How can I capture object name with GetMouseButtonDown in Update in Unity C# without it changing later?

Question

I'm building a custom triangular grid for my game and using the object names for the coordinate system. I put this code in update to try to gather the name for the object I click on.

My primary behavior script in the OnMouseOver method, keeps changing the tilehome variable to the name of the gameObject my mouse moves over. I can tell the behavior is caused because I'm referencing gameObject.name directly, but I have no idea how to gather this information with a mouse click once and hold it in a variable to use in my OnMouseOver method.

I tried using a bool to prevent it from changing, but the reference variable obviously doesn't work that way. How do I get the object name from my clicked object to remain static in my OnMouseOver method once I capture it?

void Update()
{
    if (Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0))
    {
        if(tileanchor == false)
        {
            tileanchor = true;
            tilehome = gameObject.name;
            
        }
    }
    
    if (Input.GetMouseButtonDown(1))
    {
        tileanchor = false;
    }
}

I used Debug.Log to see that it is updating my tilehome variable every time my object focus changes in my OnMouseOver method. I tried moving the tilehome to the OnMouseOver method, but it had the same problem. I feel like I need a different type of object reference or something? Any help would be appreciated!

Answer 1

You can use the following method.

RaycastHit hit;

void Update()
{
    if (Input.GetMouseButton(0))
    {
        Ray ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay(Input.mousePosition);
        if (Physics.Raycast(ray, out hit, 2f))
        {
            string objName = hit.collider.gameObject.name;
            Debug.Log("object that was hit: " + objName);
        }
    }
}