instance_place

With this function you can check a position for a collision with another instance or all instances of an object using the collision mask of the instance that runs the code for the check. When you use this you are effectively asking GameMaker to move the instance to the new position, check for a collision, move back and tell you if a collision was found or not.

This will work for precise collisions, but only if both the instance and the object being checked for have precise collision masks selected otherwise only bounding box collisions are applied.

This function will return the unique instance id of the object being collided, but if that is not needed it is slightly faster to use the function place_meeting(). This function also accepts the special keywords all and other and will return the keyword noone if no collision occurs, or the unique instance ID value of the instance found if a collision does occur.

Syntax:

instance_place(x, y, obj);

Returns:

Object Instance or noone

Example:

var _inst = instance_place(x, y, obj_Enemy);
if _inst != noone
{
    hp -= _inst.dmg;
    instance_destroy(_inst);
}

The above code will check for a collision with instances of "obj_Enemy" and if there is one, it will reduce the "hp" variable by the amount stored in the colliding instance's "dmg" variable and then destroy the colliding instance.