Book Image

Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 3D Beginner's Guide

By : Terry Norton
Book Image

Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 3D Beginner's Guide

By: Terry Norton

Overview of this book

For the absolute beginner to any concept of programming, writing a script can appear to be an impossible hurdle to overcome. The truth is, there are only three simple concepts to understand: 1) having some type of information; 2) using the information; and 3) communicating the information. Each of these concepts is very simple and extremely important. These three concepts are combined to access the feature set provided by Unity. "Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 3D Beginner's Guide" assumes that you know nothing about programming concepts. First you will learn the absolute basics of programming using everyday examples that you already know. As you progress through the book, you will find that C# is not a foreign language after all, because you already know the words. With a few keywords and using substitution, before you know it, you'll be thinking in code. The book starts by explaining in simple terms the three concepts you need for writing C# code and scripts: 1) variables to hold information; 2) methods (functions) to use the information; and 3) Dot Syntax to communicate the information where it's needed. The book builds on these concepts to open up the world of C# coding and Unity scripting. You will use this new power to access the features provided in Unity's Scripting Reference. The first half of this book is devoted to the code writing beginner. The concepts of variables, methods, Dot Syntax, and decision processing are fully explained. Since C# is an actual programming language, we take advantage of this to develop a State Machine to help control and organize each phase of a Unity project. Once the basic programming concepts are established and we have some State Machine organization, the features and power of Unity are accessed using the Scripting Reference. If you're looking to learn C# for Unity then this is the book that offers everything you need and more - so discover what C# offers today and see your work come to life as complete games!
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 3D Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Time for action – accessing a variable in the current Component


Let's look at accessing a variable in LearningScript from inside LearningScript.

  1. Modify LearningScript as shown in the following figure:

  2. Save the file.

  3. In Unity, click on Play.

What just happened?

Here are the outputs in the Console:

An analysis of the code shown in the previous code screenshot is as follows:

Line 6: string myString = "Access the variable ";

  • myString is the variable that will be accessed

  • Notice that it's private by default, yet it can still be accessed

Line 17: Debug.Log(myString + "the normal way.");

  • This is how we have been accessing the value stored in a variable, by just using the variable name

  • The string value in myString, Accessing this variable, is substituted for the variable name

  • myString is being accessed without using Dot Syntax or GetComponent(), because a script always has access to its own variables and methods

Line 18: Debug.Log(this.myString + "using 'this' keyword.");

  • myString is being accessed using...