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Home > Game Development > 3D Game Development > Unity 5.x Cookbook
Unity 5.x Cookbook
Unity 5.x Cookbook

Unity 5.x Cookbook: More than 100 solutions to build amazing 2D and 3D games with Unity

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Unity 5.x Cookbook

Chapter 2. Inventory GUIs

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • Creating a simple 2D mini-game – SpaceGirl
  • Displaying single object pickups with carrying and not-carrying text
  • Displaying single object pickups with carrying and not-carrying icons
  • Displaying multiple pickups of the same object with text totals
  • Displaying multiple pickups of the same object with multiple status icons
  • Revealing icons for multiple object pickups by changing the size of a tiled image
  • Displaying multiple pickups of different objects as a list of text via a dynamic List<> of PickUp objects
  • Displaying multiple pickups of different objects as text totals via a dynamic Dictionary<> of PickUp objects and "enum" pickup types
  • Generalizing multiple icon displays using UI Grid Layout Groups (with scrollbars!)

Introduction

Many games involve the player collecting items or choosing from a selection of items. Examples could be collecting keys to open doors, collecting ammo for weapons, choosing from a collection of spells to cast, and so on.

The recipes in this chapter offer a range of solutions for displaying to the player whether they are carrying an item or not, if they are allowed more than one of an item, and how many they have.

The big picture

The two parts of software design for implementing inventories relate to, first, how we choose to represent the data about inventory items (that is, the data types and structures to store the data) and, secondly, how we choose to display information about inventory items to the player (the UI: User Interface).

Also, whilst not strictly inventory items, player properties such as lives left, health, or time remaining can also be designed around the same concepts that we present in this chapter.

We need to first think about the nature of different inventory...

Creating a simple 2D mini-game – SpaceGirl

This recipe presents the steps to create the 2DSpaceGirl mini-game, on which all the recipes of this chapter are based.

Getting ready

For this recipe, we have prepared the images you need in a folder named Sprites in the 1362_02_01 folder. We have also provided the completed game as a Unity package in this folder named Simple2DGame_SpaceGirl.

How to do it...

To create the simple 2D mini-game Space Girl follow these steps:

  1. Create a new, empty 2D project.
  2. Import supplied folder Sprites into your project.
  3. Convert each sprite image to be of type Sprite (2D and UI). To do this, select the sprite in the Project panel, then, in the Inspector, change choose Sprite (2D and UI) from the drop-down menu Texture Type, and click on the Apply button, as shown in the following screenshot:
    How to do it...
  4. Set the Unity Player screen size to 800 x 600: choose the Edit | Project Settings | Player menu, then for option Resolution and Presentation uncheck Default is Full Screen, and...

Displaying single object pickups with carrying and not-carrying text

Often the simplest inventory situation is to display text to tell players if they are carrying a single item (or not).

Getting ready

This recipe assumes that you are starting with the project Simple2Dgame_SpaceGirl setup from the first recipe in this chapter. So, either make a copy of that project or do the following:

  1. Create a new, empty 2D project.
  2. Import the Simple2Dgame_SpaceGirl package.
  3. Open scene Scene1 (in the Scenes folder).
  4. Set the Unity Player screen size to 800 x 600 (see the previous recipe for how to do this) and select this resolution in the Game panel the drop-down menu.
  5. Convert each sprite image to be of type Sprite (2D and UI). In the Inspector, choose Sprite (2D and UI) from drop-down menu Texture Type, and click on the Apply button.

For this recipe, we have prepared the font you need in a folder named Fonts in the 1362_02_02 folder.

How to do it...

To display text to inform the user about the status of carrying...

Displaying single object pickups with carrying and not-carrying icons

Graphic icons are an effective way to inform the player that they are carrying an item. In this recipe, if no star is being carried, a grey-filled icon in a blocked-off circle is displayed; then, after the star has been picked up, a yellow-filled icon is displayed, as shown in the following screenshot.

Displaying single object pickups with carrying and not-carrying icons

In many cases, icons are clearer (they don't require reading and thinking about) and can also be smaller onscreen than text messages for indicating player status and inventory items.

Getting ready

This recipe assumes that you are starting with the project Simple2Dgame_SpaceGirl setup from the first recipe in this chapter.

How to do it...

To toggle carrying and not-carrying icons for a single object pickup, follow these steps:

  1. Start with a new copy of the mini-game Simple2Dgame_SpaceGirl.
  2. In the Hierarchy panel, add a new UI Image object (Create | UI | Image). Rename it Image-star-icon.
  3. Select Image-star-icon in the Hierarchy...

Displaying multiple pickups of the same object with text totals

When several items of the same type have been picked up, often the simplest way to convey what is being carried to the user is to display a text message showing the numeric total of each item type being carried, as shown in the following screenshot. In this recipe, the total number of stars collected is displayed using a UI Text object.

Displaying multiple pickups of the same object with text totals

Getting ready

This recipe assumes you are starting with project Simple2Dgame_SpaceGirl setup from the first recipe in this chapter. The font you need can be found in folder 1362_02_02.

How to do it...

To display inventory total text for multiple pickups of same type of object, follow these steps:

  1. Start with a new copy of the mini-game Simple2Dgame_SpaceGirl.
  2. Add a UI Text object (Create | UI | Text). Rename it Text-carrying-star. Change its text to stars = 0.
  3. Import the provided Fonts folder into your project.
  4. In the Inspector panel, set the font of Text-carrying-star to Xolonium-Bold (folder Fonts...

Displaying multiple pickups of the same object with multiple status icons

If there is a small, fixed total number of an item to be collected rather than text totals, an alternative effective UI approach is to display placeholder icons (empty or greyed out pictures) to show the user how many of the item remain to be collected, and each time an item is picked up, a placeholder icon is replaced by a full color collected icon.

In this recipe, we use grey-filled star icons as the placeholders and yellow-filled star icons to indicate each collected star, as shown in the following screenshot.

Since our UI code is getting a little more complicated, this recipe will implement the MVC design pattern to separate the view code from the core player logic (as introduced at the end of recipe Displaying single object pickups with carrying and not-carrying text).

Displaying multiple pickups of the same object with multiple status icons

Getting ready

This recipe assumes that you are starting with the project Simple2Dgame_SpaceGirl setup from the first recipe in this chapter.

How to...

Introduction

Many games involve the player collecting items or choosing from a selection of items. Examples could be collecting keys to open doors, collecting ammo for weapons, choosing from a collection of spells to cast, and so on.

The recipes in this chapter offer a range of solutions for displaying to the player whether they are carrying an item or not, if they are allowed more than one of an item, and how many they have.

The big picture

The two parts of software design for implementing inventories relate to, first, how we choose to represent the data about inventory items (that is, the data types and structures to store the data) and, secondly, how we choose to display information about inventory items to the player (the UI: User Interface).

Also, whilst not strictly inventory items, player properties such as lives left, health, or time remaining can also be designed around the same concepts that we present in this chapter.

We need to first think about the nature of different inventory...

Creating a simple 2D mini-game – SpaceGirl

This recipe presents the steps to create the 2DSpaceGirl mini-game, on which all the recipes of this chapter are based.

Getting ready

For this recipe, we have prepared the images you need in a folder named Sprites in the 1362_02_01 folder. We have also provided the completed game as a Unity package in this folder named Simple2DGame_SpaceGirl.

How to do it...

To create the simple 2D mini-game Space Girl follow these steps:

  1. Create a new, empty 2D project.

  2. Import supplied folder Sprites into your project.

  3. Convert each sprite image to be of type Sprite (2D and UI). To do this, select the sprite in the Project panel, then, in the Inspector, change choose Sprite (2D and UI) from the drop-down menu Texture Type, and click on the Apply button, as shown in the following screenshot:

  4. Set the Unity Player screen size to 800 x 600: choose the Edit | Project Settings | Player menu, then for option Resolution and Presentation uncheck Default is Full Screen, and set the...

Displaying single object pickups with carrying and not-carrying text

Often the simplest inventory situation is to display text to tell players if they are carrying a single item (or not).

Getting ready

This recipe assumes that you are starting with the project Simple2Dgame_SpaceGirl setup from the first recipe in this chapter. So, either make a copy of that project or do the following:

  1. Create a new, empty 2D project.

  2. Import the Simple2Dgame_SpaceGirl package.

  3. Open scene Scene1 (in the Scenes folder).

  4. Set the Unity Player screen size to 800 x 600 (see the previous recipe for how to do this) and select this resolution in the Game panel the drop-down menu.

  5. Convert each sprite image to be of type Sprite (2D and UI). In the Inspector, choose Sprite (2D and UI) from drop-down menu Texture Type, and click on the Apply button.

For this recipe, we have prepared the font you need in a folder named Fonts in the 1362_02_02 folder.

How to do it...

To display text to inform the user about the status of carrying...

Displaying single object pickups with carrying and not-carrying icons

Graphic icons are an effective way to inform the player that they are carrying an item. In this recipe, if no star is being carried, a grey-filled icon in a blocked-off circle is displayed; then, after the star has been picked up, a yellow-filled icon is displayed, as shown in the following screenshot.

In many cases, icons are clearer (they don't require reading and thinking about) and can also be smaller onscreen than text messages for indicating player status and inventory items.

Getting ready

This recipe assumes that you are starting with the project Simple2Dgame_SpaceGirl setup from the first recipe in this chapter.

How to do it...

To toggle carrying and not-carrying icons for a single object pickup, follow these steps:

  1. Start with a new copy of the mini-game Simple2Dgame_SpaceGirl.

  2. In the Hierarchy panel, add a new UI Image object (Create | UI | Image). Rename it Image-star-icon.

  3. Select Image-star-icon in the Hierarchy panel...

Displaying multiple pickups of the same object with text totals

When several items of the same type have been picked up, often the simplest way to convey what is being carried to the user is to display a text message showing the numeric total of each item type being carried, as shown in the following screenshot. In this recipe, the total number of stars collected is displayed using a UI Text object.

Getting ready

This recipe assumes you are starting with project Simple2Dgame_SpaceGirl setup from the first recipe in this chapter. The font you need can be found in folder 1362_02_02.

How to do it...

To display inventory total text for multiple pickups of same type of object, follow these steps:

  1. Start with a new copy of the mini-game Simple2Dgame_SpaceGirl.

  2. Add a UI Text object (Create | UI | Text). Rename it Text-carrying-star. Change its text to stars = 0.

  3. Import the provided Fonts folder into your project.

  4. In the Inspector panel, set the font of Text-carrying-star to Xolonium-Bold (folder Fonts)...

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Page 1 of 12

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Key benefits

  • Built on the solid foundation of the popular Unity 4.x Cookbook, the recipes in this edition have been completely updated for Unity 5
  • Features recipes for both 2D and 3D games
  • Provides you with techniques for the new features of Unity 5, including the new UI system, 2D game development, new Standard Shaders, and the new Audio Mixer

Description

Unity 5 is a flexible and intuitive multiplatform game engine that is becoming the industry's de facto standard. Learn to craft your own 2D and 3D computer games by working through core concepts such as animation, audio, shaders, GUI, lights, cameras, and scripting to create your own games with one of the most important and popular engines in the industry. Completely re-written to cover the new features of Unity 5, this book is a great resource for all Unity game developers, from those who have recently started using Unity right up to game development experts. The first half of the book focuses on core concepts of 2D game design while the second half focuses on developing 3D game development skills. In the first half, you will discover the new GUI system, the new Audio Mixer, external files, and animating 2D characters in 2D game development. As you progress further, you will familiarize yourself with the new Standard Shaders, the Mecanim system, Cameras, and the new Lighting features to hone your skills towards building 3D games to perfection. Finally, you will learn non-player character control and explore Unity 5's extra features to enhance your 3D game development skills.

Who is this book for?

This book is for anyone who wants to explore a wide range of Unity scripting and multimedia features, and find ready-to-use solutions for many game features. Programmers can explore multimedia features, and multimedia developers can try their hand at scripting. *From intermediate to advanced users, from artists to coders, this book is for you, and everyone on your team! *It is intended for everyone who has the basics of using Unity, and a little programming knowledge in C#.

What you will learn

  • Immerse players with great audio, utilizing Unity 5 s audio features including the new Audio Mixer, ambient sound with Reverb Zones, dynamic soundtracks with Snapshots, and balanced audio via Ducking
  • Create better materials with Unity s new, physically-based, Standard Shader
  • Measure and control time, including pausing the game, displaying clocks and countdown timers, and even implementing “bullet timeâ€? effects
  • Improve ambiance through the use of lights and effects such as reflection and light probes
  • Create stylish user interfaces with the new UI system, including power-bars, clock displays, and an extensible inventory system
  • Save and load text and media assets from local or remote sources, publish your game via Unity Cloud, and communicate with websites and their databases to create online scoreboards
  • Discover advanced techniques, including the publisher-subscriber and state patterns, performance bottleneck identification, and methods to maximize game performance and frame rates
  • Control 2D and 3D character movement, and use NavMeshAgents to write NPC and enemy behaviors such as seek, flee, flock, and waypoint path following

Product Details

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Publication date : Oct 05, 2015
Length: 570 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781784391362
Category :
Game Development
Languages :
C#
Concepts :
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Tools :
Unity

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Product Details

Publication date : Oct 05, 2015
Length: 570 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781784391362
Category :
Game Development
Languages :
C#
Concepts :
3D Game Development
Tools :
Unity

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Table of Contents

13 Chapters
1. Core UI – Messages, Menus, Scores, and Timers Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
1. Core UI – Messages, Menus, Scores, and Timers
Introduction
Displaying a "Hello World" UI text message
Displaying a digital clock
Displaying a digital countdown timer
Creating a message that fades away
Displaying a perspective 3D text message
Displaying an image
Creating UI Buttons to move between scenes
Organizing images inside panels and changing panel depths via buttons
Displaying the value of an interactive UI Slider
Displaying a countdown timer graphically with a UI Slider
Displaying a radar to indicate the relative locations of objects
Creating UIs with the Fungus open-source dialog system
Setting custom mouse cursor images
Input Fields component for text entry
Toggles and radio buttons via Toggle Groups
Conclusion
2. Inventory GUIs Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Inventory GUIs
Introduction
Creating a simple 2D mini-game – SpaceGirl
Displaying single object pickups with carrying and not-carrying text
Displaying single object pickups with carrying and not-carrying icons
Displaying multiple pickups of the same object with text totals
Displaying multiple pickups of the same object with multiple status icons
Revealing icons for multiple object pickups by changing the size of a tiled image
Displaying multiple pickups of different objects as a list of text via a dynamic List<> of PickUp objects
Displaying multiple pickups of different objects as text totals via a dynamic Dictionary<> of PickUp objects and "enum" pickup types
Generalizing multiple icon displays using UI Grid Layout Groups (with scrollbars!)
Conclusion
3. 2D Animation Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. 2D Animation
Introduction
Flipping a sprite horizontally
Animating body parts for character movement events
Creating a 3-frame animation clip to make a platform continually animate
Making a platform start falling once stepped-on using a Trigger to move animation from one state to another
Creating animation clips from sprite sheet sequences
Conclusion
4. Creating Maps and Materials Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Creating Maps and Materials
Introduction
Creating a basic material with Standard Shader (Specular setup)
Adapting a basic material from Specular setup to Metallic
Applying Normal maps to a material
Adding Transparency and Emission maps to a material
Highlighting materials at mouse over
Adding Detail maps to a material
Fading the transparency of a material
Playing videos inside a scene
Conclusion
5. Using Cameras Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Using Cameras
Introduction
Creating a picture-in-picture effect
Switching between multiple cameras
Making textures from screen content
Zooming a telescopic camera
Displaying a mini-map
Creating an in-game surveillance camera
6. Lights and Effects Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Lights and Effects
Introduction
Using lights and cookie textures to simulate a cloudy day
Adding a custom Reflection map to a scene
Creating a laser aim with Projector and Line Renderer
Reflecting surrounding objects with Reflection Probes
Setting up an environment with Procedural Skybox and Directional Light
Lighting a simple scene with Lightmaps and Light Probes
Conclusion
7. Controlling 3D Animations Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Controlling 3D Animations
Introduction
Configuring a character's Avatar and idle animation
Moving your character with root motion and Blend Trees
Mixing animations with Layers and Masks
Organizing States into Sub-state Machines
Transforming the Character Controller via script
Adding rigid props to animated characters
Using Animation Events to throw an object
Applying Ragdoll physics to a character
Rotating the character's torso to aim a weapon
8. Positions, Movement and Navigation for Character GameObjects Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Positions, Movement and Navigation for Character GameObjects
Introduction
Player control of a 2D GameObject (and limiting the movement within a rectangle)
Player control of a 3D GameObject (and limiting the movement within a rectangle)
Choosing destinations – find the nearest (or a random) spawn point
Choosing destinations – respawn to the most recently passed checkpoint
NPC NavMeshAgent to seek or flee destination while avoiding obstacles
NPC NavMeshAgent to follow the waypoints in a sequence
Controlling the object group movement through flocking
Conclusion
9. Playing and Manipulating Sounds Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. Playing and Manipulating Sounds
Introduction
Matching the audio pitch to the animation speed
Simulating acoustic environments with Reverb Zones
Preventing an Audio Clip from restarting if it is already playing
Waiting for audio to finish playing before auto-destructing an object
Adding volume control with Audio Mixers
Making a dynamic soundtrack with Snapshots
Balancing in-game audio with Ducking
10. Working with External Resource Files and Devices Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
10. Working with External Resource Files and Devices
Introduction
Loading external resource files – using Unity Default Resources
Loading external resource files – by downloading files from the Internet
Loading external resource files – by manually storing files in the Unity Resources folder
Saving and loading player data – using static properties
Saving and loading player data – using PlayerPrefs
Saving screenshots from the game
Setting up a leaderboard using PHP/MySQL
Loading game data from a text file map
Managing Unity project code using Git version control and GitHub hosting
Publishing for multiple devices via Unity Cloud
11. Improving Games with Extra Features and Optimization Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
11. Improving Games with Extra Features and Optimization
Introduction
Pausing the game
Implementing slow motion
Preventing your game from running on unknown servers
State-driven behavior Do-It-Yourself states
State-driven behavior using the State Design pattern
Reducing the number of objects by destroying objects at death a time
Reducing the number of enabled objects by disabling objects whenever possible
Reducing the number of active objects by making objects inactive whenever possible
Improving efficiency with delegates and events and avoiding SendMessage!
Executing methods regularly but independent of frame rate with coroutines
Spreading long computations over several frames with coroutines
Evaluating performance by measuring max and min frame rates (FPS)
Identifying performance bottlenecks with the Unity performance Profiler
Identifying performance "bottlenecks" with Do-It-Yourself performance profiling
Cache GameObject and component references to avoid expensive lookups
Improving performance with LOD groups
Improving performance through reduced draw calls by designing for draw call batching
Conclusion
12. Editor Extensions Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
12. Editor Extensions
Introduction
An editor extension to allow pickup type (and parameters) to be changed at design time via a custom Inspector UI
An editor extension to add 100 randomly located copies of a prefab with one menu click
A progress bar to display proportion completed of Editor extension processing
An editor extension to have an object-creator GameObject, with buttons to instantiate different pickups at cross-hair object location in scene
Conclusion
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index

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Full star icon 4.5 (30)
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Beginning C++ Game Programming
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Full star icon 4.5 (23)
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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.8
(17 Ratings)
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real7a May 06, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
It's a good practical book on Unity game development and in the real world nowadays practice goes to production is very fast :) I've started to read it half a Year ago and started with several games and VR projects very fast. So the review is partial and delayed and anyway :)In short it's strongly recommended to jump start and get some vision of the landscape of Unity development.The book is organized as a cookbook as titled "Unity 5.x Cookbook" and it's the series of tutorial lessons actually. Some of lessons are easy and kind of artificial and they are used to show core concepts and lead to real useful tasks.I liked the tutorial of map radar for the shooter game. I made it and even submitted errata that was accepted.There are a lot of more useful lessons there. If You have time to learn it's very good addition to Unity tutorials and official Unity documentation.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Nicole.Garrow Jan 02, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Very helpful in game making!
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ruben Dec 26, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Unity 5.x Cookbook By Ruben Oliva RamosI liked this book, it has a big deal that I could understand the objective of the book, I understood all the chapters, The book has a new content that we can develep our own development.This is an excelent book, because covers my needs in game programming.Ruben
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Tim Crothers Dec 23, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I love that this book is jam packed with practical and useful examples. All of the example code, images and other files are a free download. Seems to me that just finding one or two of the recipes useful would justify the cost of the book. In my case I was able to adapt several of them for inclusion in my projects and gained a ton of value.
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Adam Maksym May 29, 2016
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Helpful Info..
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