Lesson 2.1 - Player Positioning

The first thing we need to do is create a new project and import the Prototype 2 starter files.

1. Open Unity Hub and create an empty “Prototype 2” project in your course directory on the correct Unity version.
   If you forget how to do this, refer to the instructions in Lesson 1.1 - Step 1
2. Click to download the Prototype 2 Starter Files, extract the compressed folder, and then import the .unitypackage into your project.
   If you forget how to do this, refer to the instructions in Lesson 1.1 - Step 2
3. From the Project window, open the Prototype 2 scene and delete the SampleScene
4. In the top-right of the Unity Editor, change your Layout from Default to your custom layout

Let’s get all of our objects positioned in the scene, including the player, animals, and food.

1. If you want, drag a different material from Course Library > Materials onto the Ground object
2. Drag 1 Human, 3 Animals, and 1 Food object into the Hierarchy
3. Rename the character “Player”, then reposition the animals and food so you can see them
4. Adjust the XYZ scale of the food so you can easily see it from above

If we want to move the Player left-to-right, we need a variable tracking the user’s input.

1. In your Assets folder, create a “Scripts” folder, and a “PlayerController” script inside
2. Attach the script to the Player and open it
3. At the top of PlayerController.cs, declare a new public float horizontalInput
4. In Update(), set horizontalInput = Input.GetAxis(“Horizontal”), then test to make sure it works in the inspector

We have to actually use the horizontal input to translate the Player left and right.

1. Declare a new public float speed = 10.0f;
2. In Update(), Translate the player side-to-side based on horizontalInput and speed

We have to prevent the player from going off the side of the screen with an if-then statement.

1. In Update(), write an if-statement checking if the player’s left X position is less than a certain value
2. In the if-statement, set the player’s position to its current position, but with a fixed X location

We need to make this work on the right side, too, then clean up our code.

1. Repeat this process for the right side of the screen
2. Declare new xRange variable, then replace the hardcoded values with them
3. Add comments to your code

New Functionality

• The player can move left and right based on the user’s left and right key presses
• The player will not be able to leave the play area on either side

New Concepts & Skills

• Adjust object scale
• If-statements
• Greater/Less than operators

Next Lesson

• We’ll learn how to create and throw endless amounts of food to feed our animals!