Unity: Character Controller: Planning and Psuedo Code

This tutorial Series is for controlling a character in Unity.

I believe in creating reusable short well documented code. If my class is over 200 lines of code, I usually consider breaking it up into smaller segments so that I can have an easier time when bug testing.

To this end the first step is usually planning. When you begin you should consider what the object you're making will have to do and what kind of functionality it will have.

For a character it will have:

1)To take input from the user.

2) be able to move

3) to detect collisions

 4)to have gravity.

5) have a health system

6)to be able to attack 

7) a random generator (this is for when attacking, if we want to give a chance for higher damage etc.)

8) power up

9)be able to animate

We will design these systems to communicate between each other when necessary and also to be interchangeable; that way when we are creating new objects, such as an enemy object further down the line. We will be able to attach these same classes and just modify some of the variables so that we are not starting from the beginning.

After we have listed what we want the character to do we have to detail out each function we have listed and create what is called "pseudo code". Pseudo code is a term used by programmers to mean a class or function written out in English that plans the logic behind the programming before actually beginning to type out any lines of code.

We'll begin with the Input class.

When the game updates

if input is  either up arrow or w key

move the character forward.

if input is either down arrow or s key

move the character backward.

if input is either a key or left arrow

turn the character to the left.

if input is either right key or d key

turn the character to the right.

if input is space bar

make the character jump

if input is right click

make the character attack the current target.

If you look at the above bit of "pseudo code" it doesn't looks so scary does it? That is because it really is not. Coding is simply breaking harder tasks into smaller ones and then figuring out how to make the game work exactly the way that you want.

Now that we've figured out what exactly what we want to say we have to go line by line and decide how to turn this pseudo code into actual code. That will be begun in the next tutorial. See you then.