Unity Game Engine provides developers with a complete system for creating Heads Up Displays within the game. It uses the immediate-mode approach to user interfaces.
Check the presentation “Unity 2 GUIS made easy” from the 2007 Unite Conference: Video and Presentation PDF Files. It discusses many of the features of the immediate-mode GUI. User interface controls are instantiated at game time and the architecture is built from the start with the mindset that “in a game anything can happen at any time”. Controls are created and modified within event handling functions. User interface changes trigger calls to OnGUI().
OnGui() is a method that can be called several times per frame based on user interaction, like an update method. From what I understand, one OnGui() call manages all of the GUI events that change the state of the application. IT seems that a keyboard event, mouse event or other input event that changes the state of the application all trigger the onGUI event which houses the hanfdling logic to update the view accordingly.
I don’t feel as if the approach is better or worse that those used by Flash or Flex. At this point I’m still absorbing what feels like an entirely new yet effective way of creating dynamic User interfaces that “manage themselves”. If anyone has had more experience with the Unity GUI system and can point me to some more primers that would be great!
Some other Resources about Unity Game Interfaces, Immediate-Mode GUI and UnityGUI 2
- The Unity Forum on UnityGUI
- Immediate mode Graphic User Interfaces- a video to provide Some background on immediate mode GUI and its advantages
- Immediate mode GUI in Unity- from the Molly Rocket forums
- Immediate-mode GUIs, A Different Way to Think About Real-Time User Interfaces
- Unity Game Interface Elements- from the Unity Manual
- Richer Interfaces Through dynamically Loaded Cut Scenes
- Working with Unity workflow
- Visual Scripting slowly coming to Unity
- Immediate-mode GUI Forum discussion
- UnityGUI Development
- Game Interfaces with Unity
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
This post is really hard to follow and seem to be missing the meaning and ultimate point of what you are trying to get at. Are you saying that Unity3D GUI is bad or good? The last paragraph looses me completely… in what context is the “Far Cry Stuff”? I know the game but are you trying to say that coding the GUI is more complicated than Flash?
This post is really hard to follow and seem to be missing the meaning and ultimate point of what you are trying to get at. Are you saying that Unity3D GUI is bad or good? The last paragraph looses me completely… in what context is the “Far Cry Stuff”? I know the game but are you trying to say that coding the GUI is more complicated than Flash?
This post is really hard to follow and seem to be missing the meaning and ultimate point of what you are trying to get at. Are you saying that Unity3D GUI is bad or good? The last paragraph looses me completely… in what context is the “Far Cry Stuff”? I know the game but are you trying to say that coding the GUI is more complicated than Flash?
@Jonathan- You're right. I'm in the process of sorting out various parts and dropped the notes as I was plowing through the presentation on here. Fresh from the presentation they seemed more cohesive but I can definitely see how without context cues it's a pain to follow. I'm actually planning to sit through the presentation and do some more groundwork on this.
Far Cry reference- dropped in the middle of a strange place with no idea how and where I got there.
@Jonathan- You're right. I'm in the process of sorting out various parts and dropped the notes as I was plowing through the presentation on here. Fresh from the presentation they seemed more cohesive but I can definitely see how without context cues it's a pain to follow. I'm actually planning to sit through the presentation and do some more groundwork on this.
Far Cry reference- dropped in the middle of a strange place with no idea how and where I got there.
This post is really hard to follow and seem to be missing the meaning and ultimate point of what you are trying to get at. Are you saying that Unity3D GUI is bad or good? The last paragraph looses me completely… in what context is the “Far Cry Stuff”? I know the game but are you trying to say that coding the GUI is more complicated than Flash?
@Jonathan- You're right. I'm in the process of sorting out various parts and dropped the notes as I was plowing through the presentation on here. Fresh from the presentation they seemed more cohesive but I can definitely see how without context cues it's a pain to follow. I'm actually planning to sit through the presentation and do some more groundwork on this.
Far Cry reference- dropped in the middle of a strange place with no idea how and where I got there.
@Jonathan- You're right. I'm in the process of sorting out various parts and dropped the notes as I was plowing through the presentation on here. Fresh from the presentation they seemed more cohesive but I can definitely see how without context cues it's a pain to follow. I'm actually planning to sit through the presentation and do some more groundwork on this.
Far Cry reference- dropped in the middle of a strange place with no idea how and where I got there.