Creating a Character Controller from Scratch in Unity

If you’re looking for an intuitive and responsive system controller that can help bring your 3D game to life, then you’ve come to the right place. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through the process of creating a character controller from scratch in Unity. We’ll start with the basics and gradually move on to more advanced techniques, so by the end of this article, you’ll have a solid understanding of how to create a 3D character controller tailored to your needs.

Step 1: Creating a Rigidbody Component

The first step in creating a character controller is to add a rigidbody component to the character object in the scene. This component will be responsible for managing the character’s movement and collision detection, allowing it to move around the game world realistically.

1. In the Hierarchy view, select the character object you want to add a rigidbody component to.
2. In the Inspector view, click on the “Add Component” button and search for “Rigidbody”.
3. Drag the Rigidbody component onto the character object in the scene.
4. Adjust the settings in the Rigidbody component’s properties to suit your game’s requirements. For example, you may want to set the gravity scale to control how fast the character falls or adjust the mass and friction values to make the character more or less responsive to user input.

Step 2: Adding Movement Scripts

Once you’ve added a rigidbody component to your character object, it’s time to add movement scripts that will control how the character moves. There are several different types of movement scripts you can use in Unity, including first-person shooter (FPS) controllers, platformers, and vehicle controllers.

In this example, we’ll be using a simple FPS controller script to move our character around the game world. To add an FPS controller script to your character object:

4. In the Project view, right-click in an empty area and select “Create” > “C Script”.
5. Name the new script “FPSController” or something similar.
6. Double-click on the new script to open it in your preferred code editor.
7. Add the following code to the script:

csharp
using UnityEngine;
public class FPSController : MonoBehaviour
{
public float moveSpeed = 10f; // movement speed of the character
public float turnSpeed = 180f; // turn speed of the character
private float horizontalInput; // input for horizontal movement
private float verticalInput; // input for vertical movement
private Transform cameraTransform; // reference to the camera transform
void Start()
{
// get the camera transform and set it as a private variable
cameraTransform = Camera.main.transform;
}
void Update()
{
// get the horizontal and vertical input from the user
horizontalInput = Input.GetAxis(“Horizontal”);
verticalInput = Input.GetAxis(“Vertical”);
// move the character horizontally based on the horizontal input
transform.position += Vector3.forward * horizontalInput * Time.deltaTime * moveSpeed;
// turn the character horizontally based on the horizontal input
Quaternion targetRotation = Quaternion.LookRotation(Vector3.forward, transform.up);
transform.rotation = Quaternion.Lerp(transform.rotation, targetRotation, Time.deltaTime * turnSpeed);
// move the character vertically based on the vertical input
if (Input.GetButtonDown(“Jump”))
{
transform.position += Vector3.up * moveSpeed;
}
}
}



8. Attach the FPSController script to your character object in the scene.
9. Adjust the values in the script as needed to suit your game’s requirements. For example, you may want to increase or decrease the move speed and turn speed values, or change the gravity scale to control how fast the character falls.

Step 3: Adding a Camera

Finally, we need to add a camera to our scene so that we can see our character moving around. To do this, we’ll be using a simple first-person camera that follows the character as it moves.

10. In the Project view, right-click in an empty area and select “Create” > “GameObject”.
11. Name the new game object “Camera” or something similar.
12. Change the type of the game object to “Camera”.
13. Select the camera game object in the Hierarchy view.
14. In the Inspector view, click on the “Add Component” button and search for “Follow Camera”.
15. Drag the Follow Camera component onto the camera game object in the scene.
16. In the Follow Camera component’s properties, set the “Target” variable to the character object we created earlier. This will cause the camera to follow the character as it moves around the game world.
17. Finally, adjust the position and rotation of the camera game object to suit your game’s requirements.

Congratulations! You’ve now created a basic FPS controller in Unity that allows you to move your character around the game world. However, this is just the beginning – there are many other types of movement controllers and gameplay mechanics you can explore and implement in your Unity projects, depending on your specific needs and goals.