Unity RPG Course - Section 2 - Core Combat

This is section 2 of our Unity RPG course – the full course is part of a Kickstarter campaign which was over 200% funded. You will benefit from the fact we have already taught over 360,336 students game development, many shipping commercial games as a result.

You're welcome to download, fork or do whatever else legal with all the files! Please note that future sections contain assets with commecial use restrictions. The real value is in our huge, high-quality online tutorials that accompany this repo. You can check out the course here: Unity RPG

In This Section

How To Build / Compile

This is a Unity project. If you're familiar with source control, then "clone this repo". Otherwise download the contents, and navigate to Assets > Levels then open any .unity file.

This branch is the course branch, each commit corresponds to a lecture in the course. The current state is our latest progress.

Lecture List

Here are the lectures of the course for this section...

Section 2 Introduction

We’ll cover core combat in this section
We will focus on the simplest code solutions
You will also learn some play tuning…
… and create your first level

(Unique Video Reference: 1_CC_RPG)

Attacking The Enemies Design

Attack requirements
CHALLENGE
Attack and movement distances

(Unique Video Reference: 2_CC_RPG)

Using Gizmos To Visualise Code

Introducing the Gizmos class in Unity
Import code to visualise movement
Adding attackStopMoveRadius
Prevent retreat when in radius
CHALLENGE.

(Unique Video Reference: 3_CC_RPG)

Player Health Bar UI

Review structure of health bar pack
Export a custom package
Import custom package
Create Player class and test
CHALLENGE.

(Unique Video Reference: 4_CC_RPG)

Enemy Floating Health Bar

Import Enemy Health Bar v.2.unitypackage
Explore how the package works
Create Enemy.cs and wire-up
CHALLENGE.

(Unique Video Reference: 5_CC_RPG )

Ranged Attack Problem

Our current ranged attack problem
CHALLENGE
Diablo versus Torchlight 2 paradigms
Our design decision

(Unique Video Reference: 6_CC_RPG)

Update Your 1 Page GDD

We discuss remaining sections of 1-Page GDD
We discuss Design Pillar
We discuss Remarkability
We'll look at what Darkest Dungeon does for their design pillar and remarkability
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 7_CC_RPG)

Set Your Art Direction

Your feedback to us
We’re starting to juggle priorities - combat needs level, level needs art direction
Structure of Art Concept Document
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 8_CC_RPG)

Sketch Your Prototype Level

Designing your level - start with your level’s intention and requirements
How we are creating our village level
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 9_CC_RPG)

Importing Level Assets

We’ll import a level asset pack
Tidy up and prepare our scene
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 10_CC_RPG)

Instructor Hangout 2.1

What we have covered so far
Answers to common questions
What's coming up in the next 10 lectures.

(Unique Video Reference: 10b_CC_RPG)

Creating Terrain

Terrain versus module assets approaches
Adding terrain and modifying it
Blocking out one moment in your level
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 11_CC_RPG)

Block Out Your Level

Getting rough placement for all of your level moments.
Dealing with elevation and camera issues.
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 12_CC_RPG)

Review And Adjustments

Asset review and feedback for Mikey
Art review - an interesting mistake
Altering our level
Setup & Standards text file
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 13_2_RPG)

Commenting Your Level

Learnings and tips from blocking out level
Adding comments and references in your level
CHALLENGE.

(Unique Video Reference: 14_2_RPG)

Standardising Scene Setup

Aside: why you need .psd.meta files
Scene folder structure and naming
Creating a best practices discussion
Everything should be a prefab!
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 15_2_RPG)

16b Dimensional Analysis Primer

What is dimensional analysis?
Why would you care?
How to use it
Some worked examples.

Help Writing Physics Code

How importing asset packs affects your project
Bringing objects to life with script based rotation
How to use unit consistency to help you code
CHALLENGE
Why we keep root object scales at 1,1,1.

(Unique Video Reference: 16_2_RPG)

Make Enemies Pathfind To Player

How to fix disappearing hard shadows
Add a navmesh to your terrain(s)
Add a Navmesh Agent to our enemy prefab
CHALLENGE.

(Unique Video Reference: 17_2_RPG)

17b Don't Panic!

The next video sucks but can’t be edited
Ben explains why, and what you can do
Please forgive us
This type of video won’t be used in future.

Fully Event Based Raycasting

The limitations of our current architecture
Import new CameraRaycaster.cs
Review what’s changed and why
Remove our Layer.cs script
Preview the editor script
CHALLENGE.

(Unique Video Reference: 18_2_RPG)

Writing Custom Editors

Why you would want to extend Unity’s editor
Review CameraRaycasterEditor.cs
CHALLENGE - check your understanding.

(Unique Video Reference: 19_2_RPG)

Player Pathfinding To Enemies

Control your FOCUS - let’s move on
How to modify our player for pathfinding
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 20_2_RPG)

Prototyping Goals And Progress

Recap our goals for prototyping
Where are you at with your goals - what is your score out of 10?
CHALLENGE.

(Unique Video Reference: 21_2_RPG)

Refine Your Nav Mesh

Import latest art assets
Review distance, sizes, pacing in your level
Clean up Nav Mesh
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 22_2_RPG )

Tuning And Exploring

It’s important to experiment when prototyping
CHALLENGE.

(Unique Video Reference: 23_2_RPG)

Importing Humanoid Animations

Humanoid character import settings
How to replace a character’s mesh
CHALLENGE.

(Unique Video Reference: 24_CC_RPG)

Using Interfaces In C#

What an interface is in C#, and why they’re useful
Where and when to use them, e.g. IDamageable
Building a simple example scene.

(Unique Video Reference: 25_CC_RPG)

Calling Methods Via Interfaces

How to find game objects by interface
How to call a method via an interface
Getting damage working on player and enemy
CHALLENGE.

(Unique Video Reference: 26_CC_RPG)

Enemy Move And Attack Spheres

How to find game objects by interface
How to call a method via an interface
Getting damage working on player and enemy
CHALLENGE.

(Unique Video Reference: 27_CC_RPG)

Spawning Enemy Projectiles

A quick recap of unit vectors, speed and velocity
Setup projectile prefab & attach to enemy
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 28_CC_RPG)

InvokeRepeating() vs StartCoroutine()

How InvokeRepeating() is string referenced
StartCoroutine() is type safe, but more complex
A very quick overview of co-routines
Test enemies damaging player
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 29_CC_RPG)

Player Melee Damage

Make enemies hit player in chest
Import dirty old hoe
Attach weapon to player’s hand
Make player target a single enemy
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 30_CC_RPG)

Creating Enemy Archetypes

Tidy up level, renaming and position weapon
Design 3 Archetypes - Archer, Minion, Bruiser
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 31_CC_RPG)

Health And Damage Philosophy

Check our WBS
Health and damage continuums
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 32_CC_RPG)

Start Your Stat Spreadsheet

Start your Stat Spreadsheet with some starting points
Update Player and Enemy stats in level
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 33_CC_RPG)

Healing Companion Prototype

Using the tools we have
Creating a healer
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 34_CC_RPG)

Level Story Theme And Flow

Give story flavour to your level flow
Create new enemies types
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 35_CC_RPG)

Playable Level With Combat

No two moments in your level should be the same
Place enemies and healing to make good combat flow
Test and tweak your level
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 36_CC_RPG)

Rising Complexity, Refactoring

How complexity may scale in a project
The bigger picture of smelly code
Review TODOs to feel in control

(Unique Video Reference: 37_CC_RPG)

Using The Trail Renderer Component

Why our projectiles are hard to see
Strategies for improving visibility
Using Trail Renderers to help see projectiles
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 38_CC_RPG)

Preventing Projectile Pass-Through

Options for stopping projectiles passing through
Using Continuous Dynamic collision detection
Fix characters crouching on impact issue
Projectiles self-organise and destroy themselves

(Unique Video Reference: 39_CC_RPG)

Fix Wobbly Characters

Our Current Movement Bugs
Tuning To Find A Fix
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 40_CC_RPG)

Preparing Our Assets Folder

The problem with importing assets
Our various needs with our assets
Rearranging our assets folder
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 41_CC_RPG)

Set Dressing Our Level

What we mean by set dressing
Import textures and assets
Make the ground look good
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 42_CC_RPG)

Adding Water

Import water from standard assets
CHALLENGE
Place water

(Unique Video Reference: 43_CC_RPG)

Movement Bug And Water

The bug we’re seeing that started after we added water
My solution to the bug
A conversation about making decisions on how much time to invest in fixing bugs
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 44_CC_RPG)

Adding Trees

Import trees from standard assets, asset store or our asset pack
Setting up our tree painting
CHALLENGE
Trees in our level

(Unique Video Reference: 45_CC_RPG)

Asset Showcase Scene

Creating and explaining the Asset Showcase Scene
CHALLENGE

(Unique Video Reference: 46_CC_RPG)

Get Your Dev Hat Back On

How NOT to automate new scene setup (yet)
Showcase scene detail res. & scene file clash
Update / import latest art assets. Blue trees?
Discuss movement bug / deferring (80% rule)
Rename NotifyObservers and fix console errors
How to highlight member variables in VS.

(Unique Video Reference: 47_CC_RPG)

Introducing Scriptable Objects

The difference between data and state
Why we use Scriptable Objects for data
Using [CreateAssetMenu(menuName=”Name”)]
Programmatically placing a weapon in hand.

(Unique Video Reference: 48_CC_RPG)

Adjustable Weapon Grip

Create a weapon grip transform prefab
Associate the weapon grip with the weapon*
Ensure weapon spawns with correct grip * Later you could have multiple grips per weapon. _ (Unique Video Reference: 49_CC_RPG)_

Problems With Prefabs

Recover Rick’s value from player instance
Use a MonoBehaviour to tag weapon hand.

(Unique Video Reference: 50_CC_RPG)

Import Mechanim Animation Pack

Clear all console warnings
Simplify Ethan’s Animator Controller
Import free animation pack
Setup Attack animation trigger.

(Unique Video Reference: 52_CC_RPG)

Projectiles Discriminate

Why enemies currently hurt one-another
CHALLENGE
Split class into SO and MonoBehaviour
Add facility for sound.