Choosing from a variety of cameras is a common feature in many genres: racing, sports, tycoon/strategy, and many others. In this recipe, you will learn how to give players the ability to choose from many cameras by using their keyboards.
For this recipe, we have prepared the BasicScene Unity package containing a scene named BasicScene. The package is in the 1362_05_codes folder.
To implement switchable cameras, follow these steps:
- Import the
BasicScenepackage into a new Project. - From the Project view, open the BasicScene level. This is a basic scene featuring an animated character and some extra geometry.
- Add two more cameras to the scene through the Create drop-down menu on top of the Hierarchy view (Create | Camera). Rename them
cam1andcam2. - Change the
cam2camera's position and rotation so that it won't be identical tocam1. - Create an Empty GameObject by navigating to the Create drop-down menu on top of the Hierarchy view (Create | Create Empty). Then, rename it
Switchboard. - From the Inspector view, disable the Camera and Audio Listener components of both
cam1andcam2. Also, set their Tags as MainCamera, as shown:
- From the Project view, create a new C# Script file. Rename it
CameraSwitchand open it in your editor. - Open your script and replace everything with the following code:
using UnityEngine; public class CameraSwitch : MonoBehaviour { public GameObject[] cameras; public string[] shortcuts; public bool changeAudioListener = true; void Update (){ if (Input.anyKeyDown) { for (int i=0; i<cameras.Length; i++) { if (Input.GetKeyDown (shortcuts [i])) SwitchCamera (i); } } } void SwitchCamera (int indexToSelect){ for (int i = 0; i<cameras.Length; i++){ // test whether current array index matches camera to make active bool cameraActive = (i == indexToSelect); cameras[i].GetComponent<Camera>().enabled = cameraActive; if (changeAudioListener) cameras[i].GetComponent<AudioListener>().enabled = cameraActive; } } } - Attach
CameraSwitchto theSwitchboardGameObject. - From the Inspector view, set both the Cameras and Shortcuts sizes to
3. Then, drag and populate the Cameras slots with the cameras from the scene (including the Main Camera, within the Multipurpose Camera Rig | Pivot GameObject) Then, type1,2, and3into the Shortcuts text fields, as shown in the next screenshot:
- Play your scene and test your cameras by pressing 1, 2, and 3 on the keyboard.
The script is very straightforward. First, it compares the key being pressed to the list of shortcuts. If the key is indeed included on a list of shortcuts, it is passed on to the SwitchCamera function, which, in turn, goes through a list of cameras, enables the one associated with the shortcut that was received, and also enables its Audio Listener, in case the Change Audio Listener option is checked.
Here are some ideas about how you could try twisting this recipe a bit.