In this course, you will
learn how to make a complete system to create and manage customizable
characters in your Unity game.
- Let your players create
custom-built characters, either manually controlling all the body
parts of their characters or making their characters completely
random.
- Learn how to save and load your characters using save slots.
- Create an advanced saving system with character avatars displayed on
each save slot.
The material in this
course is divided into 4 Sections.
Section 1 includes just a short
overview of the project that we will be making in this course.
By the end of Section 2,
we will create all the visual elements that your players will see on
their screens. First, we will create a template default character
that we will later customize. We will use Unity built-in UI to create
the user interface. You will learn techniques of rapid prototyping
that will help you build user interfaces faster. We will create a
custom UI element that will be used to control the look of each body
part of your character.
In Section 3, we will
write the scripts to connect the UI that your players will interact
with to the customizable character. By the end of Section 3, we will
be able to edit the look of our character and generate new characters
randomly. We will also discuss transitions to other scenes. The goal
is to start playing in every scene with the character that your
players select.
In Section 4, we will be
working on the Save/Load system for characters. By the end of Section
4, all the save slots will work and it will be possible to save your
favorite characters for later. We will add a super-cool feature of
snapping avatars of your characters and using these avatars on the
save slots to provide more information to your players. In this
section, we will also try to use other UI elements to select body
parts on your characters. As an example, I will use the built-in
Unity Slider to pick bodies for our characters.
By the end of this course, we will have a fully functional character customization system that you can use in your game.
The scripting language
used in this course is C#.
I have tried to save the
project that I was working in as often as I can so that you can
easily pick up the material from any point in this course. All these
projects and the assets used to develop our example application will
be available for download with this course.
What are the requirements?
- You can be an absolute beginner with Unity to take this course. This course is very beginner-friendly and I try to explain everything that I am doing as much as I can.
- It would certainly be easier to follow the material in this course if you have some previous experience with C#, but it is not strictly necessary. I do not use any advanced features of C# language in this course.
- You should install Unity3d to develop the application that we are making in this course. Any version after Unity 5 will do.
What am I going to get from this course?
- Include customizable 2D characters to your games.
- Create a Random͟ or Generate͟ button that will completely randomize the look of your characters.
- Use different UI elements to select different body parts or clothing for your character (in this course we will use one custom-built UI element and a default Unity Slider)
- You will learn a lot about saving information between scenes and between game launches.
- Learn to save images (for example, screenshots from your game) and use them later on the save slots or in any other location in your game.
- You will learn how to build and prototype Unity UI faster.
- You will learn some tips and tricks to create complex 2D characters that can be later animated using so-called ͞bone-based͟ or ͟skeleton͟ animations.
- Improve your C# scripting skills by viewing simple and easy to understand examples from this course.
- You will get a fully functional Unity project of the application created in this tutorial.
What is the target audience?
- Students who want to add customizable 2D characters to their games
- Students who want to learn about saving characters, making transitions between scenes and working with Unity UI.
- The techniques taught in this course can be used to build similar character customization and save systems for any other 2D game, targeting mobile or PC.
