Category: Tutorial

Pokemon Unity Tutorial – BattleManager [Pt.8]

digm520admin / / Programming, Tutorial, UI, Unity
August 23, 2019

Unity Pokemon Tutorial

BattleManager

Youtube – Lets Make… Pokemon in Unity! – Episode 8 BattleManager Code

By: BrainStorm Games

This tutorial focuses on the scripting the actual functionality of all the UI in the battle scenes. This includes giving all of the different text selections their various functionalities when the player selects them during a battle.

The intial setup for the BattleManager script was a huge pain in this tutorial. It started with creating a bunch of public GameObjects and Text objects to provide input fields in the inspector. There were almost 20 different elements created at once here. Then, we had to plug in all of the corresponding UI Text and Panel objects from the last tutorial into these fields. Many of these objects were never renamed at all (or named poorly as the script name does not match the object name in any manner). This will be workable since this is not the main reason I am doing these tutorials.

After setting all of these, they set up a switch case which uses a newly created BattleMenu enum to determine which of these UI elements should be set active/inactive at any given time. This is all done in a ChangeMenu method that takes in a BattleMenu paratmeter. This method is called in the GameManager.

Then they setup a monster nested switch case in the Update method to give the illusion of the “cursor” moving around the different menu options. Every button press goes into this huge switch case that first determines which menu you are in, and then depending on that menu, determines which text elements it needs to change (since it only wants to change those on the currently visible menu). It then resets every text element to its initial string, while changing the current string by just adding “> ” in front to look like a cursor is selecting it. The code for the menu selection is as follows:

private void Update()
{
if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.DownArrow))
{
Debug.Log(“Down pressed and currentSelection is: ” + currentSelection);
if(currentSelection < 4)
{
currentSelection++;
}
}
if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.UpArrow))
{
Debug.Log(“Up pressed and currentSelection is: ” + currentSelection);
if (currentSelection > 0)
{
currentSelection–;
}
}
if(currentSelection == 0)
{
currentSelection = 1;
}

switch (currentMenu)
{
case BattleMenu.Fight:
switch (currentSelection)
{
case 1:
moveO.text = “> ” + moveOT;
moveT.text = moveTT;
moveTH.text = moveTHT;
moveF.text = moveFT;
break;
case 2:
moveO.text = moveOT;
moveT.text = “> ” + moveTT;
moveTH.text = moveTHT;
moveF.text = moveFT;
break;
case 3:
moveO.text = moveOT;
moveT.text = moveTT;
moveTH.text = “> ” + moveTHT;
moveF.text = moveFT;
break;
case 4:
moveO.text = moveOT;
moveT.text = moveTT;
moveTH.text = moveTHT;
moveF.text = “> ” + moveFT;
break;
}

break;

case BattleMenu.Selection:
switch (currentSelection)
{
case 1:
fight.text = “> ” + fightT;
pokemon.text = pokemonT;
bag.text = bagT;
run.text = runT;
break;
case 2:
fight.text = fightT;
pokemon.text = “> ” + pokemonT;
bag.text = bagT;
run.text = runT;
break;
case 3:
fight.text = fightT;
pokemon.text = pokemonT;
bag.text = “> ” + bagT;
run.text = runT;
break;
case 4:
fight.text = fightT;
pokemon.text = pokemonT;
bag.text = bagT;
run.text = “> ” + runT;
break;
}

break;
}


}

There has to be a much better way to do a menu system like this. I’d imagine you would just want everything to be set into an array of some kind where the inputs just move through the array elements. Then you would just tie some visual representation to whatever UI element is currently selected. This just seems very frail, hard to read, and hard to edit.

Pokemon Unity Tutorial – Battle GUI [Pt.7]

digm520admin / / Tutorial, UI, Unity
August 21, 2019

Unity Pokemon Tutorial

Battle GUI

Youtube – Lets Make… Pokemon in Unity! – Episode 7 Battling GUI

By: BrainStorm Games

This tutorial focuses on setting up the GUI within a battle encounter. This includes creating the panels necessary for holding all of the information about the battle and the player’s input options.

The UI panel holding the moves was given a Grid Layout Group component. This helps when you want to layout children UI elements in a grid pattern. This component holds information such as padding (spacing added around borders of current UI elements) and cell size (how much space to give each individual grid component).

Working with UI elements in Unity is always weird and unpredictable for me, and this time was no different. When making the health bar UI canvases, I created the background (health container) and foreground (current health) health elements for the player’s pokemon first without any issue. However, when I duplicated both and tried to move them into position for the opposing pokemon, they acted very strangely. I was resizing them with their values in the insepctor and all of a sudden the foreground bar became extremely thin, like a line. Something must have “broke” when duplicating these scaling canvas UI elements and moving them as children into a different UI element that caused them to act strangely after editing them to any degree. I ended up solving this by deleting out the background element, fixing up the foreground element and just duplicating that and changing the color for the new background element for the opposing pokemon.

Unity can do UI layering in the hierarchy. The element that is lower will be shown above the other elements, which is how the foreground UI element for health was shown above the background container. This works good enough for the tutorial, but I would like to look into having more proper control for UI layering.

Pokemon Unity Tutorial – More Pokemon [Pt.6]

digm520admin / / Programming, Tutorial, Unity
August 19, 2019

Unity Pokemon Tutorial

Encounter List Creation

Youtube – Lets Make… Pokemon in Unity! – Episode 6 More Pokemon!

By: BrainStorm Games

This tutorial is about actually creating BasePokemon GameObjects and using them as a prefabs. The general prefab structure is pretty simple. The object is a SpriteRenderer (with the pokemon’s sprite) and has a BasePokemon script attached that just has all the base stats filled in in the editor, along with typing in the name and also hading a sprite reference here.

We created 5 different types of this prefab for different pokemon objects and used those to populate the GameManager BasePokemon list. It turns out this list won’t be holding every pokemon that exists in the game, this will just the list of possible encounters in the current area.

The method for encountering pokemon included creating an EmptyPoke prefab as well, which acts as a placeholder that becomes one of the referenced Pokemon objects from the current GameManager list. The battle instantiates this EmptyPoke object, and then uses the reference from the randomly selected Pokemon object from the list to basically add a BasePokemon component to this EmptyPoke object and copy all the relevant data over to it.

Finally, they added some transform objects to locate your pokemon and the opposing battle pokemon in the battle scene. These objects are just referenced as where to instantiate Pokemon objects (and as a result, their sprites).

Testing and Debugging

Problem 1: Generating Empty Lists that Were Being Accessed

I was getting an error that GetRandomPokemonFromList from attempting to access an array element out of the bounds of the current list being given to it. It turns out this is because I only put VeryCommon and Common rarity pokemon as options to be found, so when any other rarity (Rare, Semirare, VeryRare) were being rolled for the encounter, it was defaulting to trying to access the first element of an empty list.

Solution

I was able to solve this by adding a check for an empty list and having the method return null in that case, then the rest of the methods using this data would check if it was null first before performing their actions, so they would only proceed if they had an object to work with first.

Problem 2: Missing Encounters

I added my own EndBattle method to the GameManager script just to make testing multiple encounters easier and found an issue where it did not seem like every pokemon in the list was coming up as an encounter. I know RNGs can be a bit repetitive, so I tested for a while but it was clearly missing some encounters.

Solution

It turns out the Random.Range int they were using with bounds of 0 and list.count – 1 did not need the (- 1) since the high bound is an exclusive bound. With the (- 1), one pokemon from each rarity tier was being left out as an option. Removing the (- 1) fixed my issue, and all pokemon were appearing (eventually).

Pokemon Unity Tutorial – More Pokemon Integration [Pt.5]

digm520admin / / Programming, Tutorial, Unity
August 19, 2019

Unity Pokemon Tutorial

Class Data Management

Youtube – Lets Make… Pokemon in Unity! – Episode 5 – More Pokemon Integration

By: BrainStorm Games

This tutorial focused on creating the Player class and increasing the functionality of the BasePokemon class.

The Player class contained a list of OwnedPokemon, which was a newly created class within the Player script.

The BasePokemon class added some new features to work with evolution. The PokemonEvolution class was created, which held a BasePokemon that is the next evolution and an int for the level at which the evolution should occur. A PokemonEvolution variable was created within the BasePokemon class which would hold a reference to what pokemon a single one could evolve into.

There was also a lot done with the GameManager script. A PokemonMoves class was created that would provide the foundation for all the different types of attacks in the game, as well as a new MoveType enum, which categorized the moves (as physical, special, or status). There was also a Stat class that was created that just held a float for a minimum value and a float for the maximum value. The GameManager class itself also got a list of BasePokemon called allPokemon, and a list of PokemonMoves called allMoves. I am assuming these will just be used to hold some style of reference to every unique type of pokemon and move in the game.

The GameManager class also contained the methods for determining which Pokemon is randomly encountered in battles. A List method, GetPokemonByRarity, was created which basically takes an input of a Rarity enum and then looks through the current list of allPokemon and creates a new list with only those that have the same rarity value as designated by the input Rarity. Then another method, a BasePokemon method called GetRandomPokemonFromList, simply takes a BasePokemon list input (the list created by GetPokemonByRarity) and then randomly chooses one of the BasePokemon from that list and returns it. This combinations works to determine the specific pokemon encountered when calling a random encounter.

Again, things seem to be run a bit inefficiently (for example, populating this rarity list every time a battle is encountered) but I’ll be interested to see where it leads. This tutorial was a lot of setup that will make more sense once the system gets put in motion.

Tutorial – Creating a Realistic Boat in Unity

digm520admin / / Physics, physics in games, Programming, Tutorial, Unity
August 14, 2019

Realistic Boat Physics

Unity

Harbrador – Make a realistic boat in Unity with C#

By: eriknordeus

As someone interested in using real world physics and applying it with Unity’s physics engine, this tutorial just looked very interesting and promising. It appears they do a lot of work determining buoyancy as well as air and water resistance using the actual mesh of an object. They also split the code up in a nice way, separating a lot of the math into its own class to keep scripts organized and easier to use/read, so I wanted to look into that organizational setup. Overall, this is just a cool project that has a lot of factors I want to learn more about (physics in unity, organizing scripts, applying real world concepts to Unity/games).

HFFWS Moving Platform Tutorial

digm520admin / / HFFWS, Tutorial, Unity
August 13, 2019

Human Fall Flat Workshop

Moving Platform Tutorial

Youtube – Moving Platform Tutorial in Unity for Human Fall Flat

By: Gotcha McFee

To start, they just went to the IntermediateLevel 1 scene to grab a copy of the moving platform prefab from there. They just placed this in a prefabs folder to use later.

This moving platform has a ton of script components on it, but the main one they focused on was called “Signal Math Nul”. Changing the second input value here changes how quickly the moving platform changes directions. A high value will make it go back to start very quickly, where a low number will take longer (and if it’s low enough, it will actually wait at the end point for some time before coming back).

Next, they showed that the child object, Axis, controls a lot about how the platform moves. By rotating this object, you can change the direction the platform moves. The other simple variables they show are:

  • Min Value: Normally just keep at zero
  • Max Value: Changes how far platform can move in given direction
  • Max Speed: Changes the top speed the platform can accelerate to
  • Max Acceleration: Changes how quickly the platform changes speed

These variables are pretty self-explanatory, but there are a few issues to note with them. Going back to the first problem where a platform that changes directions too quickly won’t even reach its maximum value, this needs to be checked when you change a platform’s Max Value. If you change this without giving it more time to change directions, it may not be ending up where you would plan on. Max Speed and Max Acceleration are values that need tested in game as they will contribute force and momentum to players that are on the platform. Having too high of values here can throw players off the platform and make it difficult to stay on.

Finally, they show that you can take this underlying foundation and place it on any object to make it move around. They child a new object to this entire setup and just turn off the old mesh components, but it’s actually easier to just change the base platform object’s Mesh Filter and Mesh Collider to the object you want (and then update the Mesh Renderer to fit this new mesh). This lets you use any mesh as a moving object.

Pokemon Unity Tutorial – Player Movement [Pt.2]

digm520admin / / Programming, Tutorial, Unity
August 13, 2019

Unity Pokemon Tutorial

Player Movement

Youtube – Lets Make… Pokemon in Unity! – Episode 2 Basic Player Movement

By: BrainStorm Games

Player movement in the overworld of Pokemon games is tile based. To emulate this, the tutorial uses a Coroutine which can move the player a full tile at a time while locking the player out from further inputs until the player character has completed its full tile of motion. It also uses a simple setup where it reads the player’s horizontal and vertical input, but checks which is greater and reduces the other to zero to ensure the player is moving only on the two intended directions.

Since the player is a 2D sprite, they used an Enum setup to tie certain sprites to certain movement directions. This way it would look like the character is facing the direction they are moving. This setup had the 4 directions (North, South, East, West) for the Enum Direction. The player’s input would set the Direction variable, currentDir, to a corresponding direction. This would then be referenced in a switch case to determine which sprite to display for the character’s SpriteRenderer at the time.

Pokemon Unity Tutorial – Player Movement [Pt.3]

digm520admin / / Programming, Tutorial, Unity
August 13, 2019

Unity Pokemon Tutorial

UI and Pokemon Class

Youtube – Lets Make… Pokemon in Unity! – Episode 3 Basic Pokemon and UI

By: BrainStorm Games

This tutorial covered the very basics of starting to get the UI setup in the game, as well as starting the overall base Pokemon class. The UI portion was just grabbing an image and setting it as the image for a Unity UI Panel. To help present the image in a certain way, they did go into the sprite editor to apply an all around 4 pixel border to the image.

The base Pokemon class started with two enums, this time for rarity and type. This class, BasePokemon, also references an outside enum that was created called BiomeList, which will set out the different types of environments a Pokemon can be found in. Other than these enums, the rest was just preparing the class by setting up a lot of the variables, like the Name, image, and all the stats (like hit points, attack, and defense).

Setting Up HFFWS Project

digm520admin / / HFFWS, Thesis, Tutorial
August 9, 2019

HFFWS

Setting Up Initial Project

Youtube – Human Fall Flat – How to make a map – Ranul

By: Ranul

So following this tutorial, the bare minimum for getting a level started is simply adding the “Level” prefab into your scene. This comes with:

  • InitialSpawnPoint: where the player spawns in; even has an indicator with a ray to show exactly where they will hit
  • FallTrigger: this is the trigger that determines when the player should be respawned
  • PassTrigger: the trigger for finishing the level (the goal)
  • Directional Light: standard directional light

It also sounds like “everything” needs to be childed to this Level prefab, so I’ll stick with that until I find otherwise.

Thrower Tutorial

Youtube – Spinning Thrower + Space Unity Tutorial for Human Fall Flat Workshop

By: Gotcha McFee

This tutorial shows how to use some basic tools that Probuilder affords you in Unity to make a moving, interactable object in your HFF level. This specific object is a “Thrower”, which is a spinning wheel that the player can hold onto then release to get launched to a new area from the wheel’s momentum.

Notes that the mass of objects makes a big difference in HFF in general, so modifying this can help if you aren’t getting the desired results. Generally objects start with a rigid body mass of 1, but in this example they set the wheel to a mass of 500. This significant difference shows you should be careful keeping track of your object masses so you don’t get issues just because you missed a very low mass value.

There are some notes on how to make a Probuilder object into a moving and interactable object in HFF. To allow it to move, there is an Entity Type under the Pb_Entity component that must be changed to “Mover”. To allow it to then be interactable, the Mesh Collider component needs to have the Convex option turned On. I noticed you could still interact with the thrower holders (just long cubes on the sides of the wheel) without changing anything, so it seems the Convex option is only important for moving objects.

Noted important factors for a wheel object:

  • (If Probuilder object) Pb_Entity – Entity Type – Mover
  • (If Probuilder object) Mesh Collider – Convex (On)
  • Hinge Joint component (automatically adds Rigidbody component)
  • Hinge Joint – Axis (Ex. 0, 1, 0)
  • Hinge Joint – Use Motor (On)
  • Hinge Joint – Motor – Target Velocity (Ex. 175)
  • Hinge Joint – Motor – Force (Ex. 500,000)
  • Rigidbody – Mass (Ex. 500)

Rope Tutorial

Youtube – Rope tutorial in Unity for Human Fall Flat

By: Gotcha McFee

This shows how to create a simple rope in the HFFWS from scratch.

The main objects needed as children objects of your overall rope object are:

  • Start
  • End
  • Rope

The Start and End are just Rigidbody objects with certain masses and constraints (want the start to be more solid and fixed where the end is more manueverable and flexible). The Rope holds a lot of the inner workings of the rope object.

Components needed for the Rope object within the overall rope hierarchy:

  • Rope (Script)
  • Mesh Filter
  • Mesh Renderer
  • Net Body (Script)(which has Net Identity attached as required component)
ISSUES

The tutorial shows how to add some objects like spheres and cubes to the rope object to give it an attachment point at the top and interactable objects at the end. I just wanted to quickly test adding the objects to hold onto on the end of the rope, so I just added a sphere as a child of the end and tried running the game. This caused the rope to glitch out and jump around violently. It appears that adding an object that has too much “rope in it” causes some weird collisions that just make everything move around erractically. I was able to get similar results to the tutorial by moving the sphere a bit below the end transform (without completely removing it visually from the end of the rope). This is just something to be aware of if adding to your rope.

PARAMETERS

The tutorial goes over some of their experience with the parameters of the rope script and results that have and have not worked for them.

Rigid Segments:
Having too many of these makes the rope too “heavy” and hard to use. You can change the individual segment weights as well, but too low of a segment mass causes the rope to “break” and become very glitchy. They generally make normal ropes have about 6 or 7 segments, with 15 being about the max for a very large rope.

Segment Mass:
The default value for this is 20 and that seems to be a pretty nice standard value. As mentioned previously, very low values break the rope and cause it to function incorrectly. The 15 to 20 range seems to be pretty consistent, but just make sure to test ropes with varying mass values if you are getting strange results.

Learning from Pokemon Unity Tutorial

digm520admin / / Tutorial, Unity
August 8, 2019

Unity Pokemon Tutorial

Setup

Youtube – Lets Make… Pokemon in Unity! – Episode 1 – Basic Setup World/Character

By: BrainStorm Games

As a big fan of Pokemon, I wanted to finally jump into this tutorial just to learn from what it has to offer. It could be very helpful for any 2D projects, especially those that are more RPG-based, and I imagine a lot of concepts can be carried over to 3D projects as well.

I am especially interested to see:

  • How they perform the movement in a way that’s consistent and easy to control
  • Setup of the overall “Pokemon” class structure to deal with many different options of very similar creature objects
  • How they deal with encounters (and the implementation of randomness)
  • Connected to points 1 and 3, how they structure the overall class for encounter areas
Using Tiles

Sometimes tiles can have a line between them even though they are connected, but this is normally caused by anti-aliasing. This can be turned off in the quality settings in Unity. Newer versions (I’m using 2019.1.12 currently) seem to have that disable initally in 2D projects.

Since we’re using tiles that are generally positioned pretty precisely, I thought this would be a good time to use Progrids again. This is perfect for continously placing all these tiles in exact incrementally different locations right next to each other. It is a bit awkward that the tiles get placed onto the intersection points of the grid as opposed to filling in the nicely made grid squares, but that’s just an aesthetic pain. It functions perfectly for this.

You can also achieve a similar effect to Progrids just normally in Unity by holding [Ctrl] while clicking and dragging to move an object. This can move the object one unit at a time.