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Unity UI Cookbook

Unity UI Cookbook

By : Sapio
4.5 (13)
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Unity UI Cookbook

Unity UI Cookbook

4.5 (13)
By: Sapio

Overview of this book

With the increasing interest in game development, it's essential to design and implement a UI that reflects the game settings and shows the right information to the player. The Unity system is used to create complex and aesthetically pleasing user interfaces in order to give a professional look and feel to a game. Although the new Unity UI system is powerful and quite easy to use, by integrating it with C# scripts, it's possible to realize the potential of this system and bring an impressive UI to games. This guide is an invaluable collection of recipes if you are planning to use Unity to develop a game. Starting with the basic concepts of the UI components, we’ll take you all the way through to creating complex interfaces by including animations and dynamics elements. Based on real-world problems, these recipes will start by showing you how to make common UI elements such as counters and healthbars. You will then get a walkthrough of how to manage time using timers, and will learn how to format them. You will move on to decorating and animating the UI elements to vivify them and give them a professional touch. Furthermore, you will be guided into the 3D UI world and into HUD scripting. Finally, you will discover how to implement complex minimaps in the interface.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
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Preface
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Sections
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Free Chapter
1
1. UI Essentials
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1. UI Essentials
Introduction
Setting up a 2D texture to be a bordered sprite
Resizing the UI according to the screen size and resolution
Adding and placing an image in the UI
Adding a circular mask to an image
Making an image scrollable
Making text scrollable with a vertical slider
Selecting buttons through the keyboard
Using UI layout components
2
2. Implementing Counters and Health Bars
2. Implementing Counters and Health Bars
Introduction
Implementing a score counter
Implementing a lives counter
Creating a modular coin counter
Creating a symbolic lives counter
Implementing a linear health bar
Implementing a radial health bar
Creating a health bar with armor
Using multiple bars to make a multibar
Developing a kingdom hearts health bar style
3
3. Implementing Timers
3. Implementing Timers
Introduction
Implementing a numeric timer
Creating a linear timer
Implementing a radial timer
Creating a mixed timer
Creating a well-formatted timer
Developing a well-formatted countdown that changes
4
4. Creating Panels for Menus
4. Creating Panels for Menus
Introduction
Creating a toggle group
Showing the slider value as a percentage
Adding upper and lower bounds to the slider
Making UI elements affected by different lights
Making a draggable panel
Making a resizable panel
Creating a drag-and-drop element
Developing an MP3 player
5
5. Decorating the UI
5. Decorating the UI
Introduction
Creating an extendable element with a final fade effect
Creating an extendable and rotating element with a final fade effect
Creating bars that go up and down
Making a floating UI element
Adding shadows to text
Adding outlines to text
6
6. Animating the UI
6. Animating the UI
Introduction
Appearing and disappearing menu
Creating a menu with an entrance transition
Creating a menu with an idle animation
Animating a button when the cursor is over it
Creating a pop-up menu
Animating hearts of the symbolic lives counter
Changing animation of the hearts of the symbolic lives counter through the script
7
7. Applying Runtime Customizations
7. Applying Runtime Customizations
Introduction
Making a button that changes color
Creating a slider that changes colors gradually
Creating a slide shower using a discrete slider
Creating a slider that changes a single color channel
Making an input field with personal text validation at runtime
Making an input field for a password with a lower bound limit for characters
Changing the cursor at runtime
8
8. Implementing Advance HUDs
8. Implementing Advance HUDs
Introduction
Creating a distance displayer
Creating a directional radar
Developing a subtitle shower
9
9. Diving into 3D UIs
9. Diving into 3D UIs
Introduction
Creating a 3D menu
Adding a smooth tilt effect
Creating and placing a 3D UI
Making an animated 3D UI warning
10
10. Creating Minimaps
10. Creating Minimaps
Introduction
Creating a minimap
Implementing advanced features for minimaps
11
Index
Index

Making an image scrollable

Many fantasy games have huge worlds, along with very large maps, so in order to show them in the UI, they are usually scrollable. This allows the player to explore the map in sections without showing it entirely at once.

This recipe explains how to achieve this using the Mask (Script) component, which we have already used in the previous recipe, and the Scroll Rect (Script) component. The latter will handle the logic that will allow the UI elements to be scrollable.

How to do it...

  1. So that we don't have to start over again, we can use the mask that we created in the previous recipe. In fact, we can change what we have done there to achieve this scrollable effect.
  2. To begin, we need to add the Scroll Rect (Script) component to the panel.
  3. Keeping the panel selected, drag the image that is parented to the panel into the Content variable inside Scroll Rect (Script).
  4. By default, the image is set to have an elastic effect, which, in most cases, is quite nice. However, since we are using a circle instead of a rectangle, it is better that the image doesn't go out of the circle. This is because the image may appear distorted and affect the overall aesthetic experience, which may even prove to be uncomfortable to the player. Therefore, to solve this, change Movement Type to Clamped.
  5. Finally, it is possible to modify the effect to better suit our needs by changing Deceleration Rate and Scroll Sensitivity. Thus, take time to test which values are best for you.
  6. Once you have finished altering the values, your Inspector should look similar to this:
    How to do it...

How it works...

First of all, we took the previous image, which is already masked. In fact, scrollable images are often used along with masks. This is because masks allow us to focus on specific locations within large images or text without overwhelming the player, as well as allow larger objects to feature within the UI in more compact ways. Once we had taken the outcome from the previous recipe, we then added a Scroll Rect (Script) component to the parent of our image. This component does the work, and it can be controlled by several options or parameters.

For example, we can change the Movement Type variable. Clamped is where the content is confined to the Scroll Rect bounds, Elastic means the content bounds when it reaches the edge, and Unrestricted means that there are no limitations. In addition to this, we can tweak Deceleration Rate, but only if Inertia is checked. This determines how much time it takes for the content to come to a complete stop. At a rate of 0, the movement will stop immediately, whereas at a rate of 1, it will never slow down. Among the most important parameters of this component is Scroll Sensitivity. This is, as the name suggests, the sensitivity when the content is scrolled.

See also

End of Section 7
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