Any self-respecting game developer knows that getting their third-person player character right is one of the fundamental keys to a great gaming experience. Not only this but the controller, once developed, can be transferred from one game to another, making the code reusable and scalable. In this course, you will learn how to put together your own third-person character from scratch using freely available 3D models and animations, which you will learn how to control with C# in Unity. The idea behind this course is to take students through a series of workshops with the necessary tools to help them make a character, animate a character and program a character without the need of being able to model or animate and gain an understanding of the third-person character controller pipeline.
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Any self-respecting game developer knows that getting their third-person player character right is one of the fundamental keys to a great gaming experience. Not only this but the controller, once developed, can be transferred from one game to another, making the code reusable and scalable. In this course, you will learn how to put together your own third-person character from scratch using freely available 3D models and animations, which you will learn how to control with C# in Unity. The idea behind this course is to take students through a series of workshops with the necessary tools to help them make a character, animate a character and program a character without the need of being able to model or animate and gain an understanding of the third-person character controller pipeline.
Any self-respecting game developer knows that getting their third-person player character right is one of the fundamental keys to a great gaming experience. Not only this but the controller, once developed, can be transferred from one game to another, making the code reusable and scalable. In this course, you will learn how to put together your own third-person character from scratch using freely available 3D models and animations, which you will learn how to control with C# in Unity. The idea behind this course is to take students through a series of workshops with the necessary tools to help them make a character, animate a character and program a character without the need of being able to model or animate and gain an understanding of the third-person character controller pipeline.
This course uses Unity 2020.1 or 2020.2, Input System 1.0, and Cinemachine 2.6.3
Learn how to program and work with:
3D Characters and Rigs
Humanoid Avatars
The Mecanim System
Avatar Masks
Animation Blend Trees
Unity's new Input System Package
Unity's Cinemachine Package for 'Character Following' Cameras
Adobe's Mixamo Service for Rigging and Animating 3D Characters
Third-Person Character Controllers
Mixing Root Motion with Physics Controls
What people are saying about Penny's courses:
Dr. Penny is a wonderful person and a true expert. All of her courses I've taken have been top notch and in my opinion there is no better teacher out there.
Allow me to say how hugely important this is for a person who is interested in certain types of game design. Creating games where you can create AI behaviors that support emergent situations.
I honestly love Holistic's teaching approach and I've never learned so much within a few hours about coding effectively with such detailed explanations.
This course focuses on the building of typical third-person character functionality including jumping, falling, weapon handling, shooting, and taking damage. By the end of this course, you will have a great third-person character controller that you can use in your own games or adapt for customized situations.
What's inside
Learning objectives
- How to rig and animate a 3d character from a pre-existing library of high quality, motion captured animations.
- How to create a state machine of character animations that are controlled via user input.
- How to implement the unity input system.
- How to use cinemachine to create a character following camera.
- How to program from scratch a third-person player character controller for a game environment.
- How to rig and animate a 3d character from a pre-existing library of high quality, motion captured animations.
- How to create a state machine of character animations that are controlled via user input.
- How to implement the unity input system.
- How to use cinemachine to create a character following camera.
- How to program from scratch a third-person player character controller for a game environment.
Syllabus
In this section students will obtain an overview of the course as well as cover some basic information and setup for study.
This lecture welcomes students to the course and provides and overview of the content.
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Syllabus
This lecture welcomes students to the course and provides and overview of the content.
How to contact us
Here's how to get the best experience from studying this course and answers to some popular student questions.
This article provides details for signing up with a free Mixamo account.
Join the thousands of other Holistic3D students on our social media channels.
In this lecture students will learn how to upload and download a character with Mixamo in a format suitable for use by Unity.
In this lecture students will gain insight on how best to select Mixamo characters and animations that will suit their games.
In this lecture students will learn about some advantages to humanoid characters as well as bring in some new animations readying their character for movement controls.
In this lecture students will learn how to implement the Unity Input package to capture user input for moving the character.
In this lecture students will learn how to write code to cause the character to accelerate to a maximum speed and build a blend tree to sync the speed with the animations.
In this lecture students will learn how to fix animations on a character when they seem to go wrong.
In this lecture students will learn how to extend a blend tree to allow the character to move forwards or backwards.
In this lecture students will complete the forward and backward blend with some extra animations from Mixamo.
In this lecture students will learn how to make a character turn using the x movement from the input.
In this lecture students will learn how to add cinemachine to their projects and create a camera that will follow the player.
In this lecture students will examine some of the more advanced settings available for the virtual camera to give a different interactive feel to the character controls.
In this lecture students will prepare their character with jump input and physics objects to create an advanced jump animation.
In this lecture students will learn how to create a dedicated jumping sub-state animation machine and start to write the code to trigger a jump.
In this lecture students will learn how to carve up and animation to get better control over when it runs.
In this lecture students will access the character's rigid body to push her up into the air using physics when she jumps.
In this lecture students will learn how to add a landing animation that is triggered by a raycast.
In this lecture students will learn how to transition from one sub-state animation to another and begin to add in the animation to allow jumping when the character is moving.
In this lecture students will complete the jumping while running animation.
In this lecture students will learn how to change the landing animation based on the force with which the character lands.
In this lecture students will learn how to complete the falling animations with rolling upon landing and adding a falling state for just walking off the edge of a high object.
In this lecture students will learn how to add a weapon model to the scene and attach it to the character so it moves with the character's animations.
In this lecture students will learn how to attach and detach game objects from the bones of an animated character.
In this lecture students will learn how to change the parent of an object to player with different animations.
In this lecture students will learn how to use an avatar mask in a layer to blend and control animations.
In this lecture students will learn how to add a new key to the input controller and create the code to trigger the weapon pickup and firing animations.
In this lecture students will learn how to add rotations to a humanoid that override the animations.
In this lecture students will learn how to clamp the range of the mouse controlled rotations to limit unrealistic movement.
In this lecture students will learn how to use a line renderer to create a laser beam that shows where the player's weapon is aimed.
In this lecture students will learn how to add a couple of different types of cross hair effects to the scene to highlight the laser's target.
In this lecture students will learn how to use a spotlight to project a target point onto the object being aimed at.
In this lecture students will learn how to hide the mouse cursor and lock it as well as unlock it with the ESC key. In addition they will create a navmesh to act as the battle ground between their character and AI bots.
In this lecture students will obtain an overview of navmeshes to bring them up to speed with the topic or as a refresher before continuing to the next lecture.
In this lecture students will learn how to import a package with preprogrammed navmesh agents and place them in the environment to act as enemies.
In this lecture students will learn how to blow up the orbs when they are fired upon.
In this lecture students will learn how to add in getting hit and death animations to the animator as well as program for them to make the character act appropriately.
In this lecture students will learn how to fix a bug that has arisen when the jumping animation is not in line with the code logic.
In this lecture students will learn how to add a forward force to a jump.
In this lecture students will learn how to change the weight of an animation layer with code.
In this video Penny provides a few words of congratulations for those who've finished the course and ideas of extra study areas.
In this video Penny provides an overview of her other courses.
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Reviews summary
Third-person character controller with unity
Covers character animation and blend trees.
Focus on combining Unity features is valuable.
Instructor's teaching style is highly praised.
Course builds a strong base for controllers.
Activities
Review C# Fundamentals
Show steps
Solidify your understanding of C# syntax and programming concepts before diving into the course. This will make it easier to understand the scripting used for the character controller.
Browse courses on
C# Programming
Show steps
-
Review basic C# syntax and data types.
-
Practice writing simple C# scripts.
-
Familiarize yourself with Unity's C# API.
Prototype Basic Movement
Show steps
Practice implementing basic character movement in a separate Unity project. This will give you a head start when building the full controller in the course.
Show steps
-
Create a new Unity project.
-
Import a simple character model.
-
Write a script for basic forward/backward movement.
-
Add jumping functionality.
Review 'Game Programming Patterns'
Show steps
Learn about common game programming patterns to improve the structure and maintainability of your character controller code.
View
Crafting Interpreters
on Amazon
Show steps
-
Read the sections on State and Command patterns.
-
Consider how these patterns apply to character control.
Four other activities
Expand to see all activities and additional details
Show all seven activities
Document Your Learning
Show steps
Reinforce your understanding by documenting your progress and key learnings throughout the course. This can be in the form of a blog, journal, or video series.
Show steps
-
Choose a platform for your documentation.
-
Summarize each lecture's key concepts.
-
Reflect on challenges and solutions.
Review 'Unity 2021 Cookbook'
Show steps
Consult a Unity cookbook for solutions to specific challenges encountered while building your character controller.
View
Unity 2021 Cookbook: Over 140 recipes to take...
on Amazon
Show steps
-
Identify a problem you're facing.
-
Search for a solution in the cookbook.
-
Adapt the solution to your project.
Explore Advanced Cinemachine Features
Show steps
Deepen your knowledge of Cinemachine by exploring tutorials on advanced features like procedural camera movement and camera blending. This will allow you to create more dynamic and engaging camera systems.
Show steps
-
Search for Cinemachine tutorials online.
-
Experiment with different camera settings.
-
Implement a custom camera behavior.
Contribute to a Character Controller Project
Show steps
Contribute to an open-source character controller project on GitHub. This will give you experience working with a larger codebase and collaborating with other developers.
Show steps
-
Find an open-source project on GitHub.
-
Fork the repository and set up your local environment.
-
Identify a bug or feature to work on.
-
Submit a pull request with your changes.
Review C# Fundamentals
Show steps
Solidify your understanding of C# syntax and programming concepts before diving into the course. This will make it easier to understand the scripting used for the character controller.
Browse courses on
C# Programming
Show steps
- Review basic C# syntax and data types.
- Practice writing simple C# scripts.
- Familiarize yourself with Unity's C# API.
Prototype Basic Movement
Show steps
Practice implementing basic character movement in a separate Unity project. This will give you a head start when building the full controller in the course.
Show steps
- Create a new Unity project.
- Import a simple character model.
- Write a script for basic forward/backward movement.
- Add jumping functionality.
Review 'Game Programming Patterns'
Show steps
Learn about common game programming patterns to improve the structure and maintainability of your character controller code.
View
Crafting Interpreters
on Amazon
Show steps
- Read the sections on State and Command patterns.
- Consider how these patterns apply to character control.
Document Your Learning
Show steps
Reinforce your understanding by documenting your progress and key learnings throughout the course. This can be in the form of a blog, journal, or video series.
Show steps
- Choose a platform for your documentation.
- Summarize each lecture's key concepts.
- Reflect on challenges and solutions.
Review 'Unity 2021 Cookbook'
Show steps
Consult a Unity cookbook for solutions to specific challenges encountered while building your character controller.
View
Unity 2021 Cookbook: Over 140 recipes to take...
on Amazon
Show steps
- Identify a problem you're facing.
- Search for a solution in the cookbook.
- Adapt the solution to your project.
Explore Advanced Cinemachine Features
Show steps
Deepen your knowledge of Cinemachine by exploring tutorials on advanced features like procedural camera movement and camera blending. This will allow you to create more dynamic and engaging camera systems.
Show steps
- Search for Cinemachine tutorials online.
- Experiment with different camera settings.
- Implement a custom camera behavior.
Contribute to a Character Controller Project
Show steps
Contribute to an open-source character controller project on GitHub. This will give you experience working with a larger codebase and collaborating with other developers.
Show steps
- Find an open-source project on GitHub.
- Fork the repository and set up your local environment.
- Identify a bug or feature to work on.
- Submit a pull request with your changes.
Career center
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Gameplay Engineer
Unity Developer
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Character Artist
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