Setting up the game’s UI.
In this tutorial we’ll set up HUDs to display the player’s health and score, as well as a UI box we’re using later to display the game over message.
If you remember, we’ve already set the Makinom project’s UI system to use the Unity UI module, i.e. we’ll do most of the setup in the scene, using components and the Unity UI. You can learn more about UI systems in general in this documentation, or about the Unity UI module in this documentation.
First, let’s set up the UI box – we’ll use it later to display a game over message and have the player confirm it to restart the game. At the end we’ll create a prefab out of our UI box setup and use it in the UI box in the Makinom editor. The button to confirm will be a separate prefab – we could also set up a button directly on the UI box, but usually you don’t have a fixed button, rather have Makinom add the required inputs for you.
The easiest way to set up a UI box is using the context menu in the scene hierarchy: Makinom > UI > UI Box > UI Box (TextMesh Pro)
This already gives us all we need, but we can style it to our liking, e.g. change the position or size of the box, or change the font, font size or alignment.
I’ll change the text to be centered and use a larger font size – select the Text child object of the created UI Box game object and change the TextMesh Pro – Text (UI) component’s settings.
I’ll also add a Content Size Fitter component to the UI Box, to automatically adjust the height to the displayed text.
That’s it for the UI box – now create a prefab out of it by dragging the UI Box game object from the scene hierarchy to the project view, e.g. into a new folder in Assets/Tutorial Resources/Prefabs/UI/.
Remove the UI box from the canvas in the scene and use the context menu in the scene hierarchy to create a choice button: Makinom > UI > UI Box > Input > Choice Button (TextMesh Pro)
This is pretty much ready to use as it is, so we’ll create a prefab out of it as well.
Next we’ll set up the HUD to display the player’s health. We’ll show it in the lower left corner of the screen.
Use the context menu in the scene hierarchy to add a simple HUD: Makinom > UI > HUD > HUD
Change the newly created HUD’s Rect Transform:
Now move it to the lower left corner of the canvas.
We’ll add a texture of a heart to the HUD, use the context menu to add a raw image component to the HUD game object: UI > Raw Image
Move the game object to the middle left side of the HUD.
We’ll display the health as a value bar, use the context menu to add it to the HUD game object: Makinom > UI > HUD > Bar > Value Bar Content
Move and size the bar to your liking, I’m using these settings:
The HUD Value Bar Content component is responsible for handling the numbers/values the bar represents. We’ll use it to show the player’s HUD – the player is the User of the HUD, i.e. we can access the player’s object variables via that object.
The Value handles the current value of the bar.
The Minimum Value defines the minimum value (i.e. an empty bar) represents.
The Maximum Value defines the maximum value (i.e. a full bar) represents.
Select the Empty Sprite child object and change the Image component’s settings to use a black empty/background for the bar.
Select the Value Sprite child object and change the Image component’s settings to use a color similar to the heart image.
That’s it for the health HUD – create a prefab out of it and rename it, e.g. to Health HUD.
Now, we’ll set up the HUD to display the player’s score. We’ll show it at the top of the screen.
Now move it to the top of the canvas, it should now be placed at the top across the whole width of the screen.
Add a HUD Text Content to the HUD using the scene hierarchy context menu: Makinom > UI > HUD > Content > Text Content (TextMesh Pro)
Adjust the new game object’s bounds to match the parent HUD’s bounds (e.g. using stretch stretch anchor preset).
This component is responsible for setting the TextMesh Pro component’s text in the HUD, we’ll use a Makinom text code to show the value of our lives int variable.
You can display int variables using the text code <var.int=key>, replacing key with the variable key you want to show.
As before, I’ll only use a larger font size and place it in the center – select the Text child object of the created Text Content game object and change the TextMesh Pro – Text (UI) component’s settings.
That’s it for the score HUD – now create a prefab out of it by dragging the HUD game object from the scene hierarchy and rename it, e.g. to Score HUD.
With that we’re done with the setup of our UI prefabs, but we need to clean up the Canvas and Event System that where created by Unity for our UI setup in the scene. In the scene hierarchy, select the Canvas and EventSystem game objects and delete them (e.g. via the Delete key).
All that’s left to do is use the UI prefabs we just set up in Makinom.
First, we’ll use the choice button prefab we created as the default choice button. Open the Makinom editor, navigate to UI > UI System and change the following settings.
Navigate to UI > UI Box, select the Default UI box and change the following settings.
That’s it for the UI box.
Navigate to UI > HUDs and select the Default HUD that’s already been added in the initial project setup. Change the following settings.
We don’t want to display this HUD while changing scenes (e.g. when reloading the scene during game over).
Click on Add Game State.
Copy the health HUD and change the following settings in the copy.
And that’s it – click on Save Settings to save the changes.
Click on Play to test the game. You’ll now see the player’s health displayed in the lower left corner of the screen and the score at the upper center.
The next tutorial will handle the player’s death.
