6 DETAILS TO MAKE A GREAT PLAYER CHARACTER - UNITY TUTORIAL

first of all a huge thanks to wisp for supporting this channel by a patreon it's just so appreciated all right now here comes the video welcome back to black thorn fraud I'm Noah so here's a little hollow knight character I created in Photoshop he can move left right and jump but things feel limp lifeless and just not very interesting has a player I wouldn't be excited moving this character around it wouldn't feel good and this is something we must fix at all cost how can we make this character just fun and enjoyable to move and control because obviously an enormous amount of time in the game world will be spent controlling this character so if he doesn't feel good to control chances are high the whole game of the limp and tedious and so in this video we'll see how to turn an okay character to a great one using particle effects sounds animations and a bit of easy c-sharp notes that I'm about to say applies for any art style whether you're making something detailed and painterly or blocky and simple these following tips will meet your game and character feels so much better so first things first your player character needs responsive controls when the player hits space to jump he expects the character on the screen to immediately jump up if not thing will feel laggy and just pretty unresponsive and for straight segments this is especially important if you're making an action platformer or a game the requires Quick Start reflexes so avoid putting too much anticipation to your animations for the jump animation get a character immediately leaping in the air don't spend dozens of frames getting the character squashing and crouching before actually leaving the grounds in an animated film that will be great but in a game it will just feel sloppy remember form post function so once your character can actually move around the environment and feels responsive to the player chances are very high he still won't feel very interesting to play with so let's fix that cool and simple way to add an extra layer of life to your characters by making a land animation so instead of your player just jumping in the air and then land on the grounds as if nothing ever happens make him squat slightly due to the impacts to do so make a new animation called lands add a few frames which get my character squashing little and then heading over to my animator window instead of immediately going through my jump animation to my idle or run States only could transition going from jump to lands we then move on to idle or run this very short land animation will really make a big difference to how your character feels okay Nick stop particles when the character hits the ground after a jump there should be a puff of dust or dirt spotting by his feet or if he's jumping in a puddle of water instantiate some little droplets this will really give the player the feeling days interacting with the game worlds there's character has an impact on it so once you've made your little particle effects turn it into a prefab and then inside your player scripts you can check when the player is on the ground and if he is instantiates that puffs of dust however we don't want dust spawning whenever the characters on the grounds only when you land on it after a jump so I'll make a new private bull variable called spawn dust and then make it if Statesman's inside this one checking whether a spawn dust is equal to true if it is only then will I saw my particles and then set spawn dust equal to false this way dust won't continuously spawn because this if Statesman's will no longer return true however when the player leaves the grounds then I'll say spawn dust back equal to true this way when he lands once again more particles will instantiate themselves and now you can see that cool results it's also a good idea to spawn particles when the player leaves the grounds it makes his jump feel more juicy and impactful so I'll also instantiate particles when the player hits space to jump and is on the grounds awesome you can take this a step further by getting the player to leave a trail of particles behind and whenever he moves I usually make very subtle but again it can make a big difference to your creations overall appeal to achieve this vehicle it simply spawned every 0.1 or 0.2 seconds and effect by the characters feet remember that you can decrease a value in c-sharp using - equals time Delta time for performance reasons make sure to add a little script to your effects destroying them after say five seconds this way your scene doesn't get bogged down by now useless Pasco thanks cool let's continue making this character feel awesome we can do so by getting the grass flowers and leaves move a little whenever the player collides with them this will really get the player immersed feeling as if his characters integrated with the rest of the worlds and don't worry a single scene can handle hundreds of colliders without really hurts in your game performance so first things first I'll grab a grass Tufts make a little idle animation as well as a move animation which will see it quickly rotates back and forth as if disturbed by some moving objects I can now add that animator controller to all my other grants Tufts and flowers I'll also add a 2d bucked Collider to them as well as a new c-sharp scripts now called grass and I'll open up inside a visual studio here I can make a new void ontriggerenter 2d function with a 2d collider parameter called other and if I have collided with has the player tank they'll play my animation using the set trigger function make sure the player character has the player tag and a 2d Collider and rigidbody or collisions won't be detected and despite the kaisers controls or animations not changing the thing there's more impact on the environment makes moving him around that much more fun and pleasing to the eye alright here comes another cool trick and a tiny bit of screen shape whenever the player lands on the ground after a jump this will really compliments the puffs of dust and give real weight to the character for a lot more on screen shape check out my whole video on the topic but in short I simply animates my cameras position rotation and size to get things shaky and cool for when the character lands I basically get my camera size decreasing ever so slightly in other words my camera zooms in just a tad and then goes back to normal and again simply use the set trigger function to play that animation at the right time which in my case is at the same moment as when I spawned the dust particles by the player's feet our whole scene is really coming to life now but it still doesn't feel right that's because we lack sounds first things first adding a landing sound will again make the character feel even more part of the world's so add an audio source components to the player and then using a software like audacity go quickly make a little thud sound by hitting my desk with the palm of my hands and once I'm happy with the results of exports it into unity and in my player script make two variables one of type audio source called source the other of type audio clip called landing sound for example in my start function I'll grab a reference to the audio source components attached to my character and then in the same spot as where I spawn my dust particle and get the screen shaking I'll set my sources audio clip equal to the landing sounds and then play that landing sounds I'll make sure to drag and drop that sound inside the inspector hit play and wow that feels really nice you can of course go quite crazy with sound effects adding a footstep sound wherever the character runs left or right and jumps on when he jumps even get the leaves rustling under his feet all these little details won't really make a huge difference to how your game feels and how immersed and happy your player will be here my advice is to add these little details pretty fast in developments because your character feels so much better to control you'll be a lot more motivated to keep working on your game you don't need to straightaway add hundreds of little details but just a few key ones like a land animation at some screen shake and a puff of dust will really get your project feeling cool and exciting alright and that marks the end of this video if you enjoyed it and found helpful it will be so appreciated if you could hit the like and subscribe buttons supporting me financially by a patreon like these top supporters will also be absolutely wonderful all right thanks so much for watching [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Blackthornprod

Views: 213,811

Keywords: blackthornprod, unity, noa calice, game dev, hollow knight, game feel, game juice, screen shake, particles, effects, 2D, platformer, responsive controls, player controller, sounds, 6 DETAILS TO MAKE A GREAT PLAYER CHARACTER - UNITY TUTORIAL, polish, game polish, indie game dev, great controls, landing animation, great jump, programming, C#, c#, how to, tutorial, beginner, making, video game, puff of dust, trail effect, grass moving underfoot, design

Id: C2wwxd8SnKY

Length: 9min 4sec (544 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 01 2018