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Lesson 3.4 - Particles and Sound Effects

This game is looking extremely good, but it’s missing something critical: Sound effects and Particle effects! Sounds and music will breathe life into an otherwise silent game world, and particles will make the player’s actions more dynamic and eye-popping. In this lesson, we will add cool sounds and particles when the character is running, jumping, and crashing.

Music will play as the player runs through the scene, kicking up dirt particles in a spray behind their feet. A springy sound will play as they jump and a boom will play as they crash, bursting in a cloud of smoke particles as they fall over.

The first particle effect we should add is an explosion for when the player collides with an obstacle. 

, then position it relative to the player 

Customize an explosion particle

We discovered the particle effects and found an explosion for the crash, but we need to assign it to the Player Controller and write some new code in order to play it.

 where the player collides with an obstacle, call 

Play the particle on collision

The next particle effect we need is a dirt splatter, to make it seem like the player is kicking up ground as they sprint through the scene. The trick is that the particle should only play when the player is on the ground.

, reposition it, rotate it, and edit its settings

 when the player jumps or collides with an 

Add a dirt splatter particle

Our particle effects are looking good, so it’s time to move on to sounds! In order to add music, we need to attach sound component to the camera. After all, the camera is the eyes AND the ears of the scene.

Add music to the camera object

Now that we’ve got some nice music playing, it’s time to add some sound effects. This time audio clips will emanate from the player, rather than the camera itself.

Declare variables for Audio Clips

We’ve assigned audio clips to the jump and the crash in PlayerController. Now we need to play them at the right time, giving our game a full audio experience

playerAudio = GetComponent<AudioSource>();

playerAudio.PlayOneShot(jumpSound, 1.0f);

playerAudio.PlayOneShot(crashSound, 1.0f);

Play Audio Clips on jump and crash

Particle effects at the player’s feet when they run

Sound effects and explosion when the player hits an obstacle

We’ve made an incredibly polished game - we have these super cool sound and particle effects. We have upbeat background music. We learned how to utilize animations for our characters, and we did some programming magic to make our background endlessly scroll.

Lesson Recap

Control the execution of code with common logic structures 

Level 1 Application Scripting

Joy Horvath

Instructional Designer

CWC_U3.L4.S2_U6.mp4

CWC_U3.L4.S5_U6.mp4

CWC_U3.L4.S1_U6.mp4

CWC_U3.L4.S6_U6.mp4

CWC_U3.L4.S3_U6.mp4

CWC_U3.L4.S4_U6.mp4

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

Attach particle effects as children to game objects

Stop and play particle effects to correspond with character animation states

Work with Audio Sources and Listeners to play background music

Add sound effects to add polish to your project

Select the appropriate common Unity methods to use, e.g., Awake, Start, Update, FixedUpdate, Collision, and Trigger Events, given a desired feature to code

Achieve a desired result by using Unity API methods, given Unity’s script documentation

Achieve a desired result with different parameters by using various method overloads

Distinguish a correct use of any given Unity API method from an incorrect use

Control or trigger the state of components, such as an Animator Controller, Light, AudioSource, or User Interface element by using appropriate methods

Construct an input listener, given a scenario where a specific type of input is required

Print a message consisting of concatenated strings and variable values to the console by using Unity's Debug.Log method

Unity Version 6.0