Guide:Unity

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Revision as of 07:38, 16 September 2016 by Rjt (talk | contribs) (→‎Displaying in-game: Example of how to show a variable on screen via the GUI)

Exmaple scripts, tricks, and other things to help you use Unity 3D

Getting Started

(resources for starting using unity)

Interface

...

Lighting

Shadows

Sometiems you may notice that shadows far from the camera are not drawn. A resource intensive way to get round this is to go to Edit>Project Settings>Quality, and change the 'Shadow Distance' property.

Exporting

Though exporting from Unity is a pretty straightforward process, there are a lot of optional things, and some platform-specific things to take into account.

You can add custom icons to your games and enter your name by

Borderless Fullscreen

Linux

For exporting to Linux you should make sure you use the Universal option. Unlike Windows Linux does not automatically run 32bit executable files without instaling extra stuff. If someone's into games they have probably already done this, but it's good to factor in all circumstances. If you have a README you may want to mention that a Linux user will have to make the game executable by using 

chmod +x

and then, when running it include a 

./

before the file name.

So their terminal should look something like this: 

$ chmod +x examplegame.x86_64
$ ./examplegame.x86_64

Itch.io is great because it will take care of this for players, as well as keep things nice and organised and Linuxy! If you are hiding the mouse cursor you will also need to lock it's location, otherwise, if for example you've made a first-person game with mouse = WASD controls, they will have restrictions on rotating thier view.

Mac OS

Pretty similar requirements as as Linux, in that you should lock the cursor, and use the 'Univesal' build type.

Windows

Exporting for Windows is pretty easy. 32bit builds will work on anything, but you can also include

Importing

3-D Models

Blender

In Blender the forward direction is X and up is Z, but in Unity forward is Z and Y is up! Which means you'l get an irritating surprise when importing things! There are some solutions though:

(just dumping some links, will sort later)

1. When Exporting
2. When Importing
3. In Unity

Scripting

Scripting in Unity is done in either Javascript or C#. You can mix and match them in your project. Don't worry about trying to learn either comprehensively. The main thing is knowing what to search for, and trying to understand the scripts you find online (that you will then nick, and stick in your game). Try not to worry about doing things a 'right' way, do things in the way that makes sense to you (as long as it works!)

Scripts can be a bunch of separate files, and you can attach multiple to one object with no problems.

Generally I find it useful to create an empty game object that I can attach 'general' kinda scripts to ; for things like reseting the games, for example. But you can also attach these to your player, or whereever makes sense to you.

Example scripts

Audio

Working with buttons

Resetting, quitting, changing scenes

Attach these to anything.

reset.js
function Update () {
	if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Backspace)) {
		Application.LoadLevel (1);
	}
}

You can replace KeyCode.Backspace with the name of whichever key you wish. You could also replace it with, for example "fire1" or "jump", whose keys are determined at edit>project settings>input, and may also be easily reconfigured by players (if given the option).

You can replace the 1 in Application.LoadLevel (1) with the number of whichver level you want to load. You can find the number by going to ???. Make sure to include all your scenes at the this point!

quit.js
function Update () {
	if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Escape)) {
		Application.Quit ();
	}
}

Like reset.js just attach this to any object and it should work. This has the Escape key set to quit the game.

Colliders

Enabling and disabling

Most of the posts I found via searching say you can't just switch colliders off and on with scripting, but I guess those're all outa date because it works just fune for me! 

GameObject.GetComponent(Collider).enabled = false;

Either remove'GameObject.' if the script's on the object with the colider you want to toggle, or use a variable (or search, etc..) to put the name of the GameObject you want to reference.

Other Methods

May as well mention the work'rounds I dug up though! They include: Deativating the collider by enabling it as a trigger. This'll cause an 'OnTriggerEnter' state to be called rather than 'OnCollisionEnter'. Hacky, but it works!, as long as you're using a convex shaped collider 

GetComponent(Collider).isTrigger = true;

Also hacky!, but you can shrink the collider down to 0 to make it impossible to actually be triggered by anything D: then resize it when needed D: And of course, if you're able to, you could disable the whole game obejct. Another way to use this could be to have two copies of the same object which you switch out/in.

Raycasting

The Cursor

hideCursor.js
function Start () {
	Screen.showCursor = false;
}

This little script will prevent the mouse cursor from being shown. Note that when previewing the game in Unity the cursor will still appear.

If you wish to control when it it shown or not, for example when a menu appears, simple set Screen.showCursor to true when your menu is called.

You can also lock the cursor in place using Screen.lockCursor.

Moving things

BallRolling.js
var force : float = 6;

function Update () {
	var h : float = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");
	var v : float = Input.GetAxis("Vertical");
	GetComponent.<Rigidbody>().AddForce(Vector3(h, 0.0, v) * force);
}

If you attach this to a ball, or something else roundish, you will be able to roll it round using WASD / arrow keys.

Creating and destroying objects

Instantiate (summoning objects)

keepPosOnReset.js
function Awake () {
	DontDestroyOnLoad (transform.gameObject);
}

Any object you attach this script to will not have its position reset when that reset.js script is called. I used this in something yesterday where apart from walking about and pushing things (placed by me) the player is able to create blocks. I wanted everything in the scene to reset normally on pressing 'Esc' except for the objects the player themself created. So some things are persistent until the game is quit.

Camera

follow.js


Debugging / identifying problems / aaaaaarg


Using the console


Debug.Log("This gam is v good");



Debug.Log(transform.position.y); //would tell you where the object the script is attached to is on the Y axis



var player : Transform;

function Update(){
    Debug.Log("Player's Y position is " + player.position.y); //where 'player' is a variable that is editable in the inspector
    }



Using the command 'Debug.Log' will write text to the console. This will appear when testing your game within Unity in the little status bar down the bottom of the screen, and in the console window (Window>Console / Ctrl+Shift+C). It's most useful when you use it to write text at different stages within your scripts to check if that step is reached, and to write variables to check what they're up to. Very useful when you get stuck scripting!



Displaying in-game


Apart from / as well as utilising the console, you can also use Unity's UI stuff to display similar information which will also appear when you do a proper build of your game.

To show the contents of a variable on screen you can use:



function OnGUI() {
	// Show timer
	GUI.Label(Rect(0,0,100,100), Time.time.ToString());
}



In this case it displays a timer, which starts when the game does. Time.time is handled by Unity automatically, and can't be modified.

You can use any other variable, just make sure you append .ToString() — this converts the value to a text string, which is the only way it can be displyed with this method.

You can mess with the values in the brackets after 'Rect', as they currently are they'll show the value in the top left of the screen.



Other Resources








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