Learn how to make Games: Unity (Part 2) - An Introduction to Using Playmaker Visual Scripting

Hi I'm Jerry from Bliz Studio LLC. In this intro to game design tutorial I'll be covering installing Playmaker Visual Scripting tool and iTween and a brief introduction to both. (subsequent videos will cover both more in-depth). How to Make a Video Game With Unity3D and Playmaker Series: Part 1: I

Playmaker is a visual scripting tool for Unity that lets you build game logic with finite state machines instead of writing code. This second part of the series covers purchasing and installing Playmaker, adding the free iTween package for movement and animation, arranging an efficient workspace, and dropping your first sprite into the scene.

Install Playmaker from the Asset Store

Open the Asset Store tab inside Unity and search for Playmaker. Playmaker costs $65, so if you haven't bought it yet you'll see a Buy button; once purchased, click Import to download the files (importing here just pulls them down from the store). When the welcome window appears it offers Install Playmaker, an upgrade guide, getting started resources, and add-ons created by other users. Click Install, skip the pre-update check since this is a fresh download, click OK, save, and then import the unpacked scripts.

Arrange your Playmaker workspace

After installing, a Playmaker tab appears in the top menu. Open the Playmaker Editor and dock it into the lower area of your layout to give yourself room to edit FSMs (finite state machines). From the Playmaker tab's editor windows, open the Action Browser and dock it alongside the Inspector so you have plenty of space to browse the many predefined action scripts for input, GUI, script control, meshes, math, and more. Also open the Editor Global Variables window and dock it near the Playmaker window for storing game-wide values like coin counts.

Add iTween and its actions

Return to the Asset Store and search for iTween, which is free. Import it into the project and save. To make iTween usable inside Playmaker, open the Playmaker welcome screen, click Add-ons, scroll to the legacy items, and import iTween Support. This installs the predefined iTween actions, which then appear in your Action Browser alongside the rest.

Understand FSMs and bring in a sprite

Playmaker is built on finite state machines: states act like logic blocks that define what happens at a given moment, and you attach different FSMs to different game objects depending on what you want them to do. To start, drag a PNG sprite into your Sprites folder. In the Inspector (a contextual menu that changes based on what's selected) confirm the asset is set up as a Sprite (2D and UI) so it can be used both in the UI and in the game.

Drop the sprite in and set the background

Drag the sprite into the scene to place your spaceship game object. Switch to the Game view to see it through the main camera. Because the default camera background is blue, select the main camera and use the background color setting's color wheel to pick black, giving you a proper space backdrop that makes the blue spaceship stand out. With your first game object in place, the series moves on to using Playmaker to actually move it on screen.