Unity Tutorial – Tactics Movement

Posted on November 9, 2017February 7, 2022 by Greg Miranda

Tactics games, like Final Fantasy Tactics and Ogre Tactics, are turn-based combat games on square tiles. This multi-video tutorial will cover movement for a tactics game.

Player movement uses Breadth First Search (BFS) to calculate the tiles that the player’s unit can move to. NPC movement uses A* to calculate a path to the nearest player unit, and then limits the path to the unit’s maximum movement.

Part 1 – covers how to set up the tactics game board
Part 2 – covers how to set up the adjacency list for each tile
Part 3 – covers Breadth First Search (BFS) for calculating the tiles the player can move to
Part 4 – covers movement of the unit’s from tile to tile, including jumping up and down
Part 5 – covers the turn manager so the player and NPC can take turns moving
Part 6 – covers A* and NPC movement which chases after the player

Download this Unity tutorial

Videos

Part 1 – covers how to set up the tactics game board

Part 2 – covers how to set up the adjacency list for each tile

Part 3 – covers Breadth First Search (BFS) for calculating the tiles the player can move to

Part 4 – covers movement of the unit’s from tile to tile, including jumping up and down

Part 5 – covers the turn manager so the player and NPC can take turns moving

Part 6 – covers A* and NPC movement which chases after the player

Unity Tutorial – Using JSON Files

Posted on October 12, 2017October 12, 2017 by Greg Miranda

This tutorial is on using JSON files in Unity to save and load data.

JSON files (Java Script Object Notation) are an easy to use way for storing organized information for a game. JSON is easier to understand, and much lighter weight than using XML.

By using JSON, it’s fairly easy to save and load data into your Unity game.

Download this Unity tutorial

Unity Tutorial – Using CSV Files

Posted on October 11, 2017October 11, 2017 by Greg Miranda

This tutorial is on using CSV files from Microsoft Excel in Unity as text assets.

CSV files (comma separated values) are a quick and easy way to store large amounts of information for a game.

By using them as TextAssets, it’s fairly easy to import that data into your Unity game.

Download this Unity tutorial

Wordpres With it’s so-called ‘click-to-edit’ Plugins Themes Nulled

Posted on January 25, 2017January 25, 2017 by Greg Miranda

With it’s so-called ‘click-to-edit’ know-how, the builder means that you can edit and see the adjustments happen the second you click on that exact area of the page. Do you’ve got any suggestion for this list? All you need to do is unarchive the file. You will have a little bit extra work in your hands customizing this theme however the foundation is unquestionably there! But if you happen to restrict the variety of failed login attempts, it will increase the work for them. In other words, information from one website advantages the entire network. ..You can even host on-line courses and other studying materials in your site, because of support for the popular LearnDash plugin. Now go on, get Dolpa and start on the web with something novel. This totally responsive theme design has very straightforward customizable settings in the theme choices. Because of Cherry Services, case research, staff members, testimonials and other unique plugins you’ll have the ability to create a fully-featured presentation of your enterprise online. The plugin permits you to highlight the current day. A wonderful slider on the homepage showcases your most recent skilled work. Akismet is so good at picking up spam; it rarely wants handbook intervention. With high Gutenberg compatibility, you can flexibly build your website with any widespread blocks. There are a number of ways to showcase the alerts guests will receive when they’re using adblockers. You’re very much on time. When you don’t understand how to put in Yoast Seo plugin, learn our detailed information on How to Install WordPress Plugins. Simple Twitter Connect permits you so as to add functionality to your site that comes from using Twitter as an identification and authentication service. Using those paid internet assets can save you money and time. Here, you’ll see a folder containing all the Divi information (put in because the mum or dad). Additionally, you may connect it to e-mail service providers like Gmail, Zoho, Outlook, etc. Lead era plugins are extraordinarily necessary in expanding your online business.

https://nulleds.io/php-scripts/

https://wordpress.org/

Game Programming Academy Unity 3D Webinars

Posted on August 25, 2016August 25, 2016 by Greg Miranda

For the next four weeks, I will be hosting a free 1 hour webinar on Fridays, 9am – 10am. Topic: Unity 3D. I don’t really have anything planned, so this will mostly be a Q/A session. I’m sure a few of my students will attend and ask questions (probably about why I haven’t graded their homework).

Only room for 50 people for the live version, but I will record the session and make the video available to all.

If you do have some questions you want to ask, I would suggest posting them here first, just in case I need some extra time to prepare an answer.

Game Programming Academy Unity 3D Series
Game Programming Academy is hosting weekly webinars on Unity 3D. We will cover a variety of topics including Artificial Intelligence and creating Multiplayer games.

http://gameprogrammingacademy.enterthemeeting.com/m/KADMMCHD

Game Programming Academy Boot Camp

Posted on August 24, 2016October 31, 2017 by Greg Miranda

Today, while having lunch with two of my students from the Art Institute (Nate & Jay), I mentioned that I had thought about teaching local students game programming outside of school.

They know I’m in the process of making online game programming courses, but I mentioned that I could teach them all the same programming material they’ve learned in the last three years in one year without all of the general education and art classes they were forced to take for their degrees.

I told them I needed 20 students before committed to the program at $500/month for 12 months before I could go forward with it. Why? Costs: Office space, desks, computers, etc.

So I gave them a challenge. I told them I would run the Game Programming Boot Camp if they could find me 20 students. Of course, they started posting on Facebook.This would be on-ground boot camp in San Diego. While I want to do online boot camps, I haven’t figured out the logistics yet on how it would work.

So here it is: Game Programming Academy Boot Camp

12 months of game programming.
One class a month.
Each class would run 12 hours per week with an extra 8 hours per week of lab time for doing ‘homework’ and getting help from myself and my tutors. (You can only learn programming by doing programming.)
What would we teach?
- C++ and C# from the basics to the advanced level. This includes Objected Oriented Programming and Data Structures.
- Unity 3D Game Engine (C#)
- Artificial Intelligence in Game Programming
- Network Game Programming
- PC & Mobile Game Programming (Android)
- 2D and 3D Graphics Programming (C++/OpenGL)
- Shader Programming (CG/HLSL in Unity 3D)
- Plus more advanced software development topics on making games in Unity 3D.
Cost: $500/month for 12 months.

What do you get out of it?

Learning how to program in C++ and C#.
Learning how to make games in Unity 3D.
- In fact, you will be making at least one game per month, if not more.

If you are interested in signing up, fill out the following form with your name and email address. When I get 20 people interested, I will contact you with all of the details.

Registration closed.

Exploring Shaders in Unity

Posted on July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 by Greg Miranda

Here are some notes I put together for a lecture/demo for the San Diego Unity 3D Meetup Group.

Exploring Shaders in Unity
Start with what a shader is and why they are important. Then, a discussion of the different types of shaders used in the rendering pipeline. A brief look at Unity’s built in PBR shaders and why you might want to make your own custom shaders. Finally, a demonstration of the different types of custom shaders and the types of visual effects that can be created using them.

Slides:
Exploring Shaders in Unity

Code:
Exploring Shaders

Exploring shaders in Unity

Tuesday, Jul 12, 2016, 7:00 PM

The Art Institute of California- San Diego
7650 Mission Valley Road San Diego, CA

0 Game Developers Went

Let’s learn a few things about Unity Shaders from Greg Miranda, who teaches Unity Shaders at the Art Institute of California. Here’s a brief description of what he plans to cover:”Start with what a shader is and why they are important. Then, a discussion of the different types of shaders used in the rendering pipeline. A brief look at Unity’s bui…

Check out this Meetup →

Artificial Intelligence in Game Programming

Posted on May 25, 2016May 25, 2016 by Greg Miranda

One of my favorite topics is Artificial Intelligence. I like it so much that I did my master’s thesis on Genetic Programming, a machine learning algorithm that lets a computer create programs.

When we think of Artificial Intelligence, we think of intelligent computer programs that think like, or better, than a human, or we think of a program that is intelligent at a specific task, like IBM’s Watson which competed on Jeopardy.

Creating these types of AI programs is time-consuming and requires vast amounts of computer processing power. Neither of these is practical for a computer or mobile game.

Computer games are limited to how much processing power a computer has and mobile games have even more limitations. Game developers are also limited on how much time and money they can spend on creating their game, a large portion of which is spent on making the game look good.

The good news is, we don’t actually need to create an artificial intelligence in our games; we only need to make it seem as if our characters and creatures look intelligent. The goal of a game is to create a fun experience for the players, not an actual intelligent AI.

Something to consider: what if we did create an AI that could compete against the player? It’s possible that this AI could be too challenging. Players like a challenge, but if they can never win, they will grow frustrated with the game and put it away and play something else.

So how do we make characters and creatures in our games look intelligent? First we need to define what intelligence looks like in a game. It’s difficult to people to point at a game and say “Those characters were intelligent!” However, the reverse is easy to spot, “Those characters were stupid!”

So goal #1, don’t let your AI agents in your game act stupid. Keep them from running into walls, acting completely random, or doing other things that appear to be dumb (like blowing themselves up!).

Keeping them from running into walls is fairly easy with pathfinding algorithms. There are several ways to go, such as A* or using a navigation mesh.

Randomness can be a good thing, but too much randomness does not create the appearance of intelligence. Humans opponents are often unpredictable, but not random. We can use randomness to help us choose between decisions, but we need to temper that with other algorithms to so that those decisions are not always random.

Doing that that appear dumb can be the most difficult. Determining if the AI is dumb usually comes about from a lot of playtesting, however, some things are pretty obvious: don’t use a rocket launcher on a target if the explosion will kill both of you.

There are many algorithms that software developers, mathematicians, and traditional AI researchers have created that game programmers can use to make game AIs that are fun, and more importantly, not stupid.

Algorithms such as: