Designing Custom State Machine Instead of Animation State Machine in Unity for Developing 3rd Person Action Game

Abstract

The gaming industry has experienced unprecedented growth, evolving into a global powerhouse with diverse platforms and a vast consumer base. Market leaders such as Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo continue to dominate the console space, while PC gaming thrives with companies like Valve and Epic Games. Mobile gaming, led by giants like Tencent and Apple, has become a major revenue driver, reaching billions of users worldwide. The rise of cloud gaming services, exemplified by Google Stadia and Microsoft's xCloud, signals a shift toward accessible, subscription-based gaming experiences. In this regard, the choice of a game development engine depends on the project's requirements, the team's expertise, and the desired platform. Unity and Unreal Engine stand out as industry leaders, each with its strengths and use cases, while other engines like Godot, CryEngine, and Lumberyard cater to specific needs within the diverse landscape of game development. Unity is a versatile and widely used game development engine known for its accessibility, cross-platform support, and flexibility. It enables developers to create 2D, 3D, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) games. Unity uses C# as its primary scripting language and offers a robust Asset Store for pre-built assets and plugins. Design pattern implementation serves as the backbone of game development due to its pivotal role in enhancing code structure, scalability, and maintainability. By incorporating design patterns, developers can streamline the development process, leading to more efficient workflows and reduced development time. These patterns provide standardized solutions to common design problems, promoting code reuse and modularization, which are crucial for managing the complexity of game systems. Additionally, design patterns facilitate collaboration among team members by establishing a common language and framework for communication. They enable developers to create flexible and adaptable codebases that can easily accommodate changes and updates throughout the development lifecycle. Furthermore, design patterns promote best practices and coding standards, leading to cleaner, more readable code that is easier to debug and maintain. In the dynamic and fast-paced world of game development, where innovation and iteration are key, design patterns provide a solid foundation upon which developers can build immersive and engaging gaming experiences. The use of animation state machines in Unity for 3rd person action games introduces a range of challenges, encompassing synchronization issues, performance bottlenecks, responsiveness concerns, visual glitches, scalability limitations, and collaboration difficulties. Addressing these challenges is imperative to ensure the development of immersive, fluid, and engaging gaming experiences that meet the expectations of modern gamers. The proposed method aims to develop a custom state machine which will provide several benefits like Flexibility and Control, Seamless Integration with Game Logic, Responsive and Realistic Gameplay, Optimized Performance, Dynamic State Changes that are adaptable to changing conditions, Scalability and Support for Non-Animation States.