14: Mining for Diamonds (Part 2)

Learning Target

• Create a UI for a game in Unity that works for multiple game resolutions
• Use anchors and pivots to control the appearance of a Unity UI

Resources

Video Tutorial

Starter Icons

• • starter_icons.zip

Instructions

Step 1: 

Open your existing project from Part 1. 

Add a subfolder to your Textures asset folder called UI. Here is an example with textures organized into several folders:

Step 2:

Download the starter files and unzip the archive.
Drop the files you plan to use into the Textures→UI folder.

Each of these files will need to be changed to be a Sprite.

Step 3:

When we are done we will have a few different UI parts.

Create two UI panels to organize the screen.

• • Main UI (top or bottom)
  • Selected Drill UI (side)

For example:

Step 4:

We will need to do 3 basic things with our UI:

• • Show the values of variables
  • Allow the drill to be upgraded
  • Exit the program gracefully

To make life easier, I suggest using these to create a custom display:

• • Panel
  • Image
  • Text

Here is an example of a money display:

Then, drag it into the Prefabs folder so you can easily reuse it by simply changing the icon image.

Step 5:

I used these things to create a combined display and upgrade display:

• • Panel
  • Image
  • Text
  • Button (with text element deleted)

For example:

Once again, drag it into the Prefabs folder so you can easily reuse it by simply changing the icon and button images.

Step 6:

Finish creating a main UI that contains these items:

• • Money earned
  • Number of drills owned
  • Total rocks, iron, silver, gold and gems collected
  • Button to close game 

For example:

Step 7:

Finish creating a selection UI that contains these items:

• • Displays for speed, power and cooling
  • Buttons to upgrade speed, power and cooling

Step 8:

You could also add these to your selected drill UI to give it more realism:

• • Rocks, iron, silver, gold and gems currently in the selected drill's hopper or dirt pile
  • Current rotational speed, power in horsepower and temperature

Grading

For grades A to D, all requirements need to be met for that grade band.