Issues referencing a light in Unity

Question

I'm trying to make a driving game in Unity, and as part of it, I'm trying to make a traffic light blink on and off.

This is my script, which I attached to the traffic light. The hierarchy of the traffic light is:

TrafficLight_A (the base traffic light)

• RedLight (the light I'm trying to make flash)

    using UnityEngine;
 using System.Collections;

 public class Blink_Light : MonoBehaviour
 {

     public float totalSeconds = 2;     // The total of seconds the flash wil last
     public float maxIntensity = 8;     // The maximum intensity the flash will reach
     public Light myLight = Light RedLight;        // The light (error)

     public IEnumerator flashNow ()
     {
         float waitTime = totalSeconds / 2;                        
         // Get half of the seconds (One half to get brighter and one to get darker)
         while (myLight.intensity < maxIntensity) {
             myLight.intensity += Time.deltaTime / waitTime;        // Increase intensity
             yield return null;
         }
         while (myLight.intensity > 0) {
             myLight.intensity -= Time.deltaTime / waitTime;        //Decrease intensity
            yield return null;
         }
         yield return null;
     }
 }

However, I get an error:

Assets/Blink_Script/Blink_Light.cs: error CS1525: Unexpected symbol "RedLight"

What can I do to fix this? (I'm somewhat new to C# )

Answer 1

According to your hierarchy, you are trying to access a Light component from a GameObject named "RedLight" which is a child of the "TrafficLight_A" GameObject. To do that, use pass "TrafficLight_A/RedLight" to the GameObject.Find function which finds the RedLight GameObject then GetComponent<Light>() to retrieve the Light component. You can do that in the Awake or Start function.

Whenever you need to find a child object, the "/" is used just like you would in file path.

public float totalSeconds = 2;     // The total of seconds the flash wil last
public float maxIntensity = 8;     // The maximum intensity the flash will reach
public Light myLight;

void Awake()
{
    //Find the RedLight
    GameObject redlight = GameObject.Find("TrafficLight_A/RedLight");
    //Get the Light component attached to it
    myLight = redlight.GetComponent<Light>();
}

public IEnumerator flashNow()
{
    float waitTime = totalSeconds / 2;
    // Get half of the seconds (One half to get brighter and one to get darker)
    while (myLight.intensity < maxIntensity)
    {
        myLight.intensity += Time.deltaTime / waitTime;        // Increase intensity
        yield return null;
    }
    while (myLight.intensity > 0)
    {
        myLight.intensity -= Time.deltaTime / waitTime;        //Decrease intensity
        yield return null;
    }
    yield return null;
}