Get started with Creator Kit: Beginner Code

Get started with code in Unity

Introduction to variables

Write your own instruction

Introduction to functions

Write your own spawn function 

Introduction to classes

 Write your own spawner class

Introduction to the public keyword and inheritance

Customize the health potions

Customize your game

Homework Submissions

WebGL Submissions - Create your first Action-RPG with C#

Live Session - Create your first Action-RPG Game with C#

Creator Kit: Beginner Code

In this activity, students customize their own 3D role-play video games using Unity technology and C# computer coding. All activity assets and step-by-step tutorials are included, helping learners to get started quickly. By the end of the project, students will have customized their own playable 3D games and have gained a better understanding of scripting, variables, functions, and classes. 

Participating in the global Hour of Code? Visit our Hour of Code Edition of this Creator Kit.

No coding experience? No problem! In this beginner project, you’ll explore the basics of C# code for Unity in the context of an action RPG. 

To get the most out of this project, you’ll have completed one of the three introductory Creator Kits (Puzzle, FPS, RPG), so you can apply your knowledge of the Unity Editor and focus on customizing the game with scripts.

Important: This learning content requires at least Unity 2019.2, and will not work correctly on older versions.

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Your progress so far

 Identify the level above functions

 What is a class?

Using the dot operator to access variables

Examples of the dot operator

 Using class as a type

Tutorial summary

Unity HOC 1.4 Classes.mp4

Learn about the role of classes in organising code

Learn about accessing data in different places using the dot operator (for example, variables inside other variables)

Review examples of dot operator use in the SpawnerSample script


When you’ve finished, you’ll be ready to write your own class for the SpawnerSample script.

Games

Hour of Code - Creator Kit: Beginner Coding

In these Creator Kit: Beginner Code tutorials, you’ve worked your way up from learning about simple containers called variables to using sets of instructions grouped as functions. You now know nearly everything you need to be able to identify key information in script files and code. 

If you open any script file in this Project, you should be able to identify the following parts of the script: 

Comments from the person who wrote the script

You may not be able to tell exactly what each specific instruction does, but you can use the names of functions and variables to make a reasonable guess. Go on — open another script file from in the Project window and give it a try before you continue to the next step!

In the new script you opened in the previous step, you may have noticed a level of information above functions. 

Functions are enclosed in a pair of curly braces. However, if you return to the SpawnerSample script, you’ll find another set of curly braces enclosing the two functions. 

On the line above the first opening curly brace is a declaration:

public class SpawnerSample : MonoBehaviour


This is called a class declaration, and it’s identified using the keyword class. 



You can ignore everything but that keyword and the name for now:

Functions enable you to group instructions together. In a similar way, a class enables you to group together related functions and variables. 

You can think of classes as different wagons which contain related contents (like variable trunks and function barrels). Just as wagons can travel together as an organised wagon train, classes can work together in organised scripts.

In the SpawnerSample script, everything inside the curly braces after line 7 is within the scope of a class called SpawnerSample.

Grouping functions and variables together enables you to efficiently organize your code.

Classes are a little more complicated than the other levels of organization you’ve explored already in these tutorials — they can contain a hierarchy of different functions and variables in a class, you can create variables which contain other variables. 

You can access different variables in the hierarchy using a period or full stop; this is called a dot operator.

As long as you know where a variable is contained and have access to it, you can look up its value in a script using the dot operator.

Let’s look at some dot operator examples from the SpawnerSample script you’ve been working on:


1.  There’s code to read the variable position within the variable transform:

Sometimes variables can be created inside other variables, when the ”container variable” is also a class. In the example above, position is a Vector3 variable within the transform class.



2.  There’s code to read the variable right within the type Vector3:



3.  There’s also code to read the function Euler within the type Quaternion:



You don’t know what all of this code does, but you can use your knowledge of dot operators to gather more information and develop an understanding of the data used by a script.

When you use the dot operator, correct syntax (the structure of your code) is very important:

First, to the left of the dot, is the variable which contains the variable you need to access


On the right is the variable contained inside the first variable

Finally, let’s explore how to use a class as a type. 

So far, you’ve seen that to create a new int variable you can declare and assign it with the following instruction:


But a number is a “basic” type. For a more complex class, such as Vector3, the syntax (structure) needs to be a little different. 

If you want to create a Vector3 variable called myVector, you need to use the following syntax:

1.  The keyword new, which tells the compiler to create a new variable space in memory

2.  The type of the variable

3.  Open and closed parentheses, like a function: ()



Once this is done, myVector can be used like any other variable. It’s only when you want to create a new Vector3 variable that you need to use that new syntax!

There’s a Vector3 variable in the SpawnerSample script, with values assigned — using what you know about Vector3 variables, can you identify it?

Reviewed the fundamentals of using classes to organize code

Explored the use of the dot operator to access variables inside other variables


In the next tutorial, you’ll write your own class and find out why using class as a type looks similar to a function.

Introduction to classes

1. Your progress so far

2. Identify the level above functions

3. What is a class?

4. Using the dot operator to access variables

5. Examples of the dot operator

6. Using class as a type

7. Tutorial summary

Complete this tutorial