Intro to Tool Dev in Unity - An Improvised Live Course [part 1/4]

🔽 click for timestamps & info!
this was originally streamed as a course for students at futuregames.se/, who were super kind to let me both stream this live as well as upload it here! so massive thanks to the people at FutureGames!!
💖 Patreon ❱ / acegikmo
🐦 Twitter ❱ / freyaholmer
📺 Twitch ❱ / acegikmo
💬 Discord ❱ / discord
🌸 Instagram ❱ / freya_holmer
0:00:00 - Thor
0:00:18 - What is a Tool Developer?
0:04:05 - Field Attributes
0:09:02 - Gizmos
0:11:44 - Managers & ExecuteAlways
0:21:26 - Handles & Editor Preprocessors
0:27:36 - Drawing Bezier Curves
0:32:37 - Material & Mesh Modification Pitfalls
0:44:41 - MaterialPropertyBlocks
1:08:41 - Coloring Gizmos & Handles
1:10:42 - ScriptableObjects
1:21:46 - ScriptableObjects vs Prefabs
1:24:36 - Making a Custom Inspector
1:31:59 - Serialization of Fields & Types
1:43:56 - Editor GUI, Layout & Styling
2:07:15 - Shader Forge
2:06:06 - Recorder Tool
2:26:56 - Inspector Fields (manual version)
2:37:57 - Inspector Fields (SerializedProperty version)
2:47:19 - Change Detection & Updating Objects
2:51:34 - MenuItem Object Snapping Script
3:09:16 - EditorWindow Snapping Tool
3:24:07 - Assignment! Advanced Snapping Tool

[@acegikmo]

Timestamps for all you mobile users out there 💖 0:00:00 - Thor 0:00:18 - What is a Tool Developer? 0:04:05 - Field Attributes 0:09:02 - Gizmos 0:11:44 - Managers & ExecuteAlways 0:21:26 - Handles & Editor Preprocessors 0:27:36 - Drawing Bezier Curves 0:32:37 - Material & Mesh Modification Pitfalls 0:44:41 - MaterialPropertyBlocks 1:08:41 - Coloring Gizmos & Handles 1:10:42 - ScriptableObjects 1:21:46 - ScriptableObjects vs Prefabs 1:24:36 - Making a Custom Inspector 1:31:59 - Serialization of Fields & Types 1:43:56 - Editor GUI, Layout & Styling 2:07:15 - Shader Forge 2:06:06 - Recorder Tool 2:26:56 - Inspector Fields (manual version) 2:37:57 - Inspector Fields (SerializedProperty version) 2:47:19 - Change Detection & Updating Objects 2:51:34 - MenuItem Object Snapping Script 3:09:16 - EditorWindow Snapping Tool 3:24:07 - Assignment! Advanced Snapping Tool

[@tahiriqbal8543]

uhhh thank you so much

[@peyton-a-lee]

Just found this series and your channel, and it's incredible so far! Definitely recommending this to my friends who use Unity.

[@asrielmandrak7220]

Oh man. You don't know for how long i was searching for this video. I finally solved literally ALL of my doubts in just one video. Thank you, really. (Btw: your editors are gorgeous. I would like to see a detailed course on editor designs like yours)

[@cetiah]

This is awesome. I've been so interested in learning about tools development lately (and shaders!) but wasn't sure how to get started. Thank you so much!

[@JarlThorson]

I would love a post mortem on Shader Forge!

[@bluntfist]

If you're trying to follow along using URP or HDRP and can't get the colors to work, try changing "_Color" to "_BaseColor". Btw this tutorial rules.

[@VTBikupan]

Great vid! Haven't worked with tool dev stuff in a few years now and this was a stellar refresher~ Learned a fair bit of new tips as well

[@benjoe1993]

THIS IS WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS! This is what I need :D

[@jjkanes]

Bloody love this series! So good to to find little quality of life editor tool stuff I never knew existed ahhh

[@mahmudmizanfahim4270]

Love your lengthy explanations because often time I can find extra knowledge from them. Best teacher ever!!!

[@ddouston]

20m in, you've expanded my Unity knowledge in some ways as well as confirmed my understanding of the Editor in others. Bravo! Great course!

[@RustyMahkra]

Just i love you! You explain very easily. The tips really come in handy I'll see all your videos like this ♥

[@fernandacoelho7035]

I haven't properly started yet, but I just want to thank you so much for this. I'm trying to improve my tech art skillset and this is such an incredible resource, and I know from experience that making tutorials is a lot of work; and you went the extra EXTRA mile of making them longer and timestamped, this is amazing

[@acegikmo]

hope you'll find it useful!

[@evanlane1690]

Holy SHIT this is amazing. I had work to do today Freya! Now I'm four hours behind, and it was absolutely worth it. :D

[@lee1davis1]

Thank you Freya for sharing your knowledge and skills!

[@rayanmazouz9542]

Thanks ! Great detailed video, I've never done an editor tool before, so I'll watch all the 4 videos twice, and I should know the basics

[@clownhunter]

1:40:54 Just a heads up to anyone watching this video now, Unity added the [SerializeReference] attribute in 2019.3 that can handle serializing list of base classes, polymorphic classes, interfaces, etc so this is no longer an issue.

[@somekindofdevil]

These videos are priceless. Thanks for making them.

[@fulongfromthegrave]

SO good, and so useful! thanks Freya!

[@seanmoakes]

You have a great way of breaking all this stuff down. Thank you so much!

[@hakanviajando]

This was an amazing session, thank you very much.

[@rosyfu5845]

Thank you sooo much for this! It's AmaZinG!

[@jiteshmule9227]

finally video is available Thank you Freya. :)

[@Trombonaut]

Had no idea about all the action behind the renderer/filter color/mesh properties. Thanks for that

[@carlboisvert8517]

Damn, I'm 14 minutes in and this is already super usefull! Subscribing for sure! Really great work!

[@riddheshzaveri8103]

I am sure you will receive so many blessings for what you are doing for game dev community. The knowledge you share is worth million dollars. I will try my best to teach the same to others also for free, just like you.

[@andrewhan4016]

Thanks so much for making these videos!

[@westingtyler2]

these are great vids. the world needs lots of these.

[@Caparrini81]

Awesome content! What a great work!

[@Nastomeya]

Just want to say you will never stop learning Unity from Freya.

[@vufer3d]

You are awesome.I am grateful for this briliant lesson.

[@bakkarxp]

Great work Freya.👍

[@T_S_O_D]

This is exactly what I needed

[@josh_swanson]

Thank you for these!

[@iridelombardi]

Just a heads up, if you are using URP, you should set the color property _BaseColor, not _Color

[@kanerih]

Thank you so much.

[@hellzbellz1234]

For anyone in the future that's looking to learn to code and stumbles upon this video, or is actually into this video topic, pick a project/dev app that uses your coding language of choice, and go to the feature request area and pick a project. Popular projects are maybe better also a discord for that project might also be helpful

[@pabloalves]

This is the best source of tool dev online i guess, thanks a lot. Awesome course

[@draconinteractive]

That pattern at the beginning for multi-object management, I hadnt seen anyone else use that! One thing I do, if I'm not using a manager for the object collection, you can create the list in the script itself. So in ExplosiveBarrel, you can just have public static List all = new List(); Then, to get the collection, scripts can just do ExplosiveBarrel.all[x] Both have adv/disadv, just an addition :)

[@GameDevNerd]

public static List AllBarrels { get; set; } I use that pattern a lot inside the Component script when I have something I will need other GameObjects to be able to search through or manage. I add each one to that list either in OnEnable, Start or Awake and remove them in OnDisable or OnDestroy depending on what sort of tracking system I want for them.

[@Forummaker]

This was super-useful, THANK YOU.

[@nthnnnnnnnnn]

00:41:59 I might be wrong but afaik creating new material doesn't create a new "Asset". It creates a material in memory which would be destroyed on "Domain Reload" (recompile). Also I don't think (again I might be wrong) that you can save a material in a SceneAsset. Which is different from the type Scene. Scene is just a runtime struct that holds loaded SceneAsset information.

[@melomaniakjm]

Awesome video! Thanks a million for this wealth of knowledge!

[@revilorere]

This is such a great video!

[@TheRabidCabbage]

I'm enjoying the hidden minigame of trying to work out all the hotkeys you're using. Keys I learned so far: Ctrl+D = Dupe line Ctrl+Shift+L = Delete Line (I changed it to Ctrl+Shift+D as like the opposite of Dupe Line) Alt+Shift+Double-click = Select Multiple Words Ctrl+Shift+U = Toggle Case (Not an ideal combo, but I doubt I will use it much) Alt+Shift+. = Add Next Occurrence to Selection (This needs to be more accessible) I realised I was shifting lines & statements up & down a lot, so I promoted them to Shift+Wheel and Ctrl+Shift+Wheel. Hope that isn't going to be a problem later.

[@gabrielmartins7642]

i am just someone who really want to make a game, and this series is actually helping me to organize myself and all

[@gabrielmartins7642]

i keep coming back to check what i have forgotten

[@vkan]

I really enjoyed this!

[@Kenbomp]

Very practical and learn about the system . Nice layouts. For windows

[@benjoe1993]

Will tomorrow's course be uploaded as well? Because I love this!

[@acegikmo]

yep! it's recorded and all, will be editing and uploading it tomorrow :)

[@Axelazo]

Can't believe all this content is free!

[@snakeplisken4278]

I would love to know how to make rain and snow effects in Unity, but so that it does not fall through the roofs of buildings the player can enter. Thanks. Not sure if shader graphs or particle effects will work?

[@ThatGamePerson]

Lol I was looking for this in your patreon, happily surprised they weren't deleted, just not where I thought.

[@TheBelgarion01]

God bless this course

[@Oompafan907]

No because I was about to fall asleep and then this video started playing in the way. I jumped up so fast it generally scared me

[@TheRabidCabbage]

When you Undo the UpdateAllBarrelColors() action, although the colour field in BarrelTypeEditor and Gizmo wires revert to the original colour, the actual barrel material doesn't revert until you trigger a OnValidate() or something. I found a solution by using a Undo.undoRedoPerformed Callback to re-trigger the UpdateAllBarrelColors() after an Undo. Is there a better way?

[@GG1440]

Thank you for sharing this, it's very helpful

[@acegikmo]

I 3D printed and painted my own! I'd love to sell them somehow, but, no idea where / how I'd be able to set that up~

[@alexsteed3091]

​@@acegikmo , Patreon, but you must be prepared for all the gizmo fiddling that will come of it.

[@rootgingerbread1034]

Thank's On this video ❤🌹

[@MorionTutoriales]

tk very much for your videos, all these are excelents.. Greetings from Colombia

[@haikunHuanghk]

Good video, still learning today!!!!!

[@anonymoussloth6687]

At 3:00:18 you said that "we are making changes but not making changes to the serialized data". But isn't the position of a gameobject serialized? Why doesn't the editor automatically mark the change as dirty?

[@Metroid1193]

You are amazing!

[@guysome3263]

Kitty was so vocal throughout, it wanted to co-lecture.

[@riu7688]

Gerne noch mehr Folgen von dem Game, Hades wäre auch cool aufm Main Channel die Story is so cool!

[@ale-hl8pg]

Do you actually recommend using MaterialPropertyBlocks to color objects in the editor (as the example with the explosive barrels) or simply during runtime (for example, an enemy flashing) ? With the explosive barrel example, if you have different types such as a toxic barrel which would be green, would you create new materials for it (in editor mode, when you're creating the toxic barrel itself) or change it by using a script to apply the MaterialPropertyBlock with a given color? One pet peeve I've had was that creating a lot of materials was annoying when you're working on something like different variations of enemies, using mpb's seems like it'd make it slightly less annoying since you don't create a lot of new materials, just color them, but I'm wondering if there's some downfall to that besides what you've noted that, each time you set a new mpb it'll override all the properties of the previous one?

[@acegikmo]

either is fine, just depends on how much you want to be persistent vs transient exceptions, and how it deals with batching. it also depends on render pipelines

[@danielgruginski5496]

So... the 1/4 means there is more 3 videos on tool development or 3 more videos on an improvised live course? I absolutely loved this video, but I thought it was a bit short (really, considering all the content). Still, it was the most in-depth video I ever saw and it will help me get things done on my own going forward. Thank you for this content!

[@acegikmo]

part 2: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oprQq4mHe7qAl8k part 3: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p5eqq6qvlNyGotk part 4: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJm6pYuqitZqpa8

[@danielgruginski5496]

@@acegikmo Oh, thank you Thank you!! I have no idea why those videos weren't showing up for me on the suggestions, now I got 7 more hours of really advanced stuff. Really appreciate your work!

[@AlKaponeLegend]

I love the clicking sound

[@k4chanzs427]

(Material property blocks) Can we use this to SkinnedMeshRenderer.

[@yugoanzai8197]

Amazing course! Thanks. Knows mch more than a lot of youtubers selling poor unity courses out there.

[@yugoanzai8197]

Also has a really cute cat! Haha

[@hobogamedev6846]

Flawless.

[@oloy7038]

Does anyone know whats the settings of her visual studio? im new and its beautiful template or what ever you call it. thanks^^

[@RegenerationOfficial]

I don't understand this "instance" and sharing data fully. I want to have my items/blocks/scripts communicate efficiently, how do I do that?

[@DeathbyLibra]

Hey Freya! Awesome vid! I adore your brain! Lol (is that weird?) anyway, is there somewhere I can go to see when you will be hosting these live streams in the future or just ask you a couple questions in general? I’m a 3D artist and just finished a technical artist internship while working on a shipped title… I am apprehensive about moving forward in my career path atm and would love to pick your brain a tiny bit. Do you have a patreon? :)

[@acegikmo]

I do have a patreon yeah! www.patreon.com/acegikmo As for my streams, I'm currently trying to recover from burnout, so unfortunately I'm not very actively streaming as of the past few months. But whenever I stream, I usually do it on twitch, at twitch.tv/acegikmo

[@TheRabidCabbage]

1:26:28 What feature were you saying is only in Unity 2020? Your voice breaks up at the exact moment you mention it. All I got was "Chat says there is scriptable objects on ??????" Sounds like "OnValidate". but that doesn't make much sense. :D

[@martinrages]

Love the cat's chair haha

[@IndieFist]

2:09:55 how much cost have this shader in mobile? you made it easy!

[@fardinhaque70]

Should run pretty flawlessly in any mobile device.

[@anidiva79]

Superb Learning...can u please share the editor and its extensions of unity

[@fluiglp5615]

i tried to create a Custom Editor for adding buttons into the Animator Menu, and for adding labels on the Animator States, maybe someone here has a clue how thats made :0 I work in unity 2019 currently for some reasons if thats important

[@georgerobson8329]

2:41:19 Blew my mind. Is that rider/jetbrains specific?

[@jasonskillman6274]

Blew my mind too! Do you know what the shortcut was?

[@trejkaz]

Avoiding the name `Manager` in class names is a design principle in itself because the word doesn't really have any meaning. A name like `ExplosiveBarrelStore` or `ExplosiveBarrelRegistry` would probably be better in this particular case.

[@kvskchaitanya4733]

Is it efficient to use material property blocks on run time. Like selecting character color at runtime. And is it OK to apply material color to a ui image color like image. Color= material. Color

[@acegikmo]

yes! although UI specifically doesn't let you access or set its property block afaik

[@kvskchaitanya4733]

@@acegikmo thank you so much.

[@yummybunny7351]

How you immediately have some space in parametr brackets "( )" ? Like at 27:35 - you just type function name, and cursor already inside brackets (thats by Rider, i suppose) and inside brackets 2 space - how? And 41:15 same

[@acegikmo]

it's my formatting settings in rider

[@JarppaGuru]

53:35 yeah its working but changing color on game too. do tool cretor want effect how game look xD. how apply color only for edit. we do editor tool lol.

[@Kenbomp]

Hide flags sign of bad design if used in actual game code. No wonder some devtools don't save changes. Onvalidate() when change inspector

[@yuhangren9917]

gooooood

[@jeremyfisher4082]

A game development goddess that goes into the advanced area of Unity! Much love for your videos, Thank you for all you have done!

[@jeremyfisher4082]

but seriously though you have really good stuff on this channel, I have some friends that are making a nordic mythology game, we met in game design at full sail. so when I saw your name I was like " game development goddess" sorry if it sounded any other way. I think your work on these videos complements my studies at Full sail University. The vids are very informational and I truly do appreciate it!

[@user-ln7bv8eg1z]

네 맞습니다. Blunfist 의 댓글처럼 이 영상을 보고 따라하실 때 URP부턴 기본 Lit 셰이더의 컬러 프로퍼티 이름이 _BaseColor입니다. 도움이 되었으면 합니다. 치얼쓰

[@ivanoarrighetta]

I'd like to understand how 2D and 3D Vector Graphics works, especially for modeling and illustration (so stuff like extrusion, deformation, rigging, and pretty much everything you can do with Inkscape and Blender). Can you please recommend some book[s] about this? Thanks for any help

[@ivanoarrighetta]

Anyone?

[@vtoz1830]

@@ivanoarrighetta Math for Programmers Paul Orland as an overview . Then u should lurk around dissertation and opensources sharers to be more specific

[@ivanoarrighetta]

@@vtoz1830 Thanks so much =)

[@JarppaGuru]

44:57 still waiting what is best for editor LOL. Use this it change color on editor. dont leave anything and game work normal

[@bigmistqke]

This is is why I love the internet.

[@AnkitRathore-ru5kh]

How to Create Preview Window for Particle System??

[@devil2005iscool]

she is so so attttttraactttiveeee

[@cahydra]

material property blocks doesnt change the color of my objects :(

[@erenneager9986]

woke up to this

[@timstevens3361]

what beautiful headphones you have

[@danamuise4117]

This should be retitled to "Technical Artist Essentials"

[@daomingliu7251]

great

[@n8dev]

how am I just finding this

[@TearscapeSE]

I need a tool which translate my bad english in machine language so i can talk my game finish.

[@kerbrose]

Hello I'd like to know your opinion about Godot game engine.

[@acegikmo]

never used it myself! I know some people who use it, seems neat I suppose? :)

[@kwcnasa]

Resume @45:00

[@JarppaGuru]

52:31 we are doing tool that only effect editor and not shaders all all those thing game programmer done lol like tool that game programmer doing lol

[@sphelelelubanyana1750]

Nice but..explning one thing for 20 min..especially the matColor we got it..the othe duplicate and the other chages asset...time for solution..you keep repeating ..create a applyColor..still u write the problem again...aii draining