing a specific action depending on the POI type
a POI that initiates random encounters in combination with the decoration system. (An example of this is available here.)
If you feel lost with this, have a look at the "PaperMap" project template in the COALA back-end (in the Add new Project screen) and the prepared configuration asset in this package:
FAQ - Working with the asset
I have changed the values but the map is not affected.
Use the Visualization tool in the COALA back-end.
Increase the internal version number if you want to apply your changes in the COALA back-end.
Ensure that you are using the configuration asset that you have changed.
Analyze the raw COALA response and search for your POI. To do this
copy the request from the Visualization tool
paste it into your browser's address field and execute
use the browser's search function (usually Ctrl + f) and look for the name of your POI (POITag)
Make sure the Label field in the POI configuration asset matches the POITags field in the COALA back-end.