Building AI-driven Characters Using Playmaker in Unity

By Shane Whelan
In this course, you will learn to understand AI character behavior by building a small game with a state-driven UI, a point and click character control system, and an enemy character driven by Navmesh and Animator movement.
Course info
Level
Intermediate
Updated
Oct 19, 2018
Duration
3h 1m
Table of contents
Introduction and Project Layout
Playmaker Introduction 4m
Building a Navmesh Agent Point and Click Control
Adding Pathfinding Actions through the Ecosystem Browser 2m Creating NavmeshAgent Destinations Using the New Actions 5m Identifying the Root Object and Animator Component from within Playmaker 4m Laying out a Sketch of a Point and Click Control System 5m Adding a Brain to the Hero Character 8m Adding a Separate FSM to Handle Walking Animations 6m Negative Feedback: A Shrug Animation to Show the Path Is Invalid 5m Using Layers to Determine What Object the Player Clicked On 6m Investigating the Animator Parameters on the Hero's Animator Controller 3m
Adding an Attack Sequence
Sketching a Flowchart of the Attack Sequence 6m Checking the Distance from the Player to the Enemy 7m Carrying out an Attack Animation 6m
The Powerup: Communicating Between FSMs
Sending Events and Changing Variables Between Two FSMs 3m Handling Trigger Enter and Exit Events on the Powerup Altar 3m Creating a New FSM to Handle Player Stats 7m Using a Global Variable to Control a UI Element 3m Laying out the FSM to Handle the Shot Being Fired 3m Lowering the Player's Health and Affecting the Heads-up Display 5m Preparing the Ice Prefab to Be Instantiated 7m Providing Diegetic Sound and Visuals on the Hero's Sword 7m Adding Visual Feedback Using iTween to Shake the Camera 4m Instantiating the Ice Prefab and Altering the Player Stats 8m Using an Ease Curve to Animate a Float Variable 3m Powerup Introduction 1m
The Enemy: Enhancing an Agent's Decisions
Implementing Actions for the Attack Sequence 4m Implementing Line of Sight and Providing Feedback to the Decisions FSM 0m Tracking the Enemy's Health in a Stats FSM 5m Using an FSM on the Hero to Do Damage to the Enemy on Weapon Contact 4m Making the Enemy React to the Ice Shot 5m Handling Collisions on the Enemy's Weapon Using Animated Triggers 4m Implementing the Hiding Sequence 5m Testing with Multiple Enemies 1m Tracking the Hero's Health and Receiving Damage from the Enemy's Weapon 3m Making a Patrol Sequence for the Enemy Guard 5m Syncing Footsteps with the Enemy's Animator Component 2m Laying out an Attack Sequence for the Enemy 3m Preparing a New FSM on the Enemy for Handling Line of Sight 4m Laying out Scene Objects and Adding a Cinemachine Group Target Camera 0m Introduction to the Enemy 0m
Course Overview
Course Overview 2m
Description
Course info
Level
Intermediate
Updated
Oct 19, 2018
Duration
3h 1m
Description

It can be difficult to visualize something as abstract as the behavior of an AI character in a game, let alone implement the code to make it work. In this course, Building AI-driven Characters Using Playmaker in Unity, you will use Playmaker to build a working UI. First, you will implement a point-and-click player control system driven by Navmesh. Then, you will add a ‘brain’ inside an enemy character, all without writing a line of code.Finally, you will sketch out a flow diagram of state-driven behavior, then add actions to that diagram to get the gameplay working for real. By the end of the course, you will know how to prototype your own games using Playmaker. Required Software: Unity 2017 and Playmaker.

About the author
Shane Whelan
About the author

Shane Whelan is a Game Design tutor at Ballyfermot College in Dublin, currently teaching in the Game Design and Animation degree program.

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Section Introduction Transcripts
Section Introduction Transcripts

Course Overview
Hi everyone, my name is Shane Whelan, and welcome to my course on Building AI-driven Characters Using Playmaker in Unity. I'm a game design animation teacher at Ballyfermot College of Further Education in Dublin. Unity has become an increasingly visual game engine, opening up new possibilities to artists and other visually minded people when it comes to developing games and other interactive material. Playmaker is a visual scripting system for Unity that relies on the concept of finite state machines to assemble interactive gameplay without writing a line of code. In fact, Playmaker is particularly suited to people who may feel reluctant or unable to write code, but still want to have a voice on the game design team. This course is all about using the Playmaker system for Unity to get you to a point where you can rapidly prototype your own games, covering control systems, game mechanics, and AI. Some of the major topics that we will cover include building a point-and-click control system, rapidly adding layers of responsive feedback to player actions, enhancing visual and audio effects, and building a decision-making system for a character. By the end of this course, you'll know how to prototype your own games using Playmaker. Before beginning the course, you should be familiar with the basic Unity editor, as well as some key Unity components, namely the Animator, Physics rigidbodies and colliders, and the NavMesh system. But from here, you should feel comfortable diving into Unity with courses on Game Mechanic Design Fundamentals and the Swords and Shovels Character Controller and AI. I hope you'll join me on this journey to learn about finite state machines with the Building AI-driven Characters Using Playmaker in Unity course at Pluralsight.

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