Highlighting vs Selection

intermediate concepts

Highlight Plus · Core Concepts

Highlight Plus distinguishes between two modes of highlighting: Highlighting (hover/proximity) and Selection (click/toggle). Understanding the difference lets you build intuitive selection systems for your game.

Highlighting vs Selection

FeatureHighlightingSelection
TriggerMouse hover, proximity, or scriptingMouse click or scripting
DurationTemporary — ends when trigger stopsPersistent — stays until deselected
ProfileUses the object’s main Highlight Effect profileUses a separate Selected Profile (if assigned)
Multiple objectsOnly one object highlighted at a time (by default)Multiple objects can be selected simultaneously

Highlight Manager vs Highlight Trigger

There are two ways to enable automatic highlighting and selection in your scene:

ComponentScopeBest for
Highlight ManagerScene-wide. Manages all objects with a HighlightEffect component via a single raycast.Scenes where most objects share the same interaction rules.
Highlight TriggerPer-object. Each object controls its own input detection (raycast, collider events, or volume-based).Objects that need individual trigger settings, custom cameras, or volume-based proximity detection.

You can use either one or combine both. HighlightTrigger takes priority on the objects where it is attached.

Setting Up Selection

  1. Add a Highlight Manager (scene-wide) or a Highlight Trigger (per-object) to handle input detection.
  2. Create a Selection Profile — right-click in the Project window: Create > Highlight Plus > Highlight Profile. Configure the desired selection appearance (e.g., thicker outline, different color).
  3. Assign the profile — on the Highlight Manager (or Highlight Trigger), assign your profile to the Selected Profile field. Optionally also assign Selected And Highlighted Profile for the combined state.
  4. Enable click-to-select — tick Select On Click on the same component.

Selection Options

The selection feature is configured on HighlightManager or HighlightTrigger, not on the per-object HighlightEffect component.

OptionComponentTypeDescription
Select On ClickHighlightManager / HighlightTriggerboolWhen enabled, clicking the object selects it.
ToggleHighlightManager / HighlightTriggerboolWhen enabled, clicking a selected object deselects it. Without it, clicks accumulate selections.
Single SelectionHighlightManager / HighlightTriggerboolOnly one object can be selected at a time. When a different object is clicked, the previous selection is cleared.
Keep SelectionHighlightManager / HighlightTriggerboolPreserves selection when the pointer leaves the object.
Selected ProfileHighlightManager / HighlightTriggerHighlightProfileProfile applied while the object is selected (and not highlighted).
Selected And Highlighted ProfileHighlightManager / HighlightTriggerHighlightProfileProfile applied while the object is both selected and highlighted.
HighlightedHighlightEffectbool (property)Current highlight state. Set via effect.highlighted = true or SetHighlighted(true).
Is SelectedHighlightEffectbool (property)Current selection state. Read or set via effect.isSelected.

Scripting Selection

Selection is driven by HighlightManager at the scene level. See Scripting Support — HighlightManager Selection Handling for the full API and code samples.

Quick reference:

// Through the Manager (recommended)
HighlightManager.instance.SelectObject(transform);
HighlightManager.instance.ToggleObject(transform);
HighlightManager.instance.UnselectObject(transform);
HighlightManager.instance.UnselectObjects();

// Direct property on the effect (no manager needed)
HighlightEffect effect = GetComponent<HighlightEffect>();
effect.isSelected = true;   // select
effect.isSelected = false;  // deselect
bool selected = effect.isSelected;

Tips

  • If no Selected Profile is assigned, the selected state uses the same appearance as the highlight — only the persistence differs.
  • Use different colors or outline widths in the Selection Profile to make it visually distinct from hover highlighting.
  • Enable Toggle to let a second click on a selected object deselect it. Combine with Single Selection on HighlightTrigger to allow only one selection at a time.
  • Selection state persists across highlight/unhighlight events — a selected object keeps its selection appearance even when not being hovered.

Next Steps

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