Setting up an Actor

What is an Actor?

Anything that performs several actions and therefore will benefit from an StateMachine handling its states of action, fits the concept of an actor for us.

That being said, the Actor class exists to be the gateway between the StateMachine and any other components wich handle anything for the Actor. Even the actor’s own stuff.

e.g. you can have a component that handles the movement of the actor, and another that handles the animation of the actor. Both of them will have references within the actor’s script, and therefore any of the actor’s states can access them.

// State class stuff

protected void FixedTick()
{
    actor.movement.Move(); // accessing a component inside a state
}

//  More State class stuff

You can have as many actors representations as you wish in your game. Being the class Actor an abstraction, just implement classes wich inherit from the Actor class.

How it Works

At its MonoBehaviour.Awake() the Actor will try finding a StateMachine component among either its own GameObject or its children GameObjects.

From there on the Machine will auto regulate the actor’s states evaluating if it needs transitioning into another state on each of the actor’s MonoBehaviour.Update() MonoBehaviour.FixedUpdate() and MonoBehaviour.LateUpdate() methods execution.

MonoBehaviour Tickers

At each of the Actor’s MonoBehaviour “frame handlers” it will call the Machine’s corresponding ticker. The machine will then call its current state corresponding Ticker method.

This means that all states will be synced with the actor’s MonoBehaviour methods. Therefore we can say all action’s execution are isolated inside the state respecting the actor’s pacing.

The Code

Below is a good start for creating an Actor script of your own. Feel free to copy:

Important

Be aware that you need calling the base class methods in case of overrides of the core MonoBehaviour methods (wich will probably be needed).

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
using Handy2DTools.Actions;

public class MyActor : Actor
{
    #region MonoBehaviour Methods

    // Be aware that you need calling the base class methods in case of overrides
    // (wich will probably be needed). Here are the important ones already coded:

    protected override void Awake() // Attention to override
    {
        base.Awake(); // Case you did override this MUST be here.
        // Code from here on...
    }

    protected override void Update() // Attention to override
    {
        base.Update(); // Case you did override this MUST be here.
        // Code from here on...
    }

    protected override void LateUpdate() // Attention to override
    {
        base.LateUpdate(); // Case you did override this MUST be here.
        // Code from here on...
    }

    protected override void FixedUpdate() // Attention to override
    {
        base.FixedUpdate(); // Case you did override this MUST be here.
        // Code from here on...
    }

    #endregion
}

You can also right click on a folder of your Unity Editor’s project window and follow the path Create -> Handy 2D Tools -> FSM -> New Actor. Selecting this will create a new Actor script under the right clicked folder for you (Make sure you have the package installed).

Hurray! You’ve just created your first Actor! Congratulations! Time to understand how to create states for your Actor by clicking here.