In later versions, we moved on to a modified version of an OTS FPS package on the asset store, but early on, all the character controls were handled by our own code. Here’s a peek at a demo scene we put together for the (unreleased) Armory Demo.
Art was done by a few team members, with all the programming and post-processing effects done by me.
Check it out below:
Difficulty: Medium
My previous JSON tutorial was a while ago, and it never covered actually deserializing data (but is still useful on it’s own), so rather than doing the second half on its own, this tutorial will cover all the steps from the beginning using JsonFx.
∗ This guide is tested as of Unity 4.3.4f
The purpose of serializing data is so that it can be stored or shared across different systems, or even applications. It creates a common data template that can be converted back and forth (serialized and deserialized) even when the source data is not one that is understood by the receiving system or application natively. There are various common formats that can be used (i.e XML, CSV, Binary, or in our case, JSON), to serialize data into.
In our example, we’re going to create a class that lives within our application; a Sandwich. When we create an instance of it, it will exist in memory until we destroy it or the app is stopped. Once we turn off play mode in the unity editor (or close our window in a build), that data is gone. By serializing it, in this case to a text file using JSON, not only can we store it to the file system, but we can edit it offline and see the changes reflected in our application when we load it up again. This is all sort of odd-sounding without seeing it in action, so let’s get to it.
Been a long time since I updated this blog.
I’m still trying to decide exactly what I could fill it with that would be of any value to ya’ll. More info coming soon.
I’m not a big fan of XML. It’s a bit heavy and dense, and though it’s effective, I just prefer JSON.
But what IS Json? Well I’m not going to cover that, but some people smarter than I have already answered that question, so have a look over here and come back when you’re done.
If you’ve never used it, it may take a while to wrap your head around the inception-like dictionary-within-a-dictionary structure. But after you serialize and deserialize some data, you’ll get an idea of how it works.
Unity doesn’t have a built in solution for JSON. Though Unity supports JavaScript, it’s not quite the same flavor you may have run across in web programming, it’s actually a different language, which is why more and more people are calling it UnityScript, instead. Why do I bring this up? Well, we can’t just use existing JavaScript libraries to incorporate JSON. There are alternatives, though! Let’s explore…
The Visual Studio 2012 product site is garbage. It’s hard to navigate, doesn’t give you meaningful information and doesn’t really boast about some of the coolest new features.
I use VS2012 when I’m developing on Windows because it’s awesome. Most of my work is in Unity, so I have it set as the default editor, so when I open scripts in Unity, they open in VS2012 by default.
A few days ago, I happened to double click an .fbx file on accident, and I was surprised to see the VS2012 loading screen popup. I figured it would open the FBX as a text file, and that would be that, but it was much more interesting than that.
PLAYMAKER TIPS
It’s easy to mistake PlayMaker for a visual scripting tool a la Kismet or uScript, but it is much, much more than that. In fact, I can see a visual scripting tool being used hand in hand with PlayMaker. PM is a tool to help you create state machines. It encourages you to develop games using a slightly different mentality–use states for everything! Of course, it’s not feasible to put all the weight on PM, but there are specific scenarios in which it shines. For example, handling input! Here are some quick tips to get the most out of PlayMaker:
