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Lesson 2.1 - Player Positioning

You will begin this unit by creating a new project for your second Prototype and getting basic player movement working. You will first choose which character you would like, which types of animals you would like to interact with, and which food you would like to feed those animals. You will give the player basic side-to-side movement just like you did in Prototype 1, but then you will use if-then statements to keep the Player in bounds. 

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

Prototype 2 - Starter Files.zip

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

” project in your course directory on the correct Unity version. 
If you forget how to do this, refer to the instructions in 

 the .unitypackage into your project. 
For a reminder on how to import packages, see the referenced 

 If you see warnings in the Console after importing the package into your project, you can safely ignore them. Open the Console and click the 

In the top-right of the Unity Editor, change your 

Create a new Project for Prototype 2

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

 the animals and food so you can see them.

 of the food so you can easily see it from above.

Add the Player, Animals, and Food

The code you’ll add in the following steps uses a system called the 

 to handle player controls. If you’re using Unity 6.1 or higher, your Unity project is likely set up to use a different system called the 

. To ensure the Input Manager code works correctly, you need to change a project setting to allow both systems to run side-by-side.

The Unity Editor will automatically restart to apply this setting. After restarting, your project will be correctly configured to handle input from both the original Input Manager and the newer Input System.

Configure project settings for the Input Manager

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

At the top of PlayerController.cs, declare a new 

horizontalInput =  Input.GetAxis(“Horizontal”)

, then test to make sure it works in the inspector

Get the user’s horizontal input

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

, Translate the player side-to-side based on 

Move the player left-to-right

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

checking if the player’s left X position is 

In the if-statement, set the player’s  position to its current position, but with a 

Keep the player inbounds

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

 variable, then replace the hardcoded values with them

Clean up your code and variables

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

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

Lesson Recap

Demonstrate basic Unity programming skills, such as identifying and editing methods, selecting the correct variable type, and comprehending simple scripts

Level 1 Code Comprehension

Joy Horvath

Instructional Designer

Control the execution of code with common logic structures 

Level 1 Application Scripting

CWC_U2.L1.S1_U6.mp4

CWC_U2.L1.S3_U6.mp4

CWC_U2.L1.S4_U6.mp4

CWC_U2.L1.S5_U6.mp4

CWC_U2.L1.S6_U6.mp4

CWC_U2.L1.S2_U6.mp4

ChangeInputSystem.mp4

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Adjust the scale of an object proportionally in order to get it to the size you want

More comfortably use the GetInput function in order to use user input to control an object

Create an if-then statement in order to implement basic logic in your project, including the use of greater than (>) and less than (<) operators

Use comments and automatic formatting in order to make their code more clean and readable to other programmers

Identify the purpose of common methods found in MonoBehaviours such as Start() and Update()

Define the major features of a script such as namespaces, classes, variables, and methods. 

Comprehend simple code by identifying essential programming structures

Identify common data types, including ints, floats, doubles, bools, strings, arrays, lists, and dictionaries

Devise comments that describe a given code block

Recognize naming conventions conforming to Unity standards, given a set of code blocks

Distinguish object-oriented code from data-oriented code

Distinguish an ECS (Entity Component System) class from any other type of class, given a code block containing a class definition

Interpret basic code in a Unity code base

Correct common syntax errors (e.g. missing semicolons, missing curly braces, type mismatches, etc.) by using the IDE's error checking features

Change a variable's accessibility in the Inspector by editing its access modifier to public or private

Efficiently code with correct method and parameter names by using the IDE’s intellisense (autocomplete) features

Print debug messages to the console by calling the Debug.Log method

Change the default scripting IDE

Improve simple code using the features of an IDE

Implement simple logic in code by using if and if-else statements

Control the execution of code by using logical operators such as AND and OR in conditional statements

Control how many times certain lines of code run by using for loops, foreach loops, and while loops

Unity Version 6.0