Unity 3D UI essentials : leverage the power of the new and improved UI system for Unity to enhance your games and apps

Leverage the power of the new and improved UI system for Unity to enhance your games and apps About This Book Discover how to build efficient UI layouts coping with multiple resolutions and screen sizes In-depth overview of all the new UI features that give you creative freedom to drive your game development to new heights. Walk through many different examples of UI layout from simple 2D overlays to in-game 3D implementations Who This Book Is For If you have a good understanding of Unity's core functionality and a decent grasp of C# scripting in Unity (although not essential if you are just using the Editor with the new UI), you'll be well placed to take advantage of the new UI feature set. What You Will Learn Get to grips with the Legacy Unity GUI fundamentals to better understand the path forward Explore the tools Unity introduced with the new UI system such as the Rect Transform layout tool Unwrap the new base Unity UI controls and what makes them tick Work with the layout features and take control in a multiresolution world Build stunning UI within the 3D as well as the traditional 2D world Understand the new Unity Event System and how it fits in to the new UI system and beyond In Detail Unity is a powerful cross-platform development engine that provides rich framework to create 2D and 3D apps or games. Through Unity, users are able take master the complexities of game development with ease, including animations, physics, renderings, shaders, scripting and now, Unity have released a new and advanced system to cope with the UI demands for modern applications and games. Unity 3D UI Essentials is a complete walk-through of the new UI system in Unity V4 and beyond (including Unity 5). This fast-paced practical tutorial provides you with in depth details of the new UI controls and layouts that can be used to create stunning and multiresolution UI. Venture forth into the highly componentized and advanced UI system, covering new features such as responsive designs and layouts. Also you get to deep-dive into the scripting side of the UI system as Unity has made the entire framework open source, giving free access to the source code of the new UI system to all developers. So get ready for a wild ride into the new Unity UI system and set your course for awesome! Cover 1 Copyright 3 Credits 4 About the Author 5 About the Reviewers 7 www.PacktPub.com 10 Table of Contents 12 Preface 18 Chapter 1: Looking Back, Looking Forward 24 State of play 25 GUI controls 26 The Label control 27 Texture drawing 28 The Button control 30 The Text control 31 The Box control 33 The Toggle/checkbox control 34 Toolbar panels 35 The Slider/Scrollbar controls 37 The ScrollView control 38 Rich Text Formatting 41 Common control features 43 Grouping controls 43 Naming controls 44 Getting in focus 44 Tooltips 47 The Window control 48 GUI styles and skins 50 GUI events and properties 55 Layout controls 56 BeginArea 56 Horizontal and Vertical layout groups 57 The Asset Store 57 Enter Thunderdome 57 New layouts 58 Rect Transform 59 The Canvas 59 Groups 60 Masking 61 New controls 61 New UnityEvent system 63 Control extensibility 63 Animation 63 Even the Asset Store has you covered 64 TextMeshPro ($65) 64 GUI Generator ($40) 65 MenuPage ($10) 65 Summary 65 Chapter 2: Building Layouts 68 The Rect Transforms 69 The Rect Tool 69 The Rect Transform component 70 Scaling the Rect Transform 73 The Canvas 73 The Canvas Renderer 78 Canvas Groups 78 Automatic layouts and options 79 Horizontal Layout Group 79 Vertical Layout Group 82 Grid Layout Group 83 Layout options 86 Layout Element 87 Content Size Fitter 91 Aspect Ratio Fitter 93 Scroll Rect 95 Masks 98 Resolution and scaling 99 Constant Pixel Size 100 Scale with Screen Size 101 Constant Physical Size 102 The UnityEvent system 103 Raycasting 103 Input modules 104 Input events 105 Event Triggers 107 Summary 109 Chapter 3: Control, Control, You Must Learn Control 110 Overview 111 A word on code 111 Setting up the project 112 A warning on the built-in images 112 Dealing with text 113 A simple FPS control 117 Adding interaction with input 119 Shadows and effects 121 Bring on the images 123 Image types 125 Simple Images 125 Sliced Images 125 Tiled Images 127 Filled Images 128 Adding animation to the mix 129 A word on RawImage 134 Don't push this button 134 What makes it Selectable? 137 An event occurred, what do I do? 139 The ultimate awesome menu 143 Which direction to travel? 147 Grouping toggles 149 Dynamic event properties 150 Sliding opportunities 151 Ancient scrolls 154 Scrolling, Rect'ing, and Masking, oh my 156 Navigation 158 A word on shaders 160 Summary 160 Chapter 4: Anchors Away 162 Dropping Anchor 162 Put a nail in it, and trim the sails 164 Stretch it, bend it 169 Scaling and resolution 174 Working with the constant default 174 Scaling to my view 176 Getting physical 179 Which to choose? 184 Summary 184 Chapter 5: Screen Space, World Space, and the Camera 186 The Canvas and Cameras 187 Screen Space and World Space 187 Render cameras 188 Event Cameras 189 Getting some perspective 190 Setting up for the big game 193 Some prerequisites 194 Next up, some Sprite 2D work 194 A Screen Space – Camera health bar 196 What's in a Canvas? 197 Am I dead yet? 199 Reaching in 203 It's all gone a bit flat 204 Going deep 206 Hang your Canvas wherever you like 206 The showcase 207 Build your UI and place it in the scene 208 Troubles with scale 211 A better way 212 A final word on Event Cameras 213 Summary 213 Chapter 6: Working with the UI Source 216 Unravelling the Event System 217 The Event System loop 217 Controlling state 218 Raycast Marshalling 219 Working with events 219 Using a parameter 223 Built-in event interfaces 225 Executing events 227 Building your own handlers or custom events 230 A custom event Data Structure 231 A custom event Interface 233 A custom event static container 233 Processing a custom event 234 The Roll a Ball Derby 236 The Droid script 237 The Alarm plates 239 Who watches the watchers? 241 Summing up the Event System 243 Examples, examples, and even more examples 243 Getting access to the source 245 The repository 245 Getting forked 247 Downloading the code 249 Keeping up to date 252 What is in the solution? 253 Adding your own version of UI to your project 255 Extra credit, push it back to Unity 257 Summary 259 Appendix: The 3D Scene Sample 260 Setting up for the big game 261 The initial 3D scene 262 Index 270

About This Book

• Get insider insight on Qlik Sense and its new approach to business intelligence
• Create your own Qlik Sense applications, and administer server architecture
• Explore practical demonstrations for utilizing Qlik Sense to discover data for sales, human resources, and more

Who This Book Is For

Learning Qlik® Sense is for anyone seeking to understand and utilize the revolutionary new approach to business intelligence offered by Qlik Sense. Familiarity with the basics of business intelligence will be helpful when picking up this book, but not essential.