Here’s notes from several videos, indicating stuff I want to do or try. Rather than link to each video, let alone an embed, let me shout out EngiGames and Jason Weiman.

• I want to stick my interface in a separate scene. This is contraindicated by EngiGames for small games, but for my RPG, I think it makes sense to have it be its own thing that sits over the top of everything else going on.
  • using UnityEngine.SceneManagement;
  • if (SceneManager.GetSceneByName("UI").IsLoaded == false) SceneManager.LoadSceneAsync("UI", LoadSceneMode.Additive);
• Consider, instead, having the menu call Don'tDestroyOnLoad() and then swapping immediately to a gameplay scene, rather than monkeying around with additive scenes, though.
• If I don’t want to hook up events to buttons using the Unity Button delegates, I can create scripts that handle the button directly. E.g.
  • // In Start(), using UnityEngine.UI...
  • button = GetComponent<Button>();
  • button.onClick.AddListener(YourClickFunctionHere);
• Obviously, I’ll want to be able to grab an instance of some access point to my menu from any other scene. I should be aware that just putting a reference in a public static field in Awake() is considered a Very Bad Plan. This is because it is a sloppy singleton that doesn’t do the first part of a singleton’s job — ensure that one, and only one instance of the class exists. This video details a singleton generic that will allow you to turn a Monobehavior into a proper singleton merely by inheriting from it.

Continue reading “RPG Menu Notes” →

So you want a field in you Inspector that has sub fields. Its sole purpose is to just be a bucket of data, but you have no real need to share it between classes in Unity or have it be universal in any way.

Sounds like a good use for the C# struct, right?

Nah. Unity doesn’t roll that way. You want a plain old class. No inheriting from MonoBehavior nor ScriptableObject. Just decorate that bad boy with [System.Serializable].

Wait, Unity’s default code files don’t include System? I suppose I can see why, as I haven’t noticed ’til now, but years of working with XNA/Monogame led me to not see that coming…

Do consider, however, whether a ScriptableObject might not be right for you.

One of the reasons I hate, hate, hate Unity is that all the best documentation is Youtube videos, and I want a book.

Here’s the Brackey’s Scriptable Object tutorial, followed by my transforming the bits I care about into text, for future reference.

Righteo, let’s go:

Continue reading “Scriptable Objects” →

When using Unity to make 2D Platformers.

• A Box Collider2D can get the rounding advantages of a capsule collider via the edge radius attribute.
• A Tilemap Collider2D will treat each tile as an individual collider unless you check “Used by Composite”, which has performance pitfalls and can get you caught on corners. Adding the requisite composite collider automatically adds a rigidbody, so be sure to set that to static.
• Be sure to set static components (such as large swaths of your map) to static, to enable various optimizations.
• Be sure to set your player character’s collision to Continuous and interpolation to Interpolate so you don’t have to deal with the Bullet problem.
• If you want to use Physics2D.Raycast for sensors, and your plan is to start the raycast inside the character’s collider, be sure to deselect “Queries start in colliders” in the Project Settings.
• Unity doesn’t play nicely with C# events. If you want a public event that multiple entities can subscribe to, look up Unity Events. If you just want one component to broadcast an event to fellow components, it’s easier to just wire them up by hand.