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In this lecture, we're going to go through just a really quick introduction to prefab variants.

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So you can see that you can easily make different looks and feels and sizes and things of your game

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objects, things that have been prefab in your game to create variation for your player.

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We've learned that prefabs are a great way to create a template that we can use throughout our many

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levels and scenes, and we can quickly make one change to one thing and one spot the prefab and then

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it rolls out to all of the instances.

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We can also make prefab variants, so let's have a look at that.

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So I've got one coin prefab down in here.

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If I was to take one of my other coins in the scene and get there and say, You know what, I'd like

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to have a bigger coin.

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So if I change the scale this to say 2 to 2 on my scaling, we've got a big coin and I can grab that

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coin now and drag that down into my prefab area and create a prefab variant.

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And that prefab variant will have links to the original prefab coin, so just rename it instead of being

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a coin two.

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I'll click on it once and rename it Big Coin, we'll say or mega coin, something like that.

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And then we've got the original coin.

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I'll just leave that as called coin.

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It's a little bit of pain to have to go back and call everything original when you go and make some

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variants.

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So I'll just leave the original as original and you know, it's probably even sensible instead of just

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big coins.

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And I'm a big coin variant.

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So that we're very clear that, oh, that thing is going to link to whatever the coin is.

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Now, what does all this mean?

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If I change something fundamental on our coin, on our parent prefab, if you will, then it will change

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things on any of the variants that sit underneath that higher level object.

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So in here, if I was to change the coin, we'll say, for example, the volume on our coin when we

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on our audio source, this is on the main coin here.

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If I was to drag that down, down, down to say 0.5, which I've kind of been wanting to do because

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it's a little bit loud.

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0.5 Now when I click on Bitcoin, you can see it has been changed as well.

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It sounds like I'm saying Bitcoin, doesn't it?

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I'm just saying Bitcoin calm down.

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This is not a crypto course, but it could be.

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It could be a little man's running around in our crypto world.

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There's a theme for your game if you're looking for a theme.

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So we've made a change in there.

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What it won't change is if we go and change, say the scale or the position or the rotation of our parent

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objects.

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So if I change the scale here to something weird on the X, you'll see blink all of my other coins.

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So these ones that are based on the original coin prefab they change.

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But our coin variant doesn't change.

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I'll just undo that.

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However, if I change any of the other components at will.

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So if I want to change my coins and give them a different color, so if I click on a bluey kind of thing,

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then everything becomes green, even my variant.

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So things that are further down the tree change as well.

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I just put that back to normal.

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However, if I go and change something on the variant, for example on the bitcoin, I go and change

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that to say a green colour.

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Then it won't propagate up the hierarchy to those other coins.

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So it's a really handy way for us to make a base object.

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So in other words, a base enemy or a base coin that has consistent properties that we know everything

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needs to have movement and collision and all these kind of things, but then we can quickly create some

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variation in that.

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So it looks different and exciting to our player that the coins aren't always exactly the same.

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I could also on my big coin here, I'm going to say it carefully now I'm just going to turn my big coin

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back to yellow.

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I think it's fine.

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It looks different because it's big.

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It doesn't need to be green as well.

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I could also go and change on here the points per pick up, say for example, 300 on here.

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Now if I go and drag another big coin into the world, if I click on that, it also has 300 points.

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But these little coins, if I can click on one of the little coins, it's still only has 100 points

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for pickup.

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Now, if I go and change these points in here, if I go and change the number of points you get for

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a small coin.

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So back on to the small coin, main prefab.

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If I was to change the number of points here to 200, for example, then you'll be able to see that

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both of my little coins are now at 200.

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If I can find that 200 and this one's at 200, however my prefab variants are going to remain at, if

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I click on it, remain at 300.

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And that's because I've gone and made a change to the variant.

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So when it's different, the change to the parent is not going to override that.

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Very similar the way normal prefabs work.

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When you've changed an instance, there's some things that get propagated and some things that don't.

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But because I've gone and said, You know what, these ones are 300.

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Then if I go and change these to something else to 200 or 100 or 1000, it's not going to roll down

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to the variant.

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So that's just a little bit of an overview of what these things do in terms of how we can create variants,

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variants.

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So I've got a little bit of a challenge for you on here, and that is to mess around with variants,

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experiment, and then to take one or more aspect of your game and create variants for them.

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For example, there's something else in our scene at the moment that we can mess around with a little

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bit that I'll be messing around with.

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So pause the video and play around with prefab variants and get some variation in your game.

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Okay.

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As hinted at, I'm going to click on one of the Goobers if I can click on Goober there.

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Okay.

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We've got Goober Enemy and I'm going to drag that down into my prefab folder.

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So I'll drag it first and then mess around on it second.

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Yes, I want to create a prefab variant and then instead of Goober, we'll call this.

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Let's see, red goober variant.

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Side note I've got my icons like this so that you can see visually what I'm clicking on, but I often

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have it like this so that I can see the name of things more fully and more easily.

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But I'll pop it back to there so you can see.

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But it just does mean that often my names are getting cut off on the screen here.

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It's a little bit harder to see.

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So I've got Red Goober.

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Let's go and make the goober.

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Let's see.

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Red.

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Good idea, Rick.

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After calling him that, he kind of needs to live up to the name.

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So this is a really imperfect way of changing the color on sprites in our game.

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By the way, it's better if we go back to the original Photoshop file or the original PNG that we've

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got and color it in there.

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But this is just some quick and dirty way that I can show you some of these concepts in the game.

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And if we'd set our enemies up so that they have health on them or they took a certain number of hits,

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or maybe this one was invincible and that one wasn't.

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There's plenty of other things we could do with the variant.

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For now, it's just color, so it easily allows us to drag in some different colors into the world.

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So let's just make sure everything works.

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But we can still jump on those coins.

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They behave as expected, the persistence behaves as expected.

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And we've got different colored goober that if I so desired, I could get there and say, Let's put

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in another red one or let's put in another original one, and we could make changes on the original

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one that most of those changes are going to propagate down to the variant.

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So there's just a little quick intro and overview of how prefab variants work.

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It's a really powerful way if you get a lot of variation in your game for your player.

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Okay, I'll see you in the next lecture.