Book Image

Extending Unity with Editor Scripting

By : Angelo R Tadres Bustamante
Book Image

Extending Unity with Editor Scripting

By: Angelo R Tadres Bustamante

Overview of this book

One of Unity's most powerful features is the extensible editor it has. With editor scripting, it is possible to extend or create functionalities to make video game development easier. For a Unity developer, this is an important topic to know and understand because adapting Unity editor scripting to video games saves a great deal of time and resources. This book is designed to cover all the basic concepts of Unity editor scripting using a functional platformer video game that requires workflow improvement. You will commence with the basics of editor scripting, exploring its implementation with the help of an example project, a level editor, before moving on to the usage of visual cues for debugging with Gizmos in the scene view. Next, you will learn how to create custom inspectors and editor windows and implement custom GUI. Furthermore, you will discover how to change the look and feel of the editor using editor GUIStyles and editor GUISkins. You will then explore the usage of editor scripting in order to improve the development pipeline of a video game in Unity by designing ad hoc editor tools, customizing the way the editor imports assets, and getting control over the build creation process. Step by step, you will use and learn all the key concepts while creating and developing a pipeline for a simple platform video game. As a bonus, the final chapter will help you to understand how to share content in the Asset Store that shows the creation of custom tools as a possible new business. By the end of the book, you will easily be able to extend all the concepts to other projects.

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Extending Unity with Editor Scripting
Angelo R Tadres Bustamante
Sep, 2015 | 268 pages
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Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Extending Unity with Editor Scripting
Extending Unity with Editor Scripting
Credits
Credits
Foreword
Foreword
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Getting Started with Editor Scripting
Getting Started with Editor Scripting
Overview
Editor scripting basics
Introducing Run & Jump
The Level Creator tool
Summary
2
Using Gizmos in the Scene View
Using Gizmos in the Scene View
Overview
Creating gizmos through code
Adding a structure to our levels
Implementing the gizmo grid
Implementing the snap to grid behaviour
Summary
3
Creating Custom Inspectors
Creating Custom Inspectors
Overview
Upgrading the Level class
Understanding how an inspector works
Creating a custom inspector
Working with layouts
Improving the inspector without custom inspectors
Using drawers inside a custom inspector
Summary
4
Creating Editor Windows
Creating Editor Windows
Overview
Creating the base for an editor window
Implementing the Palette
Implementing the GUI for the Palette
Integrating the Palette with the Level Creator tool
Summary
5
Customizing the Scene View
Customizing the Scene View
Overview
Defining the Editor modes
Customizing the Scene View
Detecting Scene View events
Implementing the Level Creator modes
Using the Handles class
Adding the final details to Level Creator
Summary
6
Changing the Look and Feel of the Editor with GUI Styles and GUI Skins
Changing the Look and Feel of the Editor with GUI Styles and GUI Skins
Overview
Changing the look and feel of the Level Creator tool
Changing the look and feel using a simpler approach
Summary
7
Saving Data in a Persistent Way with Scriptable Objects
Saving Data in a Persistent Way with Scriptable Objects
Overview
Preparing the environment
Implementing a Scriptable Object
Integrating the Scriptable Object with the level
Summary
8
Controlling the Import Pipeline Using AssetPostprocessor Scripts
Controlling the Import Pipeline Using AssetPostprocessor Scripts
Overview
Improving the import pipeline
Using a DLL file for the AssetPostprocessors
Summary
9
Improving the Build Pipeline
Improving the Build Pipeline
Overview
Automating the BuildPipeline class
Adding version control to your project
Interacting with external scripts
Distributing your video game using AppBlade
Summary
10
Distributing Your Tools
Distributing Your Tools
Overview
Preparing the environment
Sharing code using a Unity Package
Sharing code using Git submodules
Publishing in the Asset Store
Summary
Index
Index

Defining the Editor modes

The Level Creator tool is going to have four different modes:

  • View: You can move, orbit, or zoom around the level grid. This is just the default behavior Unity has when you select the hand tool.

  • Paint: By clicking or dragging the mouse on the level grid, you can add level piece prefabs to it. The piece you will be "painting" in the level grid is the one you selected on the Palette window.

  • Edit: By clicking on a piece from the level grid you can access its properties in the Level Inspector and make tweaks to it if necessary.

  • Erase: By clicking or dragging the mouse on the level grid over existing pieces, you can remove them.

In the LevelInspector class, we are going to add an enum to list these modes and a variable to save the one that is currently active:

using UnityEngine;
using UnityEditor;

using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace RunAndJump.LevelCreator {
    [CustomEditor(typeof(Level))]
    public class LevelInspector : Editor {

    public enum Mode {
...
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