If you missed the first part of this Unity3D series you can read it here.

This example demonstrates how to interact with with objects in Unity.

The mouse cursor was removed and replaced with a cursor in the middle of the screen similar to an FPS. When this cursor is over an object that support interactivity, the cursor changes and the GUI will display a message based on the possible interaction. This is achieved by creating an abstract class called ‘Interactive’ with two abstract functions GetInteractionMessage() and Interact(). All interactive objects will inherit this class and support these two functions.

Within the Update() in the GUI class a Physics.Raycast is done using a ray moving outward from the center of the screen. This returns the first GameObject in which this ray collides. Then it tests to see if this object or a parent of this object has a component of type ‘Interactive’. If type ‘Interactive’ is detected it then can retrieve information about the possible interaction or if the left mouse button is down tell this object to perform an action.

In this example clicking on each TV changes its channel (based on multiple materials) and rotates its dial.

As you may have noticed the TV model has received a significant upgrade. A thanks goes out to Calin Reimer for creating this new model.

Hints and Gotchas:

• Use an abstract class as the parent class for all interactive objects, this way you won’t have to rewrite the basic interaction code for each object. This method also make detection a lot easier.
• To create a Ray moving outward from the center of the screen, use the following code: Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay(new Vector3(Screen.width/2,Screen.height/2));
• Use layers to have certain materials ignore light sources (ie. TV Screen), then use a Self-Illumin shader to brighten this material.
• If you can get someone else to model for you, do it. It speeds up development

To check out the demo click here.

To get the source (unitypackage) click here.

Source Requirements: Unity 2.6, but you will still need Unity Pro to use the Render Texture feature.

I’ve been working with Unity for a while now so this article was long overdue. Initial I was planning on doing some entry level stuff, like what is a Rigidbody, adding materials, etc. As more and more good video tutorials began appearing online I decided that I would do something a little more advanced than that. Don’t worry it not much more advanced.

I recently purchasing Unity Pro and have been digging into some Pro only features. One of my favorites so far is Render Textures. Render Textures simply put allows you to render the output of a camera to a texture. More detail on Render Textures can be found here

For this example I modeled a TV in Blender (don’t laugh at the model it is my first) with an empty space for where the screen would be.

Steps in Creating a Working TV That Displays What You See.

1. Add basic environment objects (ground, skybox, First Person Controller,lights etc)
2. Import a tv model into Unity and place it within the scene
3. Create a plane within Unity and position it within the TV model to be used as the TV screen (using Render Texture with planes is easiest).
4. Right click within the Project panel to create a ‘Render Texture’
5. Add a second camera as a child to the ‘Main Camera’ within the First Person Controller.
6. Set the ‘Target Texture’ property of this camera to the newly created Render Texture.
7. Add this texture to a material
8. Add this material to the tv screen
9. Hit play and you should have a working TV

Hints and Gotchas:

• You will need to rotate the render camera 180 degrees on its z-axis so that it will render the scene the right way up Update: Incorrect, looks like I had my rotations messed up. If the plane you are rendering to is rotated correct the render material will appear the right way up.
• You will need to use at a least two cameras when using Render Texture because the camera that is rendering to screen can not also render to a texture
• If you have added a Skybox to your main camera you will need to add this Skybox to the render camera(s).
• If you have multiple cameras it may be easier to set the Skybox material within Render Settings instead of setting each camera’s skybox individually.

To check out the demo click here

To get the source click here

Source Requirements: You will need need Unity Pro to use the Render Texture feature.

If someone 3 months ago would have said to me, do you see any reason why you would stop devoting so much time to Flash/Flex in the next year. I would have said not a chance. I love interactive content on the web and more specifically interactive 3D within a browser. I have long history with AS3 and the only other “competitors” (Silverlight and HTML5)  aren’t capable of what I would need them to do.

My world got turned upside down the day I was shown the Unity Web Player. I froze, my jaw dropped, this was amazing. I had seen demos of Unity before in presentations about iPhone development, but this was different, this was in a browser. Most importantly it meant I could program full 3D in C# for the web.  So I went back to my original list of reasons why I was not interested in Unity the first time I saw it. Firstly it was really for iPhone and Wii development at the time, but now it’s also for the web.  The next reason being, I didn’t own a Mac. After doing some reading I realized that sure enough the Unity guys have dealt with that, the editor was now available for Windows. My last reason was price, but since this tool is so great I could deal with the price. In theory I would be in, but there was one other reason that hadn’t occurred to me. What about the thousands of hours I’ve put into AS3 development. Separation anxiety, going from a place where I know so much, to a place where I know nothing.

After a week of thought on the topic, I decided that Unity3D development was what I had to do. This was what I was waiting for, it just didn’t come in the form of a new Flash Player release. It has been roughly a month since the shift in my spare time over to Unity3D and I couldn’t be happier, the power and the opportunities are incredible.

So this is why there has been a little drought in examples on this blog, Unity3D has stolen my free time. This does not mean nothing new is coming, I’m actually finishing up some JigLibFlash stuff as I write this (so clearly Unity3D hasn’t stole all my free time). I am also hoping in the coming months that I will have some Unity3D examples to put up on this blog.

If you haven’t already done so please go check out Unity3D now.

I have one final comment and it is for Adobe: I know your plan is to unify the mobile player with the web player. In doing this you are slowing down the advancement of the web player to a point that by the time you have them ready to unify, there might not be anything left to unify.