Bolt Tutorial II - The Basics

I was able to fix the issue I had yesterday, and got the character in the previous tutorial to walk. However, I felt that while I was able to mimic the video, I would probably not be able to recreate it without a tutorial. So, I looked for something much simpler, to give me more of a sense of the fundamentals.

This video took more time to explain basic functions and features in Bolt and I found it helpful, I'm starting to grasp the basics. Some of my notes:

Bolt adds two components that can be used to program:

A Flow Machine dictates how an object will behave, and is used most often.

A State Machine dictates when an object should change its behavior. It cannot do much on its own. Often used to set enemy AI.

To figure out which Bolt units to use, it is often helpful to look at the inspector for hints.

Use the Graph Inspector to see a description of each unit.

A boolean is a variable that is true or false.

A string is a variable that refers to an object in the game world.

There are 2 types of calls that are frequently used in programming: Get and Set.

Get will return the value of a variable.

Set will assign a new value to a variable.

Vectors allow us to change an object's position. Vector 2 is used for 2D and Vector 3 is used for 3D.

Math functions like Add allow us to change values for input.

Components from the inspector can be clicked + dragged into the graph to show associated units.

Box Collider creates collisions on an object. If “Is Trigger” is checked, it can trigger events on collision and will not block physical objects, such as the player.

If you turn off Mesh Renderer, an object will become invisible. This is useful when creating triggers. A second box collider can be added so an object can both have collision and be a trigger. A Box Collider can be manipulated by clicking the button next to Edit Collider.

3 common trigger units:

On Trigger Enter will trigger an event when the player enters the trigger area

On Trigger Stay will continuously run an event while the player is inside the trigger area

On Trigger Exit will stop an event when the player exits the trigger area

Units that use Physics will require a Rigidbody component.

Game Object Compare Tag can be used to identify an object for interaction, for example the player entering a trigger area. The tags of a game object can be found, edited, or added in the inspector when that object is selected.

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I recreated the programming in Unity while watching and taking notes on these 3 videos, they were great for the most basic of basics in Bolt. The rest of their videos are not free, so I will look into their paid content and Udemy for more lessons tomorrow.