Overview

DesignerTech Videos - Introducing a Friend to Unity Game Engine

This is the GitHub repo mentioned in the first video of the series as a place with the final example code file and the project settings.

UntiyHub Introduction

Exercises with this Code

The Autobounce class should have been renamed after it changed purpose from being a fixed bounce motion to an Input driven character controller.

When renaming classes, make sure the class name and the file name match so class Foo is in Foo.cs because Unity needs those to be in-sync to find components.

1. Rename Autobounce to PlaneSkater

The version of Autobounce in this repo is moved using physics to add rotational force and thrust to make it move, so it moves like an ice skater on the ice.

Unity has some C# attributes that are very useful, we looked at Header and ToolTip in the videos for giving hints in the Inspector window.

There is another attribute RequiredComponent that will tell Unity that the GameObject needs a component to be added, as a dependency of your custom component and Unity will add it, automatically, if missing.

Assuming you renamed the class and file to PlaneSkater then it could start like this with the new attribute.

[RequireComponent(typeof(RigidBody))]
public class PlaneSkater : MonoBehaviour
{
    const float BASE = 0.5f;

    private Transform _Transform;
    private Rigidbody _Rigidbody;
    //.... end of snippet

And later, in the Start() method when we perform GetComponent<RigidBody>() we know this will succeed because the RequireComponent attribute will enforce it being present.

Another very handy attribute is AddComponentMenu that makes it easier to use [Add Component] button in Unity's Inspector tab and find your custom components by making your own menu hierarchy. If you wanted a component menu called Overview then you would add an attribute as follows....

[AddComponentMenu("Overview/PlaneSkater")]
[RequireComponent(typeof(RigidBody))]
public class PlaneSkater : MonoBehaviour
{

Now, when you add a component to your GameObject, you will see a menu called Overview and when you click on that, there will be a PlaneSkater component within it and that will be much easier to find.

2. Create a new AutoBounce by following Video 7

In video 7 we discuss ways to force a GameObject to move up and down using Mathf.Sin() function.

3. Create a new component MoveController by following Video 8

In video 8, we took AutoBounce and give it logic to take Input values and change the position and rotation using the Transform component.