07/06/24, 17:42 Hit System with Interfaces in Unity | by Jared Amlin | Nerd For Tech | Medium

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Hit System with Interfaces in Unity

Jared Amlin · Follow
Published in Nerd For Tech
7 min read · Mar 22, 2024

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Have you ever wondered how first and third person shooter games handle their hit
system? You know the kind I am talking about, where headshots will kill an
opponent while a body or limb shot will take more than one hit. Then you get
various animations that play depending on where the enemy was hit when they took
damage or died.

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07/06/24, 17:42 Hit System with Interfaces in Unity | by Jared Amlin | Nerd For Tech | Medium

Most of the damage implementation I have done in the past involved a single object
with a collider on it. I have to admit, I still have no idea how AAA gaming studios
construct their hit systems, but this is the solution I came up with, using the Unity
Documentation as my only resource.

Scripting

I wanted to make this system scalable, reusable, and designer friendly, so I got
started with an Interface! This IHittable interface is the base class for all objects that
need to be hit. This is what a Raycast from a gun object or camera will use to pass in
a damage amount to the inheriting class, which leaves flexibility for more weapons
to pass in their own various amount of base damage.

public interface IHittable

{
void HitDamage(int damageAmount);
}

The Hit class, inherits from both MonoBehavior and IHittable. Multiple inheritance is
of course, one of the many benefits of using interfaces. This script can be attached
to any object with a collider that you want to be hit.
All Serialized Fields are assigned per script instance in the inspector.

The inherited Hit Damage method takes the incoming damage amount and
multiplies it by it’s hit multiplier value, then passes the new multiplied damage
amount to the IDamageable interface on the main parent object. The hitTrigger string
names assigned in the inspector need to perfectly match the name of the Trigger
parameter in the animator that you want to use, when this object is hit. Here I
reference two triggers, one for a hit reaction animation, and another for a death
animation. The Animation Clip variable is the animation you want to be triggered.

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This will get the length of the animation to pass in as a time value to stop the enemy
agent from moving, until the hit animation completes.

public class Hit : MonoBehaviour, IHittable

{
[SerializeField] private int _hitMultiplier;

[SerializeField] private string _hitTrigger;

[SerializeField] private string _deathTrigger;

[SerializeField] private AnimationClip _animationClip;

private float _clipLength;

private IDamageable enemyDamageable;

private void Start()

{
enemyDamageable = GetComponentInParent<IDamageable>();

_clipLength = _animationClip.length;
}

public void HitDamage(int damageAmount)

{
int damage = damageAmount * _hitMultiplier;

enemyDamageable.Damage(damage, _hitTrigger, _deathTrigger, _clipLength)

}
}

The IDamageable interface uses a health property with a getter. The damage method
takes parameters for the damage amount, string trigger names, and clip length
coming in from the Hit class.

public interface IDamageable

{
int Health { get; }

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void Damage(int damageAmount, string triggerName, string deathTriggerName,

}

The enemy class inherits from MonoBehavior and the IDamageable interface. The
important variables for this article are the Animator, and the inherited health
property and health variables.

The damage method takes in the parameter of the damage amount, and subtracts it
from the current health value. The health is checked to see if the enemy is dead, and
if death has run it’s course, the animator is triggered and passes in the string value
being passed in from the hit class. If there is life yet to be lived, the hit reaction
string value is triggered instead.
A coroutine is used to wait for the animation clip length to finish playing, before
moving the enemy agent again.

public class Enemy : MonoBehaviour, IDamageable

{
[SerializeField] private Transform _playerTransform;

[SerializeField] private NavMeshAgent _agent;

[SerializeField] private Animator _animator;

private float _clipLength;

[SerializeField] private int _startingHealth;

[SerializeField] private int _currentHealth;

private const string _waitRoutine = "WaitForAnimation";

private bool _isDead = false;

public int Health

{
get
{
return _currentHealth;
}
}

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private void Start() Open in app

{
_animator = GetComponent<Animator>();
Search

_currentHealth = _startingHealth;
}

// Update is called once per frame

void Update()
{
_agent.destination = _playerTransform.position;
}

private void Die()

{
Debug.Log("Enemy is DEAD");
}

public void Damage(int damageAmount, string triggerName, string deathTrigge

{
StopCoroutine(_waitRoutine);

_agent.isStopped = true;

_currentHealth -= damageAmount;

Debug.Log("Animation clip length " + clipLength);

if (_currentHealth > 0)
{
_animator.SetTrigger(triggerName);

SetClip(clipLength);

StartCoroutine(_waitRoutine);
}
else
{
if (!_isDead)
{
_isDead = true;

_animator.SetTrigger(deathTriggerName);

Die();
}
}
}

private IEnumerator WaitForAnimation()

{
float waitTime = GetClip();

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yield return new WaitForSeconds(waitTime);

_agent.isStopped = false;
}

private void SetClip(float clipLength)

{
_clipLength = clipLength;
}

private float GetClip()

{
return _clipLength;
}
}

Everything begins here where the player shoots a raycast forward from the center of
the screen. All it needs to do is check if the hit object has an IHittable interface, and
if it does, pass in a damage amount.

private void Shoot_performed(InputAction.CallbackContext context)

{
//shoot
print("Shooting!");

//raycast forward from screen center

Ray rayOrigin = Camera.main.ViewportPointToRay(_centerPoint);

//store hit info

RaycastHit hitInfo;

if (Physics.Raycast(rayOrigin, out hitInfo))

{
Debug.Log("Hit object " + hitInfo.collider.name);

IHittable hit = hitInfo.collider.GetComponent<IHittable>();

if (hit != null)
{
hit.HitDamage(10);
//Instantiate(_bloodVFX, hitInfo.point + hitInfo.normal, Quater

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Instantiate(_bloodVFX, hitInfo.collider.transform.position, Qua

}
}

_gunInterface.Play();

_muzzleFlash.SetActive(true);
}

Colliders and Inspector

Each object that needs to be hit has a capsule collider. I used 10 colliders in this
example (head, torso, left and right arms and legs with upper and lower colliders), but
feel free to use as many or as few as you need.

I used the corresponding rig objects as the parents for the respective colliders, so
that they move with the model. This is a Mixamo rig (thanks Adobe!), and here is the
head rig object with a collider and an instance of the Hit script.

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Another example showing the left arm colliders.

You can see the Hit script on the spine has a hit multiplier of 10, strings for the Body
Hit and Body Death animations, and the Hit to Body reaction animation being used.

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Animator

The first things first, let’s make Trigger parameters in the Animator for every
different animation you want to play.

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There is probably a more elegant way to handle the Animator than this default
window, so bear with me. Other than the Rifle Walk as the entry state, all other hit
and death clips are triggered from Any State.

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The transitions from Any State have no Exit Time, so it is very responsive when
jumping between hit animations before the previous one has finished playing. Each
transition has one Condition, that is the matching Trigger name.

Here is another example with the death from a body shot transition.

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The only transitions with exit times are the ones going from the hit reaction
animations back to the default Rifle Walk state.

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Results

Body and Leg hits.

Arm hits.

Head hits.

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Headshot.

Body Death

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Arm Death

Leg Death

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Compilation

Feel free to let me know in the comments how YOU would put together a hit system,
and thanks for reading!

Unity Game Development Unity3d Interfaces Fps Games

Game Development

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Written by Jared Amlin

435 Followers · Writer for Nerd For Tech

I am an artist and musician, that is currently diving headfirst into game development with C# and Unity3D.

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