EASY Tooltips And Overlays!

Easy Tooltips and Overlays covers two related UI problems with one system: contextual tooltips (triggered by mouse, keyboard, or gamepad) and floating UI overlays that track a 3D object in world space while staying rendered in the main Canvas. Labels and health bars keep a constant screen size instead of shrinking with distance.

Both systems work on UI elements, 3D objects, and 2D sprites, and support the legacy and new Input System side by side. Every overlay is rendered in the main Canvas, which saves GPU work and keeps text readable.

Use cases

• Inventory and item tooltips in RPGs
• Unit or building info panels in strategy games
• Floating nameplates, health bars, or gauges pinned to moving characters
• Speech bubbles and interaction prompts above NPCs or objects
• Console and couch games where tooltips must work with a gamepad, not only a mouse

How it works

Tooltips: drop the ExoaTooltip prefab into a Canvas, then add a Tooltip Source component to anything that needs a tooltip. UI elements work as they are; 2D sprites and 3D objects need a collider for mouse detection. At runtime, players hover with the mouse or select elements with the keyboard or a gamepad.

Overlays: add the ExoaFloatingUI component to a GameObject, assign one of the overlay prefabs (Icon3D, SpeechBubble3D, Label3D, or Gauge3D), and point its UI Container at your canvas. Labels and speech bubbles take their text from the Inspector or from code with SetText(string). To shift an overlay, place the component on an offset child object. New overlay types are made by extending the demo prefabs.

What's included

• Tooltip system for UI, 3D, and 2D targets (mouse/keyboard/gamepad)
• World-tracking UI overlays rendered at constant screen scale
• Icon, speech bubble, label, and gauge overlay prefabs
• Legacy and new Input System support
• 3 demo scenes: mouse support, gamepad/keyboard support, and 3D overlays

Compatibility

The Asset Store listing gives Unity 2021.3.6 as the minimum version and lists the Built-in Render Pipeline, URP, HDRP, and custom render pipelines as compatible. Version 1.1 (October 9th 2023) added new features, a new manual, and new demo scenes.

Common questions

Does it support gamepad-only UI navigation? Yes. Tooltips can be triggered by mouse hover, keyboard focus, or gamepad navigation, so the same setup works across input methods without separate logic.

Will a world-tracking label shrink as the object moves away from the camera? No. Overlays are rendered in the main Canvas at a constant screen size, so labels and health bars stay readable at any distance instead of scaling down with perspective.

Do 3D objects need anything extra to show a tooltip? A collider, so the mouse can detect them. UI elements don't need one.

Legacy Input Manager or the new Input System? Both are supported side by side, so existing projects don't need to migrate input handling just to add tooltips.

Online manual