Label

A Label component renders a piece of text on screen, in game space. By default it is sorted and drawn with all sprite and tile graphics. The component has a set of properties that governs how the text is rendered. Defold’s GUI supports text but it can be tricky to place GUI elements in the game world. Labels make this easier.

Creating a label

To create a Label component, right click the game object and selecting Add Component ▸ Label.

(If you want to instantiate several labels from the same template you can alternatively make a new label component file: right click a folder in the Assets browser and select New... ▸ Label, then add the file as component to any game objects)

Set the Font property to the font you want to use and make sure to set the Material property to a material that matches the font type:

Label properties

Apart from the properties Id, Position, Rotation and Scale the following component specific properties exist:

Text

The text content of the label.

Size

The size of the text bounding box. If Line Break is set the width specifies at what point the text should break.

Color

The color of the text.

Outline

The color of the outline.

Shadow

The color of the shadow.

Leading

A scaling number for the line spacing. A value of 0 gives no line spacing. Defaults to 1.

Tracking

A scaling number for the letter spacing. Defaults to 0.

Pivot

The pivot of the text. Use this to change text alignment (see below).

Blend Mode

The blend mode to use when rendering the label.

Line Break

Text alignment follows the pivot setting and setting the this property allows the text to flow over several lines. The width of the component determines where the text will wrap. Note that there has to be a space in the text for it to break.

Font

The font resource to use for this label.

Material

The material to use for rendering this label. Make sure to select a material that is created for the font type that you use (bitmap, distance field or BMFont).

Blend modes

The Blend Mode property defines how the component graphics should be blended with the graphics behind it. These are the available blend modes and how they are calculated:

Alpha

Normal blending: src.a * src.rgb + (1 - src.a) * dst.rgb

Add

Brighten the background with the color values of the corresponding pixels of the component: src.rgb + dst.rgb

Multiply

Darken the background with values of the corresponding pixels of the component: src.rgb * dst.rgb

Screen

Opposite of Multiply. Brighten background and values of the corresponding pixels of the component: src.rgb - dst.rgb * dst.rgb

Pivot and alignment

By setting the Pivot property you can change the alignment mode for the text.

Center

If the pivot is set to Center, North or South, the text is center-aligned.

Left

If the pivot is set to any of the West modes, the text is left-aligned.

Right

If the pivot is set to any of the East modes, the text is right-aligned.

Runtime manipulation

You can manipulate labels in runtime by getting and setting the label text as well as the various other properties.

color

The label color (vector4)

outline

The label outline color (vector4)

shadow

The label shadow color (vector4)

scale

The label scale, either a number for uniform scaling or a vector3 for individual scaling along each axis.

size

The label size (vector3)

function init(self)
    -- Set the text of the "my_label" component in the same game object
    -- as this script.
    label.set_text("#my_label", "New text")
end

function init(self)
    -- Set the color of the "my_label" component in the same game object
    -- as this script. Color is a RGBA value stored in a vector4.
    local grey = vmath.vector4(0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 1.0)
    go.set("#my_label", "color", grey)

    -- ...and remove the outline, by setting its alpha to 0...
    go.set("#my_label", "outline.w", 0)

    -- ...and scale it x2 along x axis.
    local scale_x = go.get("#my_label", "scale.x")
    go.set("#my_label", "scale.x", scale_x * 2)
end

Project configuration

The game.project file has a few project settings related to labels.