Add a movement script

Create a rotating collectible

Collect the collectible

Programming Essentials: More things to try

Mission 4 Quiz

Unity Essentials: Programming Essentials Quiz

Add code so that a player character can explore a living room and gather collectibles. 

In this Mission, you’ll program a simple interactive experience where you control a character in a living room scene and move around to collect objects. 

You'll be able to choose from a variety of characters and collectible objects. In our example, we'll use a robot vacuum that maneuvers to pick up dirt around the room.

Programming Essentials

Unity Essentials Pathway

Master the basics of Unity with the Unity Essentials Pathway. Perfect for beginners, this free learning journey introduces game development, 3D content creation, and Unity's core tools. Start building today!

Unity Essentials Pathway - Learn Game Development for Beginners | Unity Learn

Unity Essentials is the perfect place to start for beginners to Unity. No previous experience is necessary.

New to Unity? This guided learning Pathway includes everything you need to get started.

Designed for anyone new to Unity, this guided learning journey is your first step toward creating confidently in the Unity Editor and bringing your visions to life. In this learning Pathway, you’ll design different rooms of a house, learning the essentials of one key skillset as you complete each room.

Unity Essentials

Unity Essentials: Install Unity

Open the Unity Essentials project

Explore the Editor Interface

Master 3D scene navigation

Pass the Scene view flying test

Design a mural in the Scene view

Editor Essentials: More things to try

Unity Essentials: Editor Essentials Quiz

Explore a playground scene and design a mural to get comfortable with the Unity interface.

This tutorial series introduces you to the essential skills of navigating the Unity Editor.


You'll learn to navigate 3D space in a playground scene, using Flythrough mode and tools like Move and Rotate to design a mural.


Once you master these skills, you’ll have the foundation required for confidently creating in Unity.

Editor Essentials

Add furniture to the kid’s room

Make a bouncy ball

Make a tower of prefab blocks

Adjust the lights, background, and camera angle

3D Essentials: More things to try

Unity Essentials: 3D Essentials Quiz

Design a kid's bedroom with a bouncing ball and a tower of collapsing building blocks.

In this tutorial series, you'll explore Unity's capabilities by designing a kid's bedroom scene with dynamic elements like a bouncing ball and a tower of blocks. You'll learn new skills in 3D navigation, object customization, and using Unity's physics system. 

You’ll also create prefabs, adjust lighting, and capture your scene with a camera. 

This foundational knowledge is vital to creating any type of Unity project.

3D Essentials

Create an immersive soundscape

Audio Essentials: More things to try

Unity Essentials: Audio Essentials Quiz

Add immersive sound to a kitchen scene with a variety of different types of audio.

In this Audio Mission, you will learn the fundamentals of implementing different types of audio into Unity scenes. You’ll learn how to set the tone with background music, how to add realism with sound effects, and even how to implement spatial audio in a 3D scene.

Audio Essentials

Set up a 2D room

Complete your 2D Puzzle Game

Add an animated pet

2D Essentials: More things to try

Unity Essentials: 2D Essentials Quiz

Create a top-down minigame similar to the 3D living room experience, but in 2D.

In this 2D Mission, you'll create a top-down 2D version of the interactive living room scene you created earlier. 

Just like in the 3D scene, you'll control a character, and try to collect all the objects in a room. By completing this scene, you'll learn how working in 2D is similar to working in 3D, but also how it’s different.

2D Essentials

Build your portfolio project

Publish to WebGL

Challenge: Add a bonus scene

Capture a video of your project

Share your project

Combine all of your scenes together into one cohesive portfolio project that you can share with others. 

It's time to collect all your good work together into a singular portfolio piece that you and others can play!

A portfolio, especially in the realm of real-time 3D (RT3D) and game development, is not just a collection of work, but a practical way of demonstrating your familiarity with essential tools and concepts. 

In this Mission, you will package all of your work from this Pathway into a single playable experience that you can easily share with others.


Publishing Essentials

32368c5c-7d88-40a0-b927-283619155fad:c4ece04bda84

Mission overview

Tutorial overview

Open the programming scene

Add a player to the scene

Create a new PlayerController script

Apply the script to the Player GameObject

Open the PlayerController script in a script editor

Copy and paste code and save 

Set the camera as a child of the player

Edit player properties in Play mode

Review and proceed to next tutorial

Beginner Unity Cameras

ElizabethMidgley

GameObjects

lunaduranp

4.1.1 - Overview v2 - VIDEO.mp4

4.1.3 - Add a player to the scene - VIDEO.mp4

4.1.5 - Apply the script to the Player GameObject - VIDEO.mp4

4.1.6 - Open PlayerController.cs script in a script editor - VIDEO.mp4

4.1.7 - Copy and Paste code and save - VIDEO.mp4

4.1.8 - Set the camera as a child of the Player - VIDEO.mp4

4.1.9 - Edit Player properties in Play mode - VIDEO.mp4

Essentials_Pathway_M4_Programming.mp4

4.1.4 - Create a new PlayerController script - VIDEO_U6_V2.mp4

Select the player character and create your first script that allows you to control it in the scene. 

Integrated development environment (IDE) support

Creating and Using Scripts

Use components

Games

Film

Automotive

Set up a camera for a specified/predetermined point of view

Fill in background of the Main Camera view 

Capture the desired view of the Scene by controlling the position and rotation of the Main Camera

Control the field of view of the Main Camera by adjusting the frustum

Control the depth of view of the Main Camera by configuring the clipping planes

Set up an perspective camera view in a 3D Scene

Set up an orthographic camera view in a 3D Scene

Configure a Unity camera for a scene

Work with GameObject components

Create a GameObject component with a script 

Mission 4 - Programming Essentials

In this Mission, you’ll program a simple interactive experience where you control a character in a living room scene and move around to collect objects. 

You'll be able to choose from a variety of characters and collectible objects. In our example, we'll use a robot vacuum that maneuvers to pick up dirt around the room. 

In this first tutorial, you’ll add your first lines of C# code to your Unity project to steer your chosen character around the room.

The first thing you need to do is open the new scene for this Mission, which is a simple living room environment. 


1.  In the Project window, navigate to _Unity_Essentials > Scenes. 

2.  Find 4_LivingRoom_Programming_Scene and double-click to open it. 

3.  Adjust your view of the 3D scene to see the living room interior layout from a good angle.

Living room at the center of the Scene view.

The next step is to add a player to the scene. This player is the character that the user of your game will control. 

In this living room scene, your player can be one of the following: 

It’s up to you which one sounds the most fun!


1.  In the Project window, navigate to _Unity Essentials > Prefabs > Characters and browse through the options. 

2.  Click and drag your chosen character into the scene, near the main door on the left. 

Warning:  Avoid double-clicking the prefab in the Project window because this will open prefab editing mode. Instead, simply drag and drop it into the scene.

3.  If necessary, rotate the player by 90 degrees on the Y-axis so that it’s facing the center of the room. 

4.  In the Hierarchy window, rename your chosen character “Player” for clarity.  

It is time to create your first C# script! 

C# (pronounced “see-sharp”) is a versatile programming language that is widely used for developing a broad range of applications, from web to mobile to game development, and particularly with Unity for game scripting.

Your first script, which is just a document with code in it, will be named "PlayerController". In this script, you'll define how your player interacts within the game world. 


1.  In the Project window, navigate to _Unity Essentials > Scripts. There should already be a folder inside the Scripts folder named Provided Scripts — ignore this folder for now.

2.  Right-click in an empty part of the Scripts folder and select Create > MonoBehaviour Script. 

3.  With the script’s name automatically highlighted, immediately rename this new script "PlayerController" (with a capital 'P' and 'C'). 

It's important to get the name correct right now — renaming it later can cause problems. 
4.  Press Enter to save the script name. 

You'll see the code of the new blank script in the Inspector window. Notice that the name of the file is included in the code. That's why it's important to spell the file name correctly.

Note:  If you make a typo in your script name or have to rename it for any reason, it will be easier to just delete it and create a new one with the correct name. 

Next, you'll apply your script to the player object. 

Here's a fun fact: in Unity, the scripts you write in C# are components, similar to the Rigidbody, Audio Source, and other components you've worked with. The difference between the components you create and Unity's built-in components is that your custom components are editable. 


1.  In the Project window, find the PlayerController script you created in the Scripts folder. 

2.  Click and drag this script onto your player character in the Scene view. 

Nothing will appear to happen after you do this.

3.  In the Hierarchy window, select your player GameObject, then verify that your PlayerController script has successfully been added at the bottom of the Inspector window.

Note:  Remember to save your scene with Ctrl+S (macOS: Cmd+S). 

Unity doesn’t allow you to edit code directly in the Unity Editor, so the next step is to open your PlayerController script in a separate script editor application. 

You may not have realized it at the time, but when you installed Unity, you likely also installed a separate application called Visual Studio, which is a code editing application (also known as an Integrated Development Environment, or IDE).

This IDE is where you'll start coding the behavior of your player character. A script editor, such as Visual Studio, provides you with tools and features to write and manage your code efficiently. 


1.  Locate the PlayerController script in the Unity Editor's Project window. 

2.  Double-click the script file to open it in your default script editor, such as Visual Studio. 

It may take a while to open the application the first time.

When the IDE opens, you'll see the default starter code that generates any time you create a new script. 

Note:  Don’t worry if your IDE doesn’t look identical to the one shown in the demo videos. 

If the script doesn’t open in an IDE, follow these instructions to install Visual Studio, relaunch Unity, and try opening the script again. 

In this step, you will infuse life into your player character by adding some pre-written code to the PlayerController script. This code contains the logic for player movement. 

To start, you’ll copy and paste all the code from a completed script, overwriting the code already in your script in its entirety. Later on, you’ll take more time to understand the code and write it line by line. 

Copying and pasting code, then adjusting it, is actually a big part of every professional developer’s workflow! 


1.  In your IDE, in the PlayerController.cs file, select all the code either by clicking and dragging with your cursor, or by pressing Ctrl+A (macOS: Cmd+A), then delete it all. 

2.  Select all of the code below, then copy it with Ctrl+C (macOS: Cmd+C).

3.  In the script editor, paste this code into your now empty PlayerController script with Ctrl+V (macOS: Cmd+V).

4.  Save your changes by pressing Ctrl+S (macOS: Cmd+S).

There should be no errors (red underlines) in your code. If there are, make sure that the PlayerController script is spelled correctly in the Project window. 

5.  In the Unity Editor, enter Play mode. 

6.  Move the player with the arrow keys or the WASD keys. 

If your player does not move as expected, exit Play mode and check the script for any errors and make sure to save it. If there are errors, try deleting all the code again and re-pasting it in, then saving it again.

If you’re interested, read through the code and the comments (lines that start with two forward slashes (//) to see if you can understand some of it. 

using UnityEngine;

// Controls player movement and rotation.
public class PlayerController : MonoBehaviour
{
    public float speed = 5.0f; // Set player's movement speed.
    public float rotationSpeed = 120.0f; // Set player's rotation speed.

    private Rigidbody rb; // Reference to player's Rigidbody.

    // Start is called before the first frame update
    private void Start()
    {
        rb = GetComponent<Rigidbody>(); // Access player's Rigidbody.
    }

    // Update is called once per frame
    void Update()
    {
        
    }


    // Handle physics-based movement and rotation.
    private void FixedUpdate()
    {
        // Move player based on vertical input.
        float moveVertical = Input.GetAxis("Vertical");
        Vector3 movement = transform.forward * moveVertical * speed * Time.fixedDeltaTime;
        rb.MovePosition(rb.position + movement);

        // Rotate player based on horizontal input.
        float turn = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal") * rotationSpeed * Time.fixedDeltaTime;
        Quaternion turnRotation = Quaternion.Euler(0f, turn, 0f);
        rb.MoveRotation(rb.rotation * turnRotation);
    }
}

Right now, the camera is stationary, making the experience feel a bit distant and potentially confusing for the actual control of the player character. 

Now, you’ll position the camera to follow the player in a third-person view, which will be more immersive and intuitive. 

If you make the camera a child GameObject of the player GameObject in the Hierarchy window, it will inherit the player GameObject's position and rotation, and also maintain a steady view of the player as it moves. 


1.  In the Hierarchy window, locate the Main Camera GameObject. 

2.  Click and drag the Main Camera GameObject onto your player character in the Hierarchy window, making it a child GameObject. 

You'll see the Main Camera GameObject indented under the player character in the Hierarchy window. 

3.  In the Transform component of Main Camera GameObject, reset all of the position and rotation values to 0.

Now that the Main Camera GameObject is a child GameObject, its position and rotation are relative to its parent GameObject.

Tip:  To reset these value quickly, select the More (⋮) context menu in the upper-right corner of the Transform component and select Reset. 

The camera should now be positioned at the exact same position and rotation as the player.

4.  In the Scene view, adjust the camera's position to be slightly above and behind the player. 

Use the Preview panel to make sure that the player appears in the camera's view. If the camera ends up going back behind the left wall, you may need to move the player forward a bit into the room.

5.  Enter Play mode and use the arrow or WASD keys to rotate the player. 

You'll now have a more satisfying gameplay experience! 

Editing player properties while in Play mode is a dynamic way to fine-tune the behavior and characteristics of your player character while observing the immediate effects of those changes.

Important: Remember, anything you change while in Play mode is only temporary and will not be saved! To save your  changes, you'll need to exit Play mode, make those edits again, and save your scene.


1.  Enter Play mode, then select your player character in the Hierarchy window. 

2.  In the Inspector window, locate the new Speed and Rotation Speed properties that have appeared in the PlayerController script component. 

These were added when you saved your script. 

3.  Modify these Speed and Rotation Speed values in the Inspector window as you move your player with the arrow or WASD keys. 

For example, make the player move and rotate more slowly.

Warning:  After editing values in the Inspector, the player may appear to freeze. If this happens, just click somewhere in the Game view window to regain control of the player. 

4.  Take note of the values you prefer for Speed and Rotation Speed, and then exit Play mode. 

The values will revert back when you return to the Scene view!

5.  Set the Speed and Rotation Speed properties to the values you prefer, then save your scene with these values.  

Congratulations on adding your first script to control the player as it navigates throughout the room!

Here are some of the things you learned how to do along the way:

Explain how code is edited in a Unity project.

Assign a camera as a child GameObject that follows the player.

 Adjust component properties temporarily in Play mode (Game view). 

Add a movement script

1. Mission overview

2. Tutorial overview

3. Open the programming scene

4. Add a player to the scene

5. Create a new PlayerController script

6. Apply the script to the Player GameObject

7. Open the PlayerController script in a script editor

8. Copy and paste code and save

9. Set the camera as a child of the player

10. Edit player properties in Play mode

11. Review and proceed to next tutorial

Complete this tutorial