in this video we'll be creating a cross-platform player controller using the unity input system the input system is a package that allows you to easily set up controls for multiple platforms you can install it from the package manager and it is a verified package for unity 2019 lts in newer versions of unity the project shown is available for download on github following the link in the description below if you want other information check the input system page you can find the link in the descr
iption as well in this unity project we have a character controlled by the keyboard we can walk around using the wasd keys and we can use the spacebar to attack the inputs are currently detected by the input manager in the input manager most of the work is done programmatically in script and it requires a lot of extra code to change the binding of the keys at runtime or switch the input device such as keyboard console game pads or even touch screen we've introduced the unity input system which a
llows for simpler and more flexible input mapping rebinding and configuration for all types of projects and devices let's set up the input system and convert our player controller to use keyboard gamepad and mobile controls to install the input system package open window package manager in the open package manager window scroll down through the available packages and select input system let's install the package by clicking install on the bottom right corner of the package manager window note th
at the input system comes with some useful samples that you can import into your project now that the input system package is added to the project we are able to create a new asset that stores our input actions let's create it by clicking the right mouse button inside the project and select create input actions rename it player actions and double-click to open the input actions editor window the input actions window is divided into three columns action maps actions and properties let's start by
creating an action map click on the plus button in the corner an action map represents a set of controls dedicated to a particular mode of your game for example usually we want different controls in the pause menu compared to the gameplay we may also want different controls for different modes of gameplay such as walking versus driving for this reason action maps can also be switched at run time using the switch current action map method let's name our new action map player controls with this ac
tion map selected we can create some actions by clicking the plus button in the upper corner of the second column an action is something the player can do such as move attack or jump it shouldn't be inherently linked to a specific input or button and should be kept generic we should define all the actions that our player can perform and then we can define multiple bindings for each action such as for different devices or platforms let's name our first action attack by selecting an action we can
change its properties in the third column for attack we want to choose the button as the action type since we just want to press a button to perform the attack a button can be a keyboard key a trigger or a normal button on a gamepad let's create another action and name it movement this time we want to choose the value as action type the value type should be used for inputs which can track continuous changes such as a joystick since we are using value a second field is enabled the control type re
presents the type of value we want in return in this case we'll use vector 2 to get the x-axis and y-axis of the joystick on the attack action if we click on the plus button we can add a new binding for this binding we can now choose a path this is how we define what the binding corresponds to here we can find all the different types of inputs we can set up from this options menu we can manually search for the input that we want navigate through the submenus or use the search bar at the top we c
an also click on listen to detect the input we push let's set the e key for the attack action now let's click the plus button on the movement action here we can add a binding or 2d vector composite the 2d vector composite option will create a 2d vector with up down left and right this makes sense for our movement action let's call this wasd keys for each of these bindings we can choose a path as we did for the attack let's set up the wasd keys as the binding for each direction now to confirm our
changes we need to save the asset by clicking on the button at the top alternatively we can enable the auto save feature using the flag on the left which will save automatically when we edit the asset this feature is off by default so take care to switch it on or save the asset after any changes now that we have our input actions assets set up we need an instance of it in the scene so we can detect input at runtime this can be done by using a player input component as our warrior character is w
hat we want to control with this input actions asset we can add the player input component to it in the actions field we can assign the actions asset another important field is the behavior that determines the way the player input component notifies that something has occurred we're going to use invoke unity events this way all the actions will be exposed in the inspector as events and we can attach our callbacks to them besides the actions that we've defined there are also some built-in ones su
ch as on device lost or on controller changed for a deeper explanation of all the behaviors check the documentation link below since we've set the invoke unity events option we need to declare on the playercontroller the callbacks for our actions and link them to the events in the inspector for the movement we declare the on movement method here we can access the parameter of type input action dot callback context which is a data structure that contains all the information provided about what tr
iggered this action calling the read value generic method we can read the vector2 value and use it to override the movement vector in a similar way we implement the onattack method we read the started value which is a boolean that represents if the action has just started in case started is true we use the animator of the player to play the attack animation in the inspector we can now select the callbacks for each event clicking the plus button we can add a new callback for each callback we have
to select the object that holds the method that we want to use and from the right hand menu we choose what method to call navigating through all the scripts that the selected object has let's add the callbacks for movement and attack now we're able to move our player and attack using the input system before setting up our gamepad controls we'll create a new control scheme for our keyboard a scheme is a group of bindings for the actions that we can easily separate for different devices in their
bindings in the input window click on all control schemes add control scheme let's call this keyboard and add the keyboard list to it for each binding we can choose which scheme they belong to this also allows us to filter them in the selection above let's add all the bindings that we've created before to this new scheme now that everything is set up for the keyboard we can do the same for the gamepad click again on all control schemes and select add control scheme this time call it gamepad let'
s create a new binding for the movement of our gamepad click on the plus button add binding in the path field select gamepad from here we can choose input from a specific device like the playstation controller the switch controller or we can choose a generic left stick that works for all supported gamepads the same concept can be applied to the attack action for gamepad button bindings we can choose the position of the button that we want for instance the playstation controller has the x button
in the same position as the a button on the xbox controller and the b button on the nintendo switch pro controller we can just choose button south to cover all those cases now if we press play we are able to move an attack using a gamepad the player input component will automatically detect the input we're using and assign it to the player so we can easily switch at runtime and use both the gamepad and the keyboard there's a new input debugger that comes with the new input system package that ca
n help us see all connected input devices and their inputs you can find it under window analysis input debugger here we can see all the connected devices this list is updated in real time so if we connect or disconnect the device we will immediately see it even if we are outside the play mode if we double click on a device a dedicated window opens up here we can find all the buttons that belong to this device if we push a button we can see that its value updates and an event is logged the input
system package also supports mobile for example in this canvas we have the on-screen stick component that simulates the left stick of a generic gamepad we can choose the control path to use from the inspector just as we did in the input window we have a similar component that simulates the buttons that is called on-screen button this simulated gamepad is also visible in the input debug window if we enter play mode everything works as expected we can use the simulated gamepad just like any of the
other input devices we can also spawn multiple warriors since the code is generic and the input device's signing is automatic all we need is a loop to call the instantiation api to spawn the warriors prefabs we can set the loop to how many warrior players we desire each warrior shares the same code and has a player input component on itself that allows it to be recognized as a player and detect the triggers of the actions if we open the input debugger window during play mode we can see that all
the player inputs are shown and for each player input the relevant connected device is shown as well the player input component also covers automatically the disconnection or the reconnection of a controller these events are exposed and we can use them to implement custom logic if you'd like to try out this example for yourself this project is available on github and linked in the description below for more information check the input system page link below as well thanks for watching you
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