Unity Cookbook E-Book

Matt Smith

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 922

Beschreibung

Unleash your game development potential with Unity Cookbook, 5th Edition, designed to equip you with the skills and knowledge needed to excel in Unity game development. With over 160 expertly crafted recipes empowering you to pioneer VR and AR experiences, excel in mobile game development, and become a master of audio techniques.

In this latest edition, we've meticulously curated a collection of recipes that reflect the latest advancements in Unity 2023, ensuring you stay at the forefront of game development. You'll discover dedicated recipes for First/Third Person (Core) templates, create engaging mobile games, delve into Virtual and Augmented Reality, and go further with audio by exploring advanced techniques. Additionally, the book has been fully updated to incorporate the new input system and TextMeshPro, essential elements for modern game development.

From exploring C# scripting to crafting stylish UIs, creating stunning visual effects, and understanding shader development through Shader Graph, every chapter is designed to take you closer to your goal of becoming a proficient Unity developer.
So, whether you're aiming to develop the next hit game, enhance your portfolio, or simply have fun building games, this book will be your trusted companion on your journey to Unity proficiency.

Leseprobe

Unity Cookbook

Fifth Edition

Over 160 recipes to craft your own masterpiece in Unity 2023

Matt Smith

Shaun Ferns

Sinéad Murphy

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Unity Cookbook

Fifth Edition

Copyright © 2023 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Senior Publishing Product Manager: Larissa Pinto

Acquisition Editor – Peer Reviews: Gaurav Gavas and Jane D’Souza

Project Editor: Meenakshi Vijay

Content Development Editor: Davide Oliveri

Assitant Development Editor: Elliot Dallow

Copy Editor: Safis Editing

Technical Editor: Kushal Sharma

Proofreader: Safis Editing

Indexer: Subalakshmi Govindhan

Presentation Designer: Rajesh Shirsath

Developer Relations Marketing Executive: Sohini Ghosh

First published: June 2013

Second edition: October 2015

Third edition: August 2018

Fourth edition: September 2021

Fifth edition: November 2023

Production reference: 1281123

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Grosvenor House

11 St Paul’s Square

Birmingham

B3 1RB, UK.

ISBN 9781805123026

www.packt.com

We dedicate this book to Bobby O’Brien.

– Matt Smith & Sinéad Murphy

Dedicated to my amazing son, Sénan, a hero in the making.

– Shaun Ferns

Foreword

Not so long ago, developing professional quality games meant licensing an expensive game engine or writing your own from scratch. Then, you needed to hire a small army of developers to use it. Today, game engines like Unity have democratized game development to the point where you can simply download the tools and start making the game of your dreams right away.

Well... kinda. Having a powerful game creation tool is not the same thing as having the technical knowledge and skills to use it effectively.

I started coding games as a kid on my trusty ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and later the Amiga. I’ve been working as a professional game developer since 2003. When I first took the plunge into learning Unity development to create the Fungus storytelling tool, I found a huge amount of online documentation, tutorials, and forum answers available for Unity developers. This makes getting started with Unity development relatively easy, but the information can also be quite fragmented. Often, the last piece of the puzzle you need is buried 40 minutes into an hour-long tutorial video or on the 15th page of a forum thread. The hours you spend looking for these nuggets of wisdom is time that would be better spent working on your game.

The beauty of the Unity Cookbook is that Matt, Chico, Shaun, and Sinéad have distilled this knowledge into a neat collection of easy-to-follow recipes, and they have provided the scripts and complete working projects so that you can put it to use straight away.

In this latest edition, Matt, Shaun, and Sinéad have updated the recipes from the previous book and added new recipes to introduce many of the latest Unity features. There are some new chapters focusing on ProBuilder and mobile development; and other chapters include new topics such as non-horizonal AI NavMesh surfaces (think spiders crawling up walls and ceilings!), and advanced visual effects including vignettes and realistic animated water surfaces.

Getting started with Unity development is free and easy. When you’re ready to take your skills to the next level, this book is an effective way to do just that. It covers a great deal in its hundreds of pages, and if you can master even half of what’s here, you’ll be well on the way to becoming a great Unity developer!

Chris Gregan

Chief Architect, Romero Games: www.romerogames.ie

Author of Fungus: fungusgames.com

Contributors

About the authors

Matt Smith is senior lecturer at TU Dublin,the Technological University of Dublin, Ireland, specialising in XR and interactive multimedia. He leads the university’s DRIVE (Digital Realities, Interaction, and Virtual Environments) research group, and is currently supervising several PhD students in interaction design and XR technologies. In 1980, Matt started computer programming (on a ZX80). A few years later he submitted his first two games for the programming project component of his ‘O’-level computing certificate (aged 16). In 1985, Matt wrote the lyrics, and was a member of the band that played (and sang, sorry about that by the way) the music on the B-side of the audio cassette carrying the computer game Confuzion (the game/song has a Wikipedia page...). In 2024, No Starch Press will publish his PHP Crash Course. Matt is still (pleasantly!) surprised at the popularity of his Unity Cookbook series – whose beginning was a book proposal sent to Packt Publishing over 10 years ago.

I’m grateful to my coauthors, Shaun and Sinéad, without whom this book wouldn’t have been possible.

Many thanks to all my family. Thanks also to the editors, reviewers, and readers for their feedback. Thanks to my students, who continue to challenge and surprise me with their enthusiasm for multimedia and game development.

Shaun Ferns is an academic at TU Dublin, the Technological University of Dublin, Ireland, where he is a researcher in the DRIVE (Digital Realities, Interaction, and Virtual Environments) research group and an associate researcher at the Educational Informatics Lab (EILab) at OntarioTechU. Since 2016, he has been primarily researching and teaching multimedia development, and prior to that was involved in the delivery of several engineering programs. He is currently exploring the opportunities transmedia provides in improving user experience and engagement in cultural archive artifacts and serious games for the built environment. Shaun began to “play” with Unity when designing and building his house in 2010, developing an architectural walk-through to support the development of the design of the new home. Since then, he has been working on several Unity-based cultural projects and hopes to complete one soon! Shaun has taken up the challenge of playing the Irish tenor banjo and currently enjoys playing in Irish traditional music sessions with his friends.

When not practicing, he can be found wandering the cliffs and mountains around Donegal or swimming its Atlantic shores.

First and foremost, I am grateful to the students I have had the privilege of teaching and learning alongside over the past two decades. Your energy, excitement, and courage have challenged me to think more deeply and creatively. I am deeply inspired by your commitment to making the world a better place.

I am also indebted to the editors, reviewers, and readers who have provided feedback on this book. Your insights and suggestions have helped me to refine my arguments and improve the clarity and accessibility of my writing.

I am especially grateful to Matt, who has been a steadfast supporter, both professionally and personally. Your guidance, encouragement, and shared love of Game design and development through Unity have made this journey even more rewarding. Delighted to also welcome Sinéad to the authorship team. I hope this is the start of a long-lasting collaboration!

I am also grateful to my family and friends, who have provided me with unwavering support throughout this process. Finally, I would like to thank the many people who have made contributions to my education and professional development over the years. I am grateful for your mentorship and guidance.

Sinéad Murphy is currently Data Analytics Manager for the Irish NGO Trócaire. She has over 25 years of computing experience, including freelance IT training and database consulting, university lecturing in mathematics, IT skills, and programming at TU Dublin (Ireland) and Middlesex University (London). She is a published academic, with undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in mathematics, computing, and data science. She is passionate about the use of IT for understanding and visualising data, and using that understanding to make meaningful differences in the world. She is currently exploring the use of Python and Unity for data analytics and interactive visualisations.

Many thanks to my coauthors, Matt and Shaun, it’s been a great experience working on my first book.

Thanks to my family for all their support. Thanks also to the editors and reviewers who provided feedback and suggestions.

About the reviewer

Jerry Medeiros is a seasoned professional with over a decade of hands-on experience in immersive technology, focusing on games and extended reality. With a robust background in artificial intelligence, Jerry brings a unique perspective to the intersection of technology and interactive experiences. Holding a degree in game development with a specialization in interaction design, as well as a Master of Computer Science with research expertise in artificial intelligence, Jerry is well versed in cutting-edge technologies and their applications. Additionally, an MBA in Innovation further underscores Jerry’s commitment to driving creative and forward-thinking solutions in the tech industry.

Learn more on Discord

To join the Discord community for this book – where you can share feedback, ask questions to the author, and learn about new releases – follow the QR code below:

https://packt.link/unitydev

Contents

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

Technical requirements to get the most out of this book

Get in touch

Displaying Data with Core UI Elements

Creating a Font Asset file for use with TextMeshPro

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Displaying a “Hello World” UI text message

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Styling substrings with rich text

Exploring the TextMeshPro Examples and Extras

Displaying a digital clock

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works...

Displaying a digital countdown timer

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Automatically add components with [RequireComponent(...)]

Creating a message that fades away

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Displaying an image

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Working with 2D sprites and UI Image components

See also

Further reading

Learn more on Discord

Responding to User Events for Interactive UIs

Creating a UI Button to reveal an image

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Creating a UI Button to move between scenes

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Animating UI Button properties on mouseover

How to do it...

How it works...

Organizing image panels and changing panel depths via buttons

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Moving up or down by just one position, using scripted methods

Displaying the value of an interactive UI Slider

How to do it...

How it works...

Displaying a countdown timer graphically with a UI Slider

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Setting custom mouse cursors for 2D and 3D GameObjects

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Setting custom mouse cursors for UI controls

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Interactive text entry with Input Field

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Detecting interactions with a single Toggle UI component

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating related radio buttons using UI Toggles

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating text UI Dropdown menus

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating image icon UI Dropdown menus

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Displaying a radar to indicate the relative locations of objects

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

The Start() method

The Update() method

The FindAndDisplayBlipsForTag(...) method

The CalculateBlipPositionAndDrawBlip (...) method

The NormalizedPosition(...) method

The CalculateBlipPosition(...) method

The DrawBlip() method

There’s more...

Further reading

Inventory and Advanced UIs

Creating a simple 2D mini-game – SpaceGirl

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Displaying single object pickups with carrying and not-carrying text

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

The PlayerInventory script class

The PlayerInventoryDisplay script class

There’s more...

Collecting multiple items and displaying the total number carried

Alternative – combining all the responsibilities into a single script

Displaying single-object pickups with carrying and not-carrying icons

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Displaying multiple pickups of the same object with multiple status icons

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Revealing icons for multiple object pickups by changing the size of a tiled image

How it works...

Using panels to visually outline the inventory UI area and individual items

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works...

Creating a C# inventory slot UI to display scripted components

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Modifying the game for a second inventory panel for keys

Displaying multiple pickups of different objects as a list of text via a dynamic List<> of scripted PickUp objects

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Ordering items in the inventory list alphabetically

Displaying multiple pickups of different objects as text totals via a dynamic Dictionary<> of PickUp objects and enum pickup types

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Separating responsibilities with MVC

Further reading

Learn more on Discord

Playing and Manipulating Sounds

Setting up the Third Person Character Controller project

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Fixing pink textures

Playing sound when a scene begins

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Create a GameObject with AudioSource linked to an AudioClip in a single step

Make the sound clip keep looping

Customizing other AudioSource settings

Removing redundant AudioListener components

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Enabling and customizing 3D sound effects

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Changing the way the volume changes with distance

Adding keys to customize the volume falloff curve

Adding effects with Audio Reverb Zones

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Customize Reverb settings with the User preset

Playing different one-off sound effects with a single AudioSource component

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Playing a sound at a static point in 3D world space

Playing and controlling different sounds, each with its own AudioSource component

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating just-in-time AudioSource components at runtime through C# scripting

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Adding the CreateAudioSource(...) method as an extension to the MonoBehavior class

A button to play a sound with no scripting

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Preventing an audio clip from restarting if it is already playing

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Waiting for the audio to finish playing before auto-destructing an object

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Creating audio visualization from sample spectral data

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Adding visualizations to a second AudioSource component

Trying out different Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) window types

Synchronizing simultaneous and sequential music to create a simple 140 bpm music-loop manager

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Adding visualizations to the four playing loops

Recording sound clips with the free Audacity application

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Further reading

Textures, Materials, and 3D Objects

Creating a scene with 3D primitives and a texture

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Enhancing the scene – adding a spotlight

Creating material asset files and setting Albedo textures

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Exporting Blender files as FBX for use in Unity

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Importing FBX models into a Unity project

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Using Blender files directly in a Unity project

Highlighting GameObject materials on mouseover

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

A collider needed for custom meshes

Changing the material’s color in response to mouse events

Fading the transparency of a material

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Destroying objects when fading is complete

Using the GameObject’s alpha as our starting alpha value

Using a coroutine for our fading loop

Further reading

Learn more on Discord

Creating 3D Environments with Terrains

Creating and texture-painting terrains

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Unity terrain tools and samples for powerful height-painting

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more…

Adding terrain holes

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Adding trees and vegetation

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works...

Realistic water features for HDRP projects

How to do it...

How it works...

Further reading

Creating 3D Geometry with ProBuilder

Getting started with ProBuilder

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Transforming an object through scaling and coloring

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating a house with ProBuilder

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Exploring ProBuilder Boolean operations to add a window to our house

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Organizing level geometry as empty GameObject children

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Further reading

Learn more on Discord

2D Animation and Physics

Flipping a sprite horizontally – the DIY approach

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Flipping a sprite horizontally – using Animator State chart and transitions

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Instantaneous swapping

Animating body parts for character movement events

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating a three-frame animation clip to make a platform continually animate

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Copying the animation relative to a new parent GameObject

Making a platform start falling once stepped on using a Trigger to move the animation from one state to another

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating animation clips from sprite sheet sequences

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating a platform game with Tiles and Tilemaps

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Tile palettes for objects and walls

Using sprite placeholders to create a simple physics scene

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Editing polygon Colliders for more realistic 2D physics

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating an explosionForce method for 2D physics objects

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Clipping via Sprite Masking

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Further reading

Animated Characters

Unity’s Third Person Character Controller assets

How to do it...

How it works...

Adding a Third Person Character Controller to a scene

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Adding a clothing accessory pickup for a character

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Swapping the Third Person Armature for a different character

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Extracting textures when colors are not showing

Creating a 3D character with Autodesk Character Generator

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Replace the robot character with your created character

Remove the Light child GameObject from the character Hierarchy

Selecting and downloading a character from Mixamo

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Using Mixamo to convert and fix character models

Selecting and downloading an animation clip from Mixamo

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating an animated NPC in Unity using a character and animation clip

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Using scripts to control 3D animations (old input system)

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Using scripts to control 3D animations (new input system)

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Further reading

Learn more on Discord

Saving and Loading Data

Saving data between scenes using static properties

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Hiding the score before the first attempt is completed

See also

Saving data between scenes and games using PlayerPrefs

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Reading data from a text file

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Loading game data from a text file map

How to do it...

How it works...

Writing data to a file

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Writing lists of objects to a JSON text file

Logging player actions and game events to a file

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Automatically log the username of the system user

See also

Reading data from the web

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Setting up a leaderboard using PHP and a database

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

SQLite, PHP, and database servers

phpLiteAdmin

See also

Unity game communication with a web server leaderboard

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Extracting the full leaderboard data for display within Unity

Using secret game codes to secure your leaderboard scripts

Further reading

Controlling and Choosing Positions

Using a rectangle to constrain 2D Player object movement

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Drawing a gizmo yellow rectangle to visually show a bounding rectangle

An alternative approach to defining movement bounds

Player control of a 3D GameObject (and limiting movement within a rectangle)

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Drawing a thick gizmo yellow rectangle to visually show a bounding rectangle

Choosing destinations – finding a random spawn point

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Choosing destinations – finding the nearest spawn point

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Avoiding errors due to an empty array

See also

Choosing destinations – respawning to the most recently passed checkpoint

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Moving objects by clicking on them

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Firing projectiles in the direction of movement

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Further reading

Learn more on Discord

Navigation Meshes and Agents

NPC to travel to destination while avoiding obstacles

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

NPC to seek or flee from a moving object

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Using a Debug Ray to show a source-to-destination line

Constantly updating the NavMeshAgent’s destination to flee from the player’s current location

Maintaining a constant distance from the target (“lurking” mode!)

Point-and-click move to object

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Creating a mouseover yellow highlight

Point-and-click move to tile

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Using a yellow Debug Ray to show the destination of the AI agent

Point-and-click raycast with user-defined, higher-cost navigation areas

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

More intelligent pathfinding by setting different costs for custom-defined navigation areas such as mud and water

Improving the UX by updating a “gaze” cursor in each frame

NPC NavMeshAgent to follow waypoints in sequence

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Working with arrays of waypoints

Increased flexibility with the WayPoint class

Creating a movable NavMesh Obstacle

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Joining several NavMeshes with a single NavMeshSurface

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Non-horizontal NavMeshes with multiple NavMeshSurfaces and NavMeshLinks

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Further reading

Cameras, Lighting, and Visual Effects

Creating the basic scene for this chapter

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works...

There’s more...

Fixing pink textures

Working with a fixed Main Camera

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Changing how much of the screen a Camera renders

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Adding a top-down orthographic minimap Camera

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Adding a floating arrow to indicate the direction the player is facing in the minimap

Using a culling mask to avoid the sphere being rendered unintentionally

Creating an in-game mirror using a RenderTexture to send Camera output to a Plane

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Inverting our mirror Camera horizontally

Saving screenshots and RenderTextures to files

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Automate screenshot capture with OnTriggerEnter()

Capture screenshots as a Texture or RenderTexture

Using Cinemachine ClearShot to switch cameras to keep the player in shot

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

A Camera to always look at and follow the Third Person Controller

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Adding the option to switch between a following camera and multiple ClearShot cameras

Adding film grain and vignette effects with URP postprocessing

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Adding a vignette effect

Creating an HDRP project with an HDRI skybox

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works...

There’s more...

Using a skybox for default ground image

Creating and applying a cookie texture to a spotlight

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Adding more content and creating ground shadows

Using Cookies with Directional Lights

Baking light from an emissive material onto other scene GameObjects

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Emissive materials that do not contribute to lighting other objects in the scene

Further reading

Learn more on Discord

Shader Graphs and Video Players

Playing videos with the Video Player API

Playing videos by manually adding a VideoPlayer component to a GameObject

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Using scripting to control video playback on scene textures

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Downloading an online video (rather than a clip)

Ensuring a movie is prepared before playing

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Outputting video playback to a RenderTexture asset

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Using scripting to play a sequence of videos back to back

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating and using a simple shader

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating a glow effect with Shader Graph

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Toggling a Shader Graph color glow effect through C# code

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Further reading

Shader Graph online resources

Video player online resources

Particle Systems and Other Visual Effects

Exploring Unity’s Particle Pack and reusing samples for your own games

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating a simple Particle Systems from scratch

How to do it...

How it works...

Using Texture Sheets to simulate fire with a Particle System

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Making particles collide with scene objects

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Simulating an explosion

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Using Invoke to delay the execution of an explosion

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Destroying or damaging objects in a bomb blast radius

Adding camera shake when the bomb explodes

Using a Line Renderer to create a spinning laser trap

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Triggering an explosion when the player’s character collides with the beam

Further reading

Learn more on Discord

Mobile Games and Applications

Setting up your system for Android mobile app development

How to do it...

How it works...

Setting up your system for Apple iOS mobile app development

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Deploying the Third Person Character Controller Starter project for an Android device

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Changing the name of the app as it appears on a device

Copying APK files from a Windows PC to an Android device

Sideloading APK files from a Mac to an Android device

Downloading Android APK files on your phone

Deploying the Third Person Character Controller Starter project for an Apple device

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

The device will not prepare for development

Creating and deploying a mobile game with Unity’s Runner Game project template

How to do it...

How it works...

Further reading

Augmented Reality (AR)

Exploring the Unity AR samples

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating an AR project with the AR (Core) template

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Deprecation warnings with the AR (Core) template

Build failure due to Vulkan graphics API settings

Build failure due to Android version

Building for Apple iOS

Adding the AR Foundation package and GameObjects to a 3D scene

How to do it...

How it works...

Detecting and highlighting planes with AR Foundation

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating an AR furniture previewer by detecting horizontal planes

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating a floating 3D model over an image target

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Further reading

Learn more on Discord

Virtual and Extended Reality (VR/XR)

Setting up the Oculus Quest 2 for Unity development

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Speed up Windows development with Oculus Link/Air Link

Oculus Link is not possible on most Macs

Oculus Link Linux

Online guides to help you set up your Quest for VR development with Unity

Creating and running a Unity project on a VR headset

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Cannot choose the Quest device due to Android tools unknown location

Build failure due to Android version

Build failure due to “namespace cannot be found” error

Beginning with the XR Interaction Toolkit

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating a 360-degree video VR project

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Exploring and building the Desert WebXR demo project

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Fixing pink (shader/material) problems

The OpenUPM community maintains more up-to-date XR resources

Latest releases from De-Panther

Missing packages error

Using GitHub Pages to publish your WebXR project for free

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating a simple WebXR scene from scratch

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Further reading

Advanced Topics – Gizmos, Automated Testing, and More

Using a gizmo to show the currently selected object in the Scene panel

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating an Editor snap-to-grid drawn by a gizmo

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Generating and running a default test script class

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Creating a default test script from the Project window’s Create menu

EditMode minimum skeleton unit test script

Making a simple unit test

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Shorter tests with values in the assertion

Expected value followed by the actual value

Parameterizing tests with a DataProvider

How to do it...

How it works...

Unit testing a simple health script class

How to do it...

How it works...

Health.cs

TestHealth.cs

Creating and executing a unit test in PlayMode

How to do it...

How it works...

PlayMode testing a door animation

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

PlayMode and unit testing a player health bar with events, logging, and exceptions

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

PlayMode testing

Unit tests

See also

Reporting Code Coverage testing

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Running simple Python scripts inside Unity

How to do it...

How it works...

Further reading

Learn more on Discord

Other Books You May Enjoy

Index

Landmarks

Cover

Index

Share your thoughts

Once you’ve read Unity Cookbook, Fifth Edition, we’d love to hear your thoughts! Please click here to go straight to the Amazon review page for this book and share your feedback.

Your review is important to us and the tech community and will help us make sure we’re delivering excellent quality content.

Download a free PDF copy of this book

Thanks for purchasing this book!

Do you like to read on the go but are unable to carry your print books everywhere?Is your eBook purchase not compatible with the device of your choice?

Don’t worry, now with every Packt book you get a DRM-free PDF version of that book at no cost.

Read anywhere, any place, on any device. Search, copy, and paste code from your favorite technical books directly into your application. 

The perks don’t stop there, you can get exclusive access to discounts, newsletters, and great free content in your inbox daily

Follow these simple steps to get the benefits:

Scan the QR code or visit the link below

https://packt.link/free-ebook/9781805123026

Submit your proof of purchaseThat’s it! We’ll send your free PDF and other benefits to your email directly

1

Displaying Data with Core UI Elements

A key element that contributes to the entertainment and enjoyment of most games is the quality of the player’s visual experience, and an important part of this is the user interface (UI). UI elements involve ways for the user to interact with the game (such as buttons, cursors, and text boxes), as well as ways for the game to present up-to-date information to the user (such as the time remaining, current health, score, lives left, or location of enemies). This chapter is filled with UI recipes to give you a range of examples and ideas for creating game UIs.

This chapter is all about the Unity UI system. This is based on GameObjects and their components, and the recommended system for runtime player visual UIs. There are other UI systems in Unity (UI Toolkit and IMGUI), but these are mostly used for Unity Editor design-time interfaces.

Every game and interactive multimedia application is different, and so this chapter attempts to fulfill two key roles:

The first aim is to provide step-by-step instructions on how to create a range of Unity basic UI elements and, where appropriate, associate them with game variables in code.The second aim is to provide a rich illustration of how UI components can be used for a variety of purposes. This will help you get good ideas about how to make the Unity UI set of controls deliver the particular visual experience and interactions for the games that you are developing.

Basic UI components can provide static images and text to just make the screen look more interesting. By using scripts, we can change the content of these images and text objects so that the players’ numeric scores can be updated, or we can show stickmen images to indicate how many lives the player has left. Other UI elements are interactive, allowing users to click on buttons, choose options, enter text, and so on.

More sophisticated kinds of UI can involve collecting and calculating data about the game (such as percentage time remaining or enemy hit damage; or the positions and types of key GameObjects in the scene and their relationship to the location and orientation of the player), and then displaying these values in a natural, graphical way (such as with progress bars or radar screens).

Core GameObjects, components, and concepts relating to Unity UI development include the following:

Canvas: Every UI element is a child (or sub-child) of a Canvas. There can be multiple Canvas GameObjects in a single scene. If a Canvas is not already present, then one will automatically be created when a new UI GameObject is created, with that UI object as the child of the new Canvas GameObject.EventSystem: An EventSystem GameObject is required to manage the interaction events for UI controls. One will automatically be created with the first UI element. Unity only allows one EventSystem in any scene.Visual UIcontrols: The visible UI controls include Button, Image, TextMeshPro, and Toggle.The Rect Transformcomponent: UI GameObjects are GameObjects that take up a rectangle on a 2D plane, and so have a Rect Transform component rather than a Transform component. The special Rect Transform component has some different properties from the scene’s GameObject Transformcomponent (with its straightforward X/Y/Z position, rotation, and scale properties). Associated with Rect Transforms are pivot points (reference points for scaling, resizing, and rotations) and anchor points.

The following diagram shows the four main categories of UI controls, each in a Canvas GameObject and interacting via an EventSystem GameObject. UI controls can have their own Canvas, or several UI controls can be in the same Canvas. The four categories are display-only and interactive UI controls, non-visible interactive components (such as ones to group a set of mutually exclusive radio buttons), and C# script classes to manage UI control behavior through logic written in the program code.

Note that UI controls must be a child or descendant of a Canvas, otherwise, theywill not work properly. Also, interactive UI controls will not work properly if the EventSystem GameObject is missing.

Both the Canvas and EventSystem GameObjects are automatically added to the Hierarchy panel as soon as the first UI GameObject is added to a scene:

Figure 1.1: Canvas and EventSystem

Rect Transforms for UI GameObjects represent a rectangular area rather than a single point, which is the case for scene GameObject transforms. Rect Transforms describe how a UI element should be positioned, sized, scaled, and rotated. UI GameObjects have a Pivot Point, indicated in the Scene panel by a small blue circle. All transformations are made relative to this pivot point, for example, rotations of a GameObject are around this point. If a UI GameObject is moved, its pivot point is moved too.

Figure 1.2: Transformations relative to pivot point and anchors

UI GameObjects also have Anchors