Create a Third-Person Player Character Controller

Name: Create a Third-Person Player Character Controller
Rating: 4.3 (391 reviews)

Learn Mixamo and Unity's Mecanim system for constructing and programming your own third-person game character.

Created byPenny de Byl, Penny Holistic3D

Last updated 5/2022

English

What you'll learn

How to rig and animate a 3D character from a pre-existing library of high quality, motion captured animations.
How to create a state machine of character animations that are controlled via user input.
How to implement the Unity Input System.
How to use Cinemachine to create a character following camera.
How to program from scratch a third-person player character controller for a game environment.

Course content

8 sections • 45 lectures • 6h 32m total length

Introduction2:13
This lecture welcomes students to the course and provides and overview of the content.
Contacting H3D0:01
How to contact us
FAQs0:14
Here's how to get the best experience from studying this course and answers to some popular student questions.
Getting a Mixamo Account0:11
This article provides details for signing up with a free Mixamo account.
Join the Holistic3D Socials1:26
Join the thousands of other Holistic3D students on our social media channels.

Working with Characters in Mixamo8:01
In this lecture students will learn how to upload and download a character with Mixamo in a format suitable for use by Unity.
Selecting and Downloading Mixamo Animations16:25
In this lecture students will gain insight on how best to select Mixamo characters and animations that will suit their games.
Character Movement Animations9:48
In this lecture students will learn about some advantages to humanoid characters as well as bring in some new animations readying their character for movement controls.
Getting User Input for Character Movement12:16
In this lecture students will learn how to implement the Unity Input package to capture user input for moving the character.
Accelerating from Walking to Running17:43
In this lecture students will learn how to write code to cause the character to accelerate to a maximum speed and build a blend tree to sync the speed with the animations.
Fixing other Humanoid Animation Mishaps4:21
In this lecture students will learn how to fix animations on a character when they seem to go wrong.
Moving Backwards12:38
In this lecture students will learn how to extend a blend tree to allow the character to move forwards or backwards.
Substituting Backward Animations7:26
In this lecture students will complete the forward and backward blend with some extra animations from Mixamo.
Turning5:31
In this lecture students will learn how to make a character turn using the x movement from the input.

Preparing the Character for Jumping8:19
In this lecture students will prepare their character with jump input and physics objects to create an advanced jump animation.
Working with a Jump Animation8:54
In this lecture students will learn how to create a dedicated jumping sub-state animation machine and start to write the code to trigger a jump.
Cutting up Animations Part 112:29
In this lecture students will learn how to carve up and animation to get better control over when it runs.
Cutting up Animations Part 210:04
In this lecture students will access the character's rigid body to push her up into the air using physics when she jumps.
Landing Part 114:43
In this lecture students will learn how to add a landing animation that is triggered by a raycast.
Landing Part 210:38
In this lecture students will learn how to transition from one sub-state animation to another and begin to add in the animation to allow jumping when the character is moving.
Running and Jumping13:13
In this lecture students will complete the jumping while running animation.
Jumping with Gusto15:04
In this lecture students will learn how to change the landing animation based on the force with which the character lands.
Rolling on Land9:30
In this lecture students will learn how to complete the falling animations with rolling upon landing and adding a falling state for just walking off the edge of a high object.

Adding a Weapon10:41
In this lecture students will learn how to add a weapon model to the scene and attach it to the character so it moves with the character's animations.
Constructing the Shooting Animation13:45
In this lecture students will learn how to attach and detach game objects from the bones of an animated character.
Attaching and Detaching the Weapon5:26
In this lecture students will learn how to change the parent of an object to player with different animations.
Animation Layers and Avatar Masks6:23
In this lecture students will learn how to use an avatar mask in a layer to blend and control animations.
Controlling the Weapon Pickup with Input17:07
In this lecture students will learn how to add a new key to the input controller and create the code to trigger the weapon pickup and firing animations.
Influencing Animations with Mouse Movements12:38
In this lecture students will learn how to add rotations to a humanoid that override the animations.
Clamping Rotations7:12
In this lecture students will learn how to clamp the range of the mouse controlled rotations to limit unrealistic movement.
Adding a Laser Sight12:50
In this lecture students will learn how to use a line renderer to create a laser beam that shows where the player's weapon is aimed.
Adding Crosshairs Part 111:50
In this lecture students will learn how to add a couple of different types of cross hair effects to the scene to highlight the laser's target.
Adding Crosshairs Part 26:42
In this lecture students will learn how to use a spotlight to project a target point onto the object being aimed at.

Environment Preparation15:14
In this lecture students will learn how to hide the mouse cursor and lock it as well as unlock it with the ESC key. In addition they will create a navmesh to act as the battle ground between their character and AI bots.
On the Topic of NavMeshes5:46
In this lecture students will obtain an overview of navmeshes to bring them up to speed with the topic or as a refresher before continuing to the next lecture.
Letting the Drones Out5:07
In this lecture students will learn how to import a package with preprogrammed navmesh agents and place them in the environment to act as enemies.
Blowing Up Drones5:43
In this lecture students will learn how to blow up the orbs when they are fired upon.
Dying with Grace15:08
In this lecture students will learn how to add in getting hit and death animations to the animator as well as program for them to make the character act appropriately.

Requirements

A working knowledge of Unity
A working knowledge of C#

Description

Any self-respecting game developer knows that getting their third-person player character right is one of the fundamental keys to a great gaming experience. Not only this but the controller, once developed, can be transferred from one game to another, making the code reusable and scalable. In this course, you will learn how to put together your own third-person character from scratch using freely available 3D models and animations, which you will learn how to control with C# in Unity. The idea behind this course is to take students through a series of workshops with the necessary tools to help them make a character, animate a character and program a character without the need of being able to model or animate and gain an understanding of the third-person character controller pipeline.

This course uses Unity 2020.1 or 2020.2, Input System 1.0, and Cinemachine 2.6.3

Learn how to program and work with:

3D Characters and Rigs
Humanoid Avatars
The Mecanim System
Avatar Masks
Animation Blend Trees
Unity's new Input System Package
Unity's Cinemachine Package for 'Character Following' Cameras
Adobe's Mixamo Service for Rigging and Animating 3D Characters
Third-Person Character Controllers
Mixing Root Motion with Physics Controls

What people are saying about Penny's courses:

Dr. Penny is a wonderful person and a true expert. All of her courses I've taken have been top notch and in my opinion there is no better teacher out there.
Allow me to say how hugely important this is for a person who is interested in certain types of game design. Creating games where you can create AI behaviors that support emergent situations.
I honestly love Holistic's teaching approach and I've never learned so much within a few hours about coding effectively with such detailed explanations!

This course focuses on the building of typical third-person character functionality including jumping, falling, weapon handling, shooting, and taking damage. By the end of this course, you will have a great third-person character controller that you can use in your own games or adapt for customized situations.

Who this course is for:

Beginner game developers who don't necessarily have the skills to create their own character but are interested in alternative ways to use pre-existing models in their games.
3D Modellers who want to learn how to animate their characters in Unity.
Anyone with Unity experience who wants to learn more about what is possible with the built in humanoid animation system.

Create a Third-Person Player Character Controller

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction5 lectures • 4min

Getting a Character and Animations with Mixamo9 lectures • 1hr 34min

Following the Character with Cinemachine2 lectures • 13min

Airborne9 lectures • 1hr 43min

Weapon Handling10 lectures • 1hr 45min

Doing Damage5 lectures • 47min

Extra Fixes3 lectures • 15min

Bonus Section2 lectures • 13min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: