This functionality not only lets you see the steps on the screen, but also the enemy shots and chests near your position. In addition, by activating this option, you will be able to detect enemies better and know their location more easily.
Step-by-step procedure for displaying on-screen steps in Fortnite.
Step 1: When you are in the Fortnite lobby, you will need to access the game menu that will appear as an icon on the top right of the screen.
Step 2: Once you have accessed the menu, you must go to the bottom of the menu until you find the gear. You will then be able to enter the settings.
Step 3: After completing the above steps, you will be in the settings. There you should find the “sound” section, which is located at the top of the screen, right next to “video”.
Step 4: In the “sound” section, scroll down until you find the “display sound effects” option and activate it.
Introduction
It’s not necessary to create any script to play sounds on mouse hover over UI elements in Unity, you can do it just by adding specific objects to the scene and setting up components on UI elements such as buttons and any other interactable element.
If you prefer you can check the following short video from my YouTube channel, there you will find all you need to do to set up to play sounds on mouse hover over buttons and other UI elements.
What do we need to play sounds on mouse hover in Unity
We basically need three elements in order to play sounds on mouse hover over UI elements, we need a way to play the sound, we need the sound clip to be played and we need a way to detect the mouse hover event over UI elements. Let’s analyze these three elements:
Create at least one AudioSource object in the scene to play the sound
You can create easily a new AudioSource object simply by right clicking in the Hierarchy window, go to audio and click on “AudioSource”, this will create a GameObject with an AudioSource component assigned to it, this AudioSource has the “Play On Awake” checkbox enabled by default so you have to disable it, otherwise the Audio Clip will be played on Start.
Audio files to play on mouse hover
The file of the sound you want to play on mouse hover over UI elements, I suggest you use files with the WAV or OGG format. You can assign the AudioClip to the “Clip” variable in the AudioSource component.
Event trigger component attached on the UI element
We add an EventTrigger component to our button and this allows us to detect different events on this buttons, events like when the mouse cursor hovers over the button, also when a click is made on a button and many other options. In our case we are intereseted in the “Pointer Enter” event which is called when the mouse cursor hovers for the first time a UI element.
How to PLAY SOUNDS on MOUSE HOVER over UI elements in Unity
Once we cover all the previous three steps needed to play sounds on mouse hover in Unity we need to properly configure them. Here is a step by step guide to do it.
Select your button, in the inspector click on “Add Component” and look for the “Event Trigger” component.
Click on “New Event Type” in the Event Trigger and select “Pointer Enter”.
Create a new AudioSource GameObject (or use an existing one) and drag that GameObject to the “Pointer Enter” event.
Using the drop down menu of the “Pointer Enter” event go to the AudioSource section and look for the “PlayOneShot” function.
Drag the Audio file with the sound you want to play on mouse hover to the field of the “Play One Shot” function in the “Pointer Enter” event.
Play and test
Introduction
There are several formats for exporting 3D models in Blender that are compatible with Unity, I recommend that you use one of the following two, the .FBX format or use the Blender file in .Blend format directly.
Before moving on I leave a video showing how to export 3D model in FBX FORMAT from Blender to Unity
In the following video we see not only which format to use to export from Blender to Unity and how to do it, but also other details such as creating new materials in Unity, configuring the textures and assigning those materials to the 3D model in Unity, overwriting the material that is defined in Blender.
If you use the FBX format to export your Blender models to Unity, several things will be packed inside the file besides the 3D models. Some of them are the following:
The hierarchical structure defined in the Outliner will be exported practically the same or very similar and we will see that hierarchical structure in the hierarchy window in Unity.
Object names defined in Blender will also be used in Unity.
The materials defined inside a 3D model in Blender will be present inside the imported file in Unity and will be applied to the 3D model, but in principle they are locked (see figure 1), they cannot be edited, to do so they must be extracted from the FBX file.
The base color chosen in the material will be the same as the one applied to the material in Unity. This for the Principled BSDF shader.
Textures connected to the base color and normals input will be present in Unity as long as the texture files are present when importing the FBX file into Unity. Those textures will be connected to the Albedo and Normals map in Unity.
Animations made with Dope Sheet and Nonlinear Animation clips will be included in the FBX file format.
Objects such as lights and cameras in Blender will be exported as lights and cameras in Unity.
Fig. 1: Material defined in Blender is locked in Unity. To use it you have to extract it from the file.
Disadvantages of using FBX format
One of the main disadvantages is updating the exported model when making changes in Blender. What I do is to replace the file found in the Unity folder with the new exported Blender file. SEE THE PROCEDURE FOR UPDATING MODEL CHANGES IN THE VIDEO ABOVE.
Using the Blender file directly in Unity (.Blend format)
You can use the Blender file directly in Unity and you will have access to most of the items listed above corresponding to the FBX format.
In specific cases problems might occur, for example when changes are made in the version of Blender or Unity, it has happened to me that the Blender file could not be used, but then in subsequent updates the problem was solved.
Fig. 2: Blender file inside a Unity project folder. The file can be opened by double-clicking and you can drag it into the scene to use it.
Advantages of using the .Blend file directly in Unity
For me the main advantage of using the Blender file directly in Unity is the convenience and ease of making changes to the model. With this method we can open the file directly by double clicking it in Unity, edit it, save it and then in Unity the changes are automatically updated.
Disadvantages of using the .Blend file directly in Unity
One of the most important disadvantages of working directly with the Blender file in Unity is the loading times, you may feel that Unity works slower, since it takes a while to process these files, when we add them to the scene and when we modify them, it may be something quite annoying depending on the capabilities of your computer. Although if we think about it, that waiting time may not be as long as the time it takes to re-export in FBX format, replace the file and still wait for the processing time Unity spends on that task.
Another important disadvantage is the fact of working with animations, I have not yet found a good way to work in Unity with a .Blend file with several animation clips made in Blender.
A disadvantage, perhaps not so important given the capabilities of devices nowadays, is that the .Blend file is heavier than the FBX file and also Blender makes a backup copy for each file, so the total weight is even bigger.
What are “COMPONENTS” in Unity and what are they for
A COMPONENT in Unity is a set of data and functions that define a specific behavior. Components are assigned to scene elements called “GameObjects” and give that object a particular behavior. In this article I’m going to share everything I know about components in Unity that I consider important to be able to improve your Unity engine management. Let’s start with one of the most important things:
In general, whatever we want to do in Unity we are going to achieve it through components assigned to GameObjects.
For example if we want to make an object be affected by gravity, if we want to be able to control the object with a controller or keyboard inputs, if we want to play sounds, if we want to display images on screen. All this and more can be achieved using different components assigned to GameObjects of the scene in Unity.
Predefined components in Unity
Fig. 1: Some predefined components of the Unity engine.
The Unity engine has defined by default a wide variety of components that achieve different behaviors, we can see them by selecting a GameObject from the hierarchy and in the inspector click on the “Add Component” button, shown in figure 1, there we will have all the available components sorted in different sections depending on the task they do.
Some examples of these predefined components are AudioSource components that play sounds, SpriteRenderer components that display sprites (images) on the screen, a MeshRenderer component that can display a 3D model on the screen and an AnimatorController component that can control a set of animations and the different transitions between them.
How to CREATE new components in Unity
The components in Unity are nothing more than programming scripts, in the case of the components that are defined by default in Unity are scripts that can not be modified, but the key in all this is that WE CAN CREATE NEW SCRIPTS and by doing so WE ARE CREATING NEW COMPONENTS IN UNITY, these scripts can be assigned to the GameObjects, exactly like the default Unity components.
When assigning a Script to a GameObject, a Script that is nothing more than a component customized by us, Unity will execute this Script, it will execute its instructions, which will allow us to achieve anything we want.
In order for Unity to evaluate a script or a component, some conditions must be met, as we will see below.
How to make a component work in Unity
For any component to do its job in Unity, four conditions must be met, we will list them below and then expand the information about each condition.
The scene that is loaded during execution is the one containing the component.
The component must exist in the scene.
The component must be ACTIVE.
The component must be assigned to an active GameObject in the scene.
If these four conditions are met, the component will perform its programmed task.
It should be noted that in some cases the component may not seem to be doing its job, take the case of an AudioSource that plays a sound, there may be times when the sound is not played, but this does not mean that the component is not working, if the four conditions mentioned above are met Unity is evaluating its behavior, only that its behavior at that time may be not to play the sound until the order of playing is given for example.
Condition 1: The scene where the component is located must be loaded.
An application made in Unity can be divided into different scenes and each scene has its own defined elements. When starting an application in Unity it will automatically load the scene that has been defined with index 0 in Unity’s Build Settings and also at any time we can switch from one scene to another, for example by pressing a “Play” button in the main menu we can load another scene where the gameplay is built.
Fig. 2: Scenes that were added to the compilation of the game or application. At startup, scene 0 will be loaded automatically.
The components in Unity are assigned to GameObjects and the GameObjects belong to a particular scene, therefore if the component we are interested in is in a scene that is not loaded at a certain moment, then its behavior will not be executed, simply because that component does not exist at that precise moment.
Condition 2: The component must exist in the scene.
Fig. 3: Assigning a Script to a GameObject creates an instance of the component that defines the Script.
For a component to execute its behavior it must exist in the scene, this means that we have to “instantiate” it, create an instance of the component we want to use. The simplest way to do this is to choose an appropriate GameObject (or create one) and then in the inspector, with the “Add Component” button, add the component we want to use.
This procedure to add a component can also be done through code, that is to say, from a script we can create an instance of a component and assign it to any GameObject we want, for this last one we need to have the reference of the GameObject to which we want to assign the component.
If the component we are interested in is not instantiated, Unity will not evaluate its behavior.
Condition 3: The component must be active in the scene.
Fig. 4: Activation checkbox of a component in Unity.
Generally the components in Unity have an enable checkbox that allows us to determine if the component is active or inactive, this can be seen in the inspector when selecting a GameObject, in the upper left corner of each component is that enable checkbox, if it is checked the component is active, if it is unchecked the component is inactive.
It is necessary to consider that the activation state can be modified through code, that is to say inside a Script, if we have the reference of that component, we can activate or deactivate it when we need it. Here I have a video in which I show how to do it.
Note: The activation checkbox of a Script that we have created will not be present in the inspector if in the script we do not have defined any of the internal Unity functions (Awake, Start, Update, …). Keep in mind that I am in Unity version 2021.3.18f1, I am not sure if this is true for previous versions and I am not sure, although it is probable, that it is true for later versions.
Read this if you have knowledge of object-oriented programming.
The components in Unity belong to a class called Component, in the hierarchy of classes there are classes like Behaviour or Renderer that inherit directly from the Component class, in this type of components the enable box that we see in the inspector shows the state of an internal variable called “enabled”, a variable that is defined in the Scripts that inherit from classes like Behaviour or Renderer. Let’s take the case of Behaviour objects, these objects are Component but not all components are Behaviours, for example an AudioSource component is a Behaviour and therefore has its enable box. But there are other components such as Transform or Rigidbody that inherit directly from Component and for that reason we do not see the enable box in the inspector.
Condition 4: The component must be assigned to an active GameObject in the scene.
The GameObjects in the hierarchy can be active or inactive in the scene. We can change the state of a GameObject by selecting it and in the inspector, use the checkbox at the top left, if that checkbox is checked the GameObject is active in the scene while if it is unchecked the GameObject is inactive in the scene. It is also possible to activate and deactivate a GameObject through code.
Fig. 5: Activation checkbox of a GameObject in Unity.
If a GameObject is active in the scene, Unity will automatically execute some functions that belong to the active components that are assigned to that GameObject, the most known functions can be the Awake, Start, Update and FixedUpdate functions, but there are many other functions that are part of Unity’s initialization and update cycle.
If the GameObject is not active, these functions will not be automatically executed on the components assigned to the GameObject, however this does not mean that we cannot use those components, even if a component is inactive, we could access it and read some parameter that we are interested in.
Fig. 6: Hierarchical structure of GameObject within a scene in Unity.
In Unity you can establish a hierarchy between different GameObjects, i.e. a GameObject can act as a parent of other GameObjects. The children of a GameObject will be affected by some things that happen to its parents, for example if we move the parent object, all its children will move together. This behavior also happens with the activation state of the GameObject, if the parent is deactivated, all its children (and the children of its children) will be deactivated as well. For this reason, for a component to work in Unity, not only the GameObject to which it is assigned has to be active, but all the GameObjects that are up the hierarchy.
Introduction
Before I start with useful tips and tricks for Blender I will briefly share with you my history with Blender.
A few years ago I had a serious addiction with Blender which is used to create 3D models and animations, I used it a minimum of 4 hours a day trying to recreate all kinds of things that crossed my mind, particularly nothing artistic but I was able to create structures, furniture and other types of objects based on reference images. 3D modeling was something that made me surprise myself of my own capabilities, every time a rendering was completed I felt very proud of my creation. In retrospect I wasn’t doing very amazing things but they were things I had made myself from scratch and that was amazing. So much time and effort spent 3D modeling with Blender and texturing with Substance Painter paid off and today I can include those capabilities as part of my work as a freelance developer.
Below we are going to review 10 useful tips and tricks for using Blender that have helped me to speed up and improve the modeling process, allowing me to accomplish tasks faster or achieve better results.
#1 – Focusing the camera on the selected object in Blender
We start with a shortcut to center the view or even the rendering camera on the selected object. An extremely important trick because it is something that greatly improves the agility when using Blender. With this shortcut you can say goodbye to all that time trying to correctly place the camera on a 3D model or even on a vertex, the center of an edge or a face.
To use it simply select an object or an element of the mesh and press the dot on the numeric keypad, you will see how the camera is centered on the selected element and also, when rotating the camera, the selected element is the center of rotation.
#2 – Hide all objects or geometry except what is selected in Blender
If you are working on a Blender project that has many objects or an object that has a particularly complex mesh, it can be very useful to temporarily hide certain objects and leave visible only what you need to work with. With this simple shortcut you can easily hide selected objects in Blender and when you need to reveal all the hidden objects again.
To isolate elements in Blender simply select the object or mesh element you want to isolate and press SHIFT+H, this will hide all other elements that are not selected. To make all hidden elements visible again press ALT+H.
#3 – Tip to quickly parent and un-parent objects in Blender
When parenting objects one of them becomes the parent object and the other object or objects we choose become the children, this causes the child objects to be automatically affected by the transformations received by the parent object, for example a movement applied to the parent will cause all the children to move together, the same happens for rotations and scale changes.
To quickly parent one object or set of objects to another in Blender you have to go to the Outliner window where all the objects are located, select the ones you want to parent and then drag them to the object you want to parent them to while holding down the SHIFT key, optionally you can press ALT to keep the transformation of the parent objects.
#4 – Render image with transparency in Blender (works for Cycles and Eevee)
In many occasions it is very useful to render only the visible parts of a 3D model and make the rest of the rendering transparent, for example when you want to create a GIF of yourself dancing and place it in an article about Blender tips.
In the properties window go to the render properties tab and there go to the “Film” section, you will find a checkbox called “Transparent”, checking this will make the parts of the render where there is no 3D model transparent. Make sure you use an appropriate image format that supports transparency, such as PNG.
The normals of a 3D model are a mathematical element that allows to know in which direction is pointing a particular face of a 3D model, sometimes in the modeling process certain normals can be inverted, that is pointing towards the inside of the 3D model and this can bring problems with shading, which means problems in the visualization of a material applied to the 3D model and also erratic behavior with light sources. Another important problem arises if we are creating these 3D models to use in a game engine like Unity, in this engine 3D models are rendered with “backface culling”, this means that if we have an inverted face in the graphics engine will be invisible and we will see through it, to solve this just correct the normals of the 3D model, but first we need to be able to see these normals.
To activate the normals of a 3D model it is necessary to be in EDIT MODE. Then in the upper right corner of the Viewport window click on the arrow that displays the “Viewport Overlays” window, almost at the end of it we will find the “Normals” section where we have 3 icons to display the normals, usually I choose to display them in the center of the faces. We can also adjust the length of the normals.
#6 – Know the number of vertices, edges and faces in our scene in Blender.
When we are creating 3D models we may be interested in knowing information about the geometry of the objects we are creating, for example how many vertices, edges, triangles or faces our model has, this can help us to determine if there is any problem with duplicate vertices and also keep track of how many polygons our 3D model has, if we are creating 3D models to use in a graphic engine like Unity it can be important to keep the amount of polygons within a reasonable number according to the model we are creating, especially if the application is for a mobile or virtual reality device, where there are certain limitations with the hardware.
To display information about the number of vertices, edges, faces and objects in Blender we go to the upper right corner of the Viewport window, click on the arrow that displays the “Viewport Overlays” window and check the “Statistics” box at the top of the window.
#7 – Applying the same material to other objects in Blender
When we select an object and we want to apply a color or give it a metallic appearance for example what we do is create a new material, which by default starts with the “Principled BSDF” Shader and we have different values to configure the material as we wish. But what happens if we have a second object and we want it to have the same material? We might be tempted to create a new material and configure it with the same parameters, it is even possible to copy the parameters of one material and apply them to another.
But there is a better alternative, in Blender we can make that two objects have the exact same material applied, that is to say that one or several material slots are pointing to the reference of the same material, in this way we can create a particular instance of a material that we could call “Pine Wood” for example and reuse that same material in all the objects that need the pine wood texture, this not only avoids that we have many unnecessary copies of a material but also allows us to modify the material and that the changes are applied automatically in all the objects where that material is used.
In this case the video is more illustrative but let’s try to summarize the procedure. With an object selected we go to the Materials tab (sphere icon with checkered texture), then if we click the + sign what we will do is create a new “Slot” for a material within our object, here there are two options, one is to click on “New” which creates a new instance of a material, completely independent of the others, the other option is to select an existing material (which interests us in this case), for this we click the icon to the left of the “New” button and select from the list the material we want to assign to the slot.
#8 – Show animation bones always in front of other objects in Blender
When creating animations with Blender using animation bones it is very useful to be able to see these bones at any moment even if they are hidden inside another object or obstructed by an object.
With the “Armature” object selected, go to the “Object Data properties” tab (which has a humanoid icon and is located above the tab with the bone icon), then go to the “Viewport Display” section and check the “In Front” checkbox.
When we gain some experience with Blender we come across the concept of “Edge Loop”, basically it is a set of vertices on a surface that are connected together and the last vertex of the set is connected back to the first one, the key is that of all the possible connections that can be drawn and that meet these conditions, the Edge Loop is like the loop that is connected in the most coherent way in relation to the other surrounding sets of vertices, it is a concept somewhat difficult to explain but it is easy to understand once we start working with them. An example of edge loop can be one of the rings that forms a sphere or a donut in Blender (the correct name is torus but it looks like a donut), each ring is a set of vertices connected forming a loop and this is an edge loop.
To quickly create an Edge Loop in Blender, select an object, go into EDIT MODE and press CTRL+R, then move the cursor to the part of the geometry where you want to add the edge loop, at this point you can scroll the mouse wheel to increase the number of loops to add or manually enter a number by keyboard.
#10 – Easily select Edge Loops and remove them in Blender
There is a quick way to select Edge Loops which allows us to apply transformations on the model, for example increase the size of a particular Edge Loop or move that Edge Loop in one direction and we can also get rid of that Edge Loop in a way that we keep the rest of the model intact, the latter is especially useful when we want to drastically decrease the amount of polygons of a 3D model to use it in a graphics engine like Unity for example.
To quickly select an Edge Loop in Blender we have to be in edit mode of an object, then hold Left ALT and left click on one of the edges that belongs to the Edge Loop that you want to select, if you click on a vertex of the Edge Loop you may select another Edge Loop that goes through the same vertex, so to be sure to select the correct one it is better to click on the edges.
In programming, RUNTIME is the time interval from the moment the operating system starts executing the instructions of a given program until the end of its execution, either because the program was successfully completed or because it was terminated by the operating system due to a runtime failure.
Runtime in Unity
When we are developing a game or application in Unity, the runtime of our program starts when we press the Play button until we press Stop and also when we make a compilation for windows for example, the runtime starts from the moment we run the application until it is finished.
It is important to understand this concept of runtime in Unity because we have to be able to handle situations that will occur during the execution of the program, for example enemies that appear in the middle of the game, these enemies will need to be provided with certain information that was not possible to give them at the time of game development simply because they did not exist at that time, so the person responsible for creating these enemies must also give them the information they need, for example the reference of the player they have to attack.
Introduction
The PlayerPrefs class of Unity does not have a specific method to store vectors, however it has three functions that allow to store data of type integer, float and strings, the types of variable int and float are known as primitive variables and with them it is possible to reconstruct other more complex data structures, and is that a vector of R2 or R3, if we think about it, is nothing more than an array of three variables of type float, that each one occupies a position or has a meaning.
Unity package to download with implemented solution
Below you can download the Unity package with the example we are going to analyze in this article, so you can import it and test it directly on your own computer.
Fig. 1: Files that are added to your project when importing the download package.
Analysis on how to save a Vector3 with PlayerPrefs
The basic idea is to decompose the vector into its components that are float data and then store those components individually with PlayerPrefs, then, when loading the data, retrieve each component from memory and create a new vector using those components.
In the scene that comes in the download package the solution is already assembled, in figure 2 we see how the hierarchy is composed, we have a GameObject called “SaveDataScript” which is the one that has assigned the Script that we are going to analyze (see figure 3) and this is responsible for saving and loading data. Then we have another GameObject called “ObjectToSavePosition” that is a cube to which we will save its position to be able to load it when starting the scene. Notice that in the inspector in figure 3, our Script has a reference to this object, this will allow you to read and modify its variables or execute functions on this GameObject,
Fig. 2: GameObject of the scene that will contain the script to save and load a Vector3 in Unity.
Fig. 3: Script to save and load a Vector3 in Unity seen from the inspector.
Script that is responsible for saving and loading the vector
In figure 4 we see a part of the data saving script that comes in the package, we can see the GameObject type variable called “objectWithSavedPosition” that appears in the inspector in figure 3 and also the Awake and Start methods, which are functions use for initialization that Unity executes automatically at different times within the life cycle of the application. Inside the Awake function is executed a custom function called “LoadData” which is responsible for loading the information, this “LoadData” function is defined by ourselves, we see it later.
The data loading is something that normally happens when starting a scene, sometimes problems can arise depending on where the data loading is done, remember that the Start functions are executed one after another for each GameObject in an order that we can not predict or that would be tedious to predict, imagine that a Script in its Start function uses variables from another Script that has not yet loaded its data!
Fig. 4: Script to save and load Vector3 in Unity, variables and initialization.
En los juegos se suelen tener atajos para guardado y carga rápida, en la figura 5 tenemos unas instrucciones que hacen precisamente esto, noten que al presionar F5 se ejecuta una función llamada “SaveData” que se encarga de hacer el guardado, sería conveniente que el guardado de todas las variables necesarias se haga dentro de esa función o que en el interior se llamen a otras funciones que se encarguen de guardar otros datos, de esa forma una vez que ejecutamos la instrucción SaveData estamos seguros de que toda la información se ha guardado, lo mismo para la función “LoadData” que se encarga de leer los datos guardados en la memoria e inicializar las variables con esos datos.
In games we usually have shortcuts for saving and fast loading, in figure 5 we have some instructions that do just this, notice that when pressing F5 a function called “SaveData” is executed that is in charge of saving all the relevant information and the same for the “LoadData” function when pressing F8.
Fig. 5: Functions for testing the saving and loading of a Vector3 in Unity.
Example on how to save a Vector3 using PlayerPrefs
Figure 6 shows the content of the SaveData function, which is responsible for saving the vector data that will later allow us to reconstruct it. Note that first a decomposition of the vector to be saved is made in its X, Y and Z variables, which are stored in the temporary variables “positionX”, “positionY” and “positionZ”.
The saving of data with PlayerPrefs is done in the last three instructions, using the “SetFloat” function from PlayerPrefs,note the name that is passed as a label of these saves, these names must be used in the data load to retrieve them.
Fig. 6: Instructions to SAVE a Vector3 data type with PlayerPrefs in Unity.
Example on how to load a Vector3 using PlayerPrefs
Figure 7 shows the content of the LoadData function that is responsible for loading the data stored in memory and make a reconstruction of the vector, the load is the reverse process, first we retrieve the data from memory, we do this with the “GetFloat” function from PlayerPrefs, passing the label that was used for each data and in this example I include the value 0 in case there is no previously stored information, this allows us to call it directly in Start or Awake and to make sure there are no conflicts the first time the application is run.
The next instruction is in charge of creating Vector3 from the data retrieved from memory. Vector3 and in general most classes have constructors that allow us to create the data by giving them initial values, we use that constructor with the “new” keyword.
The problem does not end here, as we have read the information, create the vector but we have not yet told our GameObject to position itself on that Vector3 coordinate, this is done in the last instruction in Figure 7.
Fig. 7: Instructions to LOAD a Vector3 data type with PlayerPrefs in Unity.
Introduction
In this article we will see how to set up a Unity project to create builds for Meta Quest 2, for this we will use the “Oculus Integration SDK” package for Unity which contains everything you need to start creating virtual reality apps for Oculus, it also comes with 3D models and useful examples. Let’s go through each necessary configuration, create a build and run it on an Meta Quest device.
All the IMPORTANT information is summarized in the following TUTORIAL FROM MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL
In order to compile applications for Meta Quest you need to have the Unity engine installed with the Android modules, which consist of the following three applications:
Fig. 1: These modules installed in Unity HUB are required to compile for Meta Quest.
Let’s download and import the Oculus Quest SDK package for Unity which comes with many useful Assets that will help us to create VR applications for Oculus.
Oculus Developer HUB allows you to recognize the Oculus device from your computer, configure it, access to captured images and videos, and publish applications to the Oculus Store.
The Oculus app allows us to use PC virtual reality applications with our Oculus, which can be done via cable or with the AirLink connection.
How to configure Unity to export applications for Meta Quest (Oculus Quest)
Now let’s see what parameters we have to configure in the Unity engine to be able to export for Oculus, for this we will create a new project and see the step-by-step.
Set Android platform as build target
Oculus Quest devices use Android as the operating system so first let’s go to File > Build Settings and change the target platform to Android, as seen in Figure 2.
Fig. 2: Changing the target platform for compilation.
In this case I am going to use the Oculus Quest 2 device, with the device connected I open the Oculus Developer HUB application to check that the operating system recognizes the device, if we are successful we should see our device as in figure 3.
Fig. 3: Device window of the Oculus Developer HUB program.
Also in Unity, in the Build Settings tab you should see the device in the “Run Device” field, as shown in Figure 4. If you do not see the device you have to go back to the prerequisites part, probably you have not enabled developer mode or you have to enable USB debugging inside the Oculus device.
Fig. 4: The connected device is displayed in the Build Settings window.
Import of the Oculus SDK package for Unity
Import the Oculus SDK package (download link at the top of the prerequisites). In this case we are going to add all the files that come in the package.
Fig. 5: Window to import the Oculus SDK package for Unity.
At this point, several dialogs appear asking us how we want to proceed.
In general for all messages I choose the recommended and most up to date options, in the case of figure 6 we click on “Yes”, in the case of figure 7 we click on “Use OpenXR”.
Fig. 6: Message that appears when importing the Oculus SDK package.
Fig. 7: Message that appears when importing the Oculus SDK package.
You may be prompted to restart the Unity editor, in which case restart the editor.
Fig. 8: Message that appears when importing the Oculus SDK package.
Figures 9 and 10 are another example of messages that may appear, I apply the same criteria, choose the most up to date options and restart if necessary.
Fig. 9: Message that appears when importing the Oculus SDK package.
Fig. 10: Message that appears when importing the Oculus SDK package.
At the time of recording the video and writing this article, when going through the whole process of configuring the Oculus SDK package for Unity, after restarting the editor for the last time an example scene opens showing an Avatar with LipSync (lip sync with microphone input, Figure 11). We are going to compile this same scene so we open the Build Settings tab (under the File tab) and click on the “Add Open Scene” button to add the open scene to the compilation we are going to create.
Fig. 11: Example scene that opens when Unity is restarted.
Fig. 12: The open scene is added to the compilation.
Setup of the XR Management plug-in
The next step of the configuration is to go to the “Player Settings” window, we can do it from “Edit” and we also have a shortcut from the Build Settings window as shown in figure 13.
Fig. 13: Shortcut to the Player Settings window to configure compilation parameters.
In the Player Settings window go to the “XR Plugin Management” item and click on the install button shown in Figure 15.
Fig. 14: Section XR Plugin Managment in Unity.
Fig. 15: Installation of the XR Plugin Plugin Managment in Unity.
Once the plugin is installed, click on the “Oculus” checkbox that appears and this action causes a new element called Oculus to appear below the plugin (figure 17), click on the Oculus element.
Fig. 16: Activate the Oculus checkbox of the Plugin.
Fig. 17: Go to the new Oculus tab of the Plugin
We make sure that the Quest and Quest 2 checkboxes are checked so that the plugin is applied to these devices.
Fig. 18: Make sure that the Quest and Quest 2 boxes are checked.
Configure appropriate Color Space
Before compiling an application for Oculus Quest in Unity we have to make sure to change the “Color Space” parameter found in the Project Settings/Player window and within the “Other Settings” drop-down menu, as shown in Figure 19. If this step is not done we will have errors in the console when compiling the application.
Fig. 19: Changing the Color Space parameter to Linear in order to compile for Oculus.
Virtual reality application compilation and testing in Meta Quest 2
Once we have configured everything in the Unity engine we proceed to create a build of the virtual reality application and test it on a device such as the Oculus Quest 2, for that we go to the Build Settings window and making sure that in the “Run Device” parameter we have our device (make sure the device is connected via USB or AirLink), we click on Build and Run, choose the destination folder of the APK file and give it a name, as shown in Figures 20 and 21.
IMPORTANT: If the device does not appear in the “Run Device” field you can click the Build button, export the APK file and then install that file via the Oculus Developer HUB software by dragging the APK file to the window shown in Figure 3 at the beginning of this article.
Fig. 20: We create the compilation for Oculus by clicking on Build and Run.
Fig. 21: We name the APK file to compile.
When the process finishes the application runs automatically on the Oculus Quest 2 device, the result of this is shown in the following image:
Fig. 22: Test of the example scene in Oculus Quest 2.
Where is the Unity application installed on Oculus
As we are doing a test, this virtual reality application was not validated by the Oculus store and therefore our device places it in a separate section of applications with “Unknown origins”, in that section we can find the application that was installed from Unity, see figures 23 and 24.
Fig. 23: The test applications build from Unity are located in the “Unknown Origins” section.
Fig. 24: Virtual reality application for Oculus Quest 2 compiled with Unity.
For the applications to appear in the main section we must upload them to the oculus store.
Introduction – What is Occlusion Culling in Unity?
The Unity engine has a system called “Occlusion Culling” that allows to automatically hide objects that the camera is not seeing directly. In this article we are going to see how to prepare a project in Unity so that Occlusion Culling is applied, some details about its operation and configuration parameters.
Important Detail – Pre-calculations (BAKE) are made in Occlusion Culling
Occlusion Culling works with objects that are marked as “static” in the scene and it is necessary to pre-calculate all the data, this is known as “bake”, this implies that every time you introduce a new object that should be turned off if the camera is not seeing it, or if you change the position of one of these objects, you must precalculate again the data for Occlusion Culling, if you don’t do it some objects that are behind the camera or behind some object may not disappear or even worse, you could have objects that disappear in front of the camera when they should remain visible.
Where is the Occlusion Culling configuration window in Unity?
The Occlusion Culling configuration window is located in Window > Rendering > Occlusion Culling, in my case I usually place it next to the inspector window for convenience, as shown in image 2.
Image 1: How to open the Occlusion Culling window in Unity.
Image 2: Occlusion Culling window next to the inspector in Unity.
How to add objects to the Occlusion Culling system in Unity
For an object to belong to the Occlusion Culling calculations and therefore disappear when the camera is not looking at it, each object must be marked with the “Static” parameter in the inspector, as shown in image 3. In general, the important objects to mark as static are those that have some kind of Renderer component assigned to it, such as a Mesh Renderer component or a Sprite Renderer component, since these objects are the ones that have a visual representation on the screen.
Image 3: “Static” property of any GameObject that allows to include it in the Occlusion Culling system.
IMPORTANT: Objects that are part of the Occlusion Culling system must not change position at any time and if they do, the data must be recalculated as we will see below.
How to apply Occlusion Culling in Unity
Once the previous step of marking all the static objects we are going to make a “Bake” of the information to apply Occlusion Culling, for this we go to the “Occlusion” window that is observed in image 4, in case of not seeing the window consult above in this article.
In this window basically we are going to configure two parameters, “Smallest Occluder” and “Smallest Hole”, the first parameter refers to the smallest object in the scene (in scene units) that can obstruct the camera and make everything behind it not to be rendered, the smaller this parameter is the longer the calculations will take so we will have to do some tests to determine an appropriate value, in principle we can consider the values of the image 4.
TO APPLY THE OCCLUSION CULLING CALCULATIONS IN UNITY CLICK ON THE BAKE BUTTON TO THE RIGHT OF THE CLEAR BUTTON
Image 4: Occlusion window to apply Occlusion Culling in Unity.
The “Smallest Hole” parameter is used in case of having open spaces in a 3D model, consider the example illustrated in image 5-A, in which Occlusion Culling has been applied with the parameters of image 4.
Image 5-A: Scene set up to illustrate Occlusion Culling.
Image 5-B: Perspective of the camera in image 5-A.
As we see in image 5-B the camera can see through the hole, however the cube that is selected in image 5-A is not visible, this is because the Occlusion Culling system is considering that this cube should be hidden, since the smaller hole is set to a size of 0.5 Unity units (image 4), while the hole in image 5-B has a size of 0.1 by 0.1 Unity units.
Modifying a bit the parameters taking into account these particular models and the fact that we should be able to see objects through that hole, we make a new Bake with the parameters of image 6 and as seen in image 7 now the Occlusion Culling system does not hide that object because the camera could see it through that hole.
Image 6: New parameters to correct the problem of objects not visible through holes in Unity.
Image 7: With these new parameters the camera can see the cube through the hole.
Anne lives a peaceful life on her farm, tending to her crops and her garden. Suddenly the peace comes to an end as a large number of raccoons show up on her farm and mess up everything they find. Anne has worked very hard on her farm and does not plan to sit around and do nothing.
How to play
Control Anne by pressing the WASD keys or the arrow keys. Collect the objects with the E key. Get the farm up and running and if you have time, find the vegetables that the raccoons messed up. Each station is normalized with a particular object so you will have to have this object to scare away the raccoons and normalize the station.
Developed for the Ludum Dare 51 Game Jam with theme "Every 10 seconds" by:
Mc. Rooties is looking for a kitchen assistant to replace their former employee who is rumored to have fled in tears and screaming out the back door of the restaurant. Your exceptional knife skills have made you a name for yourself and you are the right person for the job.
How to play
Control the knife by moving the mouse and cut the roots at the point indicated by a red line, the knife only cuts with a quick movement, be careful not to damage the vegetables.
Developed for Global Game Jam 2023 with the theme "Roots" by:
CIAN
ILUSTRATOR
MANU
GAME DESIGN
VALEN
UNITY DEVELOPER
GAMEDEVTRAUM
UNITY DEVELOPER
MR. DORIAN
MUSIC COMPOSER
AGRAULIS.C
ILUSTRATOR
Introduction
In this article we will see how to work with the Text Mesh Pro components from a Script, in addition you will find a video from the channel in which we will create a TEXT OBJECT to display in a Canvas and another Text Mesh for the 3D space and we will create a Script inside which we will modify the text that these components show, as an extra we will also modify the color by code.
The following video summarizes the content from this article, if you want you can watch it or you can continue reading below.
First Step: Create Text Mesh Pro objects for World Space or for the Canvas
You can use Text Mesh PRO to display a text in the user interface or to display text in the world (like a 3D model), for the first option you need to create Text from the UI menu, these kind of text should be placed inside a Canvas and it will be overlayed with the game view. You can find the Text for the worldspace in the 3D Objects menu.
Let’s analyze both cases
We start by creating the Text objects that we will later modify from a Script, we are going to create two types of Text Mesh Pro objects, one to use in the user interface and another to use as a 3D object in the scene.
Creating Text Mesh Pro Text for the user interface
In Unity the Text Mesh Pro objects that are in the UI section must be placed as children of a Canvas object, so let’s assume that we already have one of these objects in the scene. To create a new Text Mesh Pro object we go to the hierarchy, right click on the Canvas (or any child object of the Canvas), go to the UI section and choose the “Text – Text Mesh Pro” option, as shown in figure 1.A.
Fig. 1.A: Option to create a new Text Mesh Pro text for the user interface.
Creating a Text Mesh Pro Text for World Space
The other option to write text on the screen is to use a Text component of Text Mesh Pro as a 3D object and therefore located in a position in the world, this object will be found in the “3D Object” section of the creation window, as shown in figure 1.B.
Fig. 1.B: Option to create a new Text Mesh Pro text as a 3D object in the scene.
First time using Text Mesh Pro
In case we have not configured Text Mesh Pro yet, we will get the window shown in figure 2 where we will be given the option to import the necessary components to use Text Mesh Pro, we click on “Import TMP Essentials“, as shown in figure 2. The second button to import examples and extras is optional.
Figure 2: Window for importing Text Mesh Pro package into Unity.
Result of the creation of objects
Once the objects were created, I made a few modifications in the inspector (font size, text) and the result is as follows:
Fig. 3.a: Text Mesh Pro objects in the hierarchy.
Fig. 3.b: Text Mesh Pro objects displayed in the scene.
Once the objects have been created and Text Mesh Pro imported we can start using the Text Mesh Pro Text component from the inspector or write it through a Script. In figure 4 we see the Text component in the Inspector window, it has many more configuration options compared to the old text solution.
IMPORTANT
In figure 4 we see the field to edit the text that appears on the screen, currently has written the value “Canvas Text”, that is the field that we want to edit by code and to do it we will have to edit a variable called “text” that is define in that component.
Fig. 4: Text Mesh Pro component in the inspector.
Script for writing text in Text Mesh Pro component
In order to write a Text Mesh Pro component by code I will create a script and assign it to some GameObject of the hierarchy, as shown in figure 5. In this case my script is called “ModifyTextMeshPro”, inside this script I will modify the texts.
Fig. 5: We create a script and assign it to some object in the hierarchy.
Import TMPro namespace in our Script
To be able to use the Text Mesh Pro components comfortably, it is convenient to import the “TMPro” namespace by adding in the header of our script the line “using TMPro;” as shown in figure 6.
Fig. 6: We declare that we are going to use the namespace “TMPro” in the header of our script.
Declaration of the variables to be used
We are going to declare two variables of type “TMP_Text” where the references of the Text components that we want to modify will be stored, in this case the names of my variables will be “canvasText” and “worldText“, in these variables I will place the Text Mesh Pro Text components of the canvas and the world space respectively.
IMPORTANT DETAIL
The names “canvasText” and “worldText” are the names I chose for these variables, you can use any other name as long as it contains allowed characters.
Fig. 7: Declaration of the variables to be used to modify the Text Mesh Pro text.
Initialization of variables (Assignment of references)
The initialization of this type of non-primitive variables is crucial, if we do not take care of putting inside the variable the precise object we want to refer to, we will get a null reference exception.
Fig. 8: The appropriate GameObjects are dragged into the spaces in the inspector to initialize the variables.
The declared variable does not appear in the inspector
In the case that the variable does not appear in the inspector it is usually because its visibility is private, it can be solved by declaring the variables as public as shown in figure 7, adding the word “public”, or they can also be declared as private but indicating that they are serialized by the inspector, as follows:
[SerializeField] TMP_Text canvasText;
Or:
[SerializeField] private TMP_Text canvasText;
Another reason why the variables do not appear in the inspector can be when there are errors in console and the changes made in the scripts are not updated, to solve this we will have to solve all the errors that there are in console, once made this Unity will compile and the new modifications will appear.
Code instructions for modifying Text Mesh Pro text via Script and tests
Once we have initialized the variables we can use them, in this case if we want to modify the text displayed by the Text Mesh Pro component, we must modify the variable “text” defined inside it, for this we use the dot operator that allows us to access the variables and public functions defined inside an object,
Fig. 9.A: Writing a Text Mesh Pro text from a Script in Unity.
Fig. 9.B: Pressing play shows how the texts on the screen are modified.
Extra: Change the color of a Text Mesh Pro text by code
Fig. 10.A: In lines 22 and 23 the color of the Text Mesh Pro texts is changed by code.
Fig. 10.B: When pressing play we can see how the colors of the texts on the screen change.
Introduction
In this article we are going to see how to know the state of any GameObject through code in Unity.
The GameObjects are the elements of the scene that are used to model everything that exists in our project in Unity. One of the basic properties that these GameObjects have is their activation state, in the inspector window can be seen as a checkbox that when checked the GameObject is ACTIVE and if the checkbox is unchecked the GameObject is INACTIVE.
All the IMPORTANT information is summarized in the following TUTORIAL FROM MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL
Procedure to know if a GameObject is ACTIVE or INACTIVE in the scene
Let’s assume that there is already a script created and assigned to a GameObject in Unity so that its instructions can be executed.
Step 1 – Define REFERENCE
To solve practically any problem in Unity we have to start with the variables that we are going to use, in this case we need to have the reference of the GameObject that we want to analyze, in other words, in our script we will define a global variable of type GameObject, for example in the following way:
public GameObject myGameObject
Step 2 – Initialize REFERENCE
The variable we defined in the previous step will not automatically point to the GameObject we are interested in knowing if it is ACTIVE or INACTIVE in the scene, we have to make sure that happens.
There are several ways to initialize a variable, click here to see a playlist with several videos where you can see methods and examples on this topic, in this case we are going to go to the inspector where we have the script assigned and we are going to drag manually the GameObject that we are interested in analyzing to the GameObject type variable that appears in the inspector, in our case it is called “myGameObject”. This way now that variable will point to the GameObject that we are interested in.
Step 3 – How to READ the GameObject status
Having solved the previous two steps we can now use the variable we defined to know if the GameObject is ACTIVE or INACTIVE in the scene. For this we use the following instruction.
myGameObject.activeInHierarchy
The previous instruction is equivalent to a boolean value, if the GameObject to which the variable “myGameObject” is pointing is active in the scene the expression will give as result “true”, while if it is inactive it will give as result “false”. Therefore we can use this expression to do whatever we want, for example define an IF statement and print a message in console if the object is active and a different message if it is inactive, for example:
if(myGameObject.activeInHierarchy){ Debug.Log(“The GameObject is ACTIVE”); }else{ Debug.Log(“The GameObject is INACTIVE”); }
Introduction
In this article we are going to see how to change the cursor image when the pointer hovers over a button in Unity. In addition, a download package is provided with the scripts, sprites and the scene with all the elements already configured.
Download the Unity Package
Here you can download the Unity Package with the example on how to change the cursor image in Unity.
In this video we see how to change the CURSOR IMAGE on HOVER in Unity.
Fig. 1: Scene from the Unity package, the cursor is on the screen and it’s an arrow.
Fig. 2: Scene from the Unity package, the cursor is on the button and now change to a hand.
Default Cursor Settings in Unity
This is something that can be done within a Start function, but if our game or application will have a custom cursor, for example a custom arrow, it is convenient to define it within the project parameters, going to Edit > Project Settings, the window shown in Figure 3 is displayed, there we can assign the default cursor Sprite, as well as its Hotspot coordinates.
Fig. 3: Default cursor settings in Unity.
Determining the Hotspot of our customized cursor
The hotspot of the cursor is the offset vector measured from the upper left corner of the Sprite and it indicates the point of the image where the tip of the cursor is considered to be. The script that comes in the package has fields defined to assign the Sprite of two cursors as well as the vectors of their respective Hotspots, as seen in the inspector in Figure 4.
To determine the Hotspots you have to enter the game mode and try different values until the cursor matches, another way would be to know exactly how many pixels horizontally and vertically is the point of the cursor.
Fig. 4: Inspector of the Cursor Manager script included in the Unity package, Sprite assignment and Hotspot configuration.
How to change the cursor IMAGE in Unity
To change the image shown by the cursor just execute the instructions shown in figure 5, in lines 31 and 37, the SetCursor method inside the Cursor class, passing as parameter the sprite you want to show, the Vector2 with the position of the Hotspot and the cursor mode.
Fig. 5: Functions to change the cursor image in Unity.
When to change the cursor image in Unity
In this particular case we are interested in constantly showing a default cursor until the pointer is positioned over a button, at that moment we want to show another different cursor to give feedback that the user can interact with that element. For this we need to be able to detect exactly when these events occur and for that I assign to each button an “Event Trigger” component and adding the “Pointer Enter” and “Pointer Exit” events.
To both events we assign the GameObject that has the Script with the functions that we want to execute (these functions must be defined as public) and then using the drop-down menu we choose the functions to execute in each event.
Fig. 6: Assignment of script functions to each event.
Description
This solution consists of a scene with two buttons, one with the text “Play” and the other with “Exit”, the first button does nothing, the second one displays a confirmation dialog that asks us if we are sure we want to exit and has two buttons, the NO button and the YES button, the first one closes the confirmation dialog and we return to the menu, the second one closes the application or game in Unity.
Download Unity Package
You can download the Unity Package to import it in your own project.
In the following video I explain how to exit the game in Unity with confirmation dialog
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
