As you said in the video, I'm faster with code! When I started programming I was 9 I wanted everything to be visual and direct over the years I have started to get more and more into game development and started to see that coding is much better than visual scripting solutions! Currently I'm 17, I used over 7 visual scripting tools and I find myself repulsed by them! Although I love Bolt and love how polished it is, I still can't use Unity without writing code! (sorry for my bad English I hope that you get what I mean)
Hi, thanks for your videos on Bolt! I have the Asset Store open at the shopping cart with Bolt in it right now, but I'm still not sure if It serves what I need. I'm not an expert programmer, but I'm not afraid of writing code. The problem that I have is mostly with the general game structure or game flow and making sure that everything that needs to happen at a given moment do happen and at the right order. I could write it directly, using what my friends and I call "mão grande" ("big hand", in portuguese), but in a way that everything is coupled, it's really difficult to edit or add. Examples: I'd like to create the flow between "Open Game > Splash > Menu with menu navigation > Load Level > End Level > Return to menu..." and so on, without much trouble, with the UI activating/deactivating correctly, sounds playing, transitions. Also, let's say that I'm making a point and click adventure and when the player moves to a new scene, I need to move him to the correct starting position THEN move the camera to the new position THEN fade in from black. But maybe if he goes there when some conditions are true, the game plays a cutscene instead, before giving control back to the player. Do you think Bolt would be useful for managing this kind of stuff? Thanks again!
@@felipenanni Bolt can definitely help with visualizing the flow of logic. This can be done really well with a combination of C# and flow graphs OR using state graphs. State graphs in Bolt often get ignored and I suspect are under used. Once Bolt 2 is released (will generate C# code) I can definitely see myself using Bolt state graphs in combination with my own C# code on my personal projects for AI or other more complex behaviors. Hope that helps. Happy to answer more questions if it didn't.
Glad folks are enjoying the videos. Hopefully there's many more in the channel's future! Although I will be focusing most on Bolt 2... If you're looking for help make sure to get on the Bolt and the OWS discord. Lots of folks out there willing to help.
Great video! I'm a full-stack senior dev in the spatial computing industry. The interplay between visual scripting and higher level languages fascinates me. I believe VPLs are the new higher level language. They will eclipse languages like C# eventually, the same way higher level languages eclipsed their predecessors in the 90s. I think programmers are generally not onboard with this idea yet, but as your students graduate and become professionals, I think we're about to see a Renaissance in computer science. Visual scripting IS programming, as you said. It's just a matter of perspective, and the sooner we all recognize this, the sooner tools like Bolt will become even more robust.
I started my indie dev journey middle of last year. I've studied most of the building blocks for making games for atleast a year and a half before. But I've always struggled with C#, it's not that C# is HARD it's just that for me it keeps building a wall in front of my progress. So I got Bolt.. and honestly so far it's amazing and I hope it continues to prove to be so, even if you dont know how to code bolt does a good job of giving you simple terms to understand sometimes complex logic, I am even finding myself learning more about C# now then I was before.. only now I am making progress at the same time. But that said keep up the good vids man really enjoying them!
For Playmaker variables, there is a handy little checkbox on the variables tab that lets you add them to the inspector so you can edit them there without needing to keep switching to the variables tab. :) Very good breakdown between the two assets!
it reminds me of Unreal Engine. I've done Unreal Engine's bluprint scripting before I started with Unity. Once I got Bolt it was very easy to use because of how much it works like UR Blueprints.
I'm teaching a high school and middle school class using unity. I've been doing it for eight years now. This semester I'm going to have my students build a game using C# and then build the same game using bolt. Hopefully they will reinforce each other!
@@GameDevUE Meaning it's not the solution for everything. For the kind of game that require high versatibility and performances like simulation, rts, or implementing true AI. Some will even prefer C++ and data oriented programming. Look at games like total war it's impossible to achieve that with visual scripting.
im brand new to unity and game development in general. decided to take some courses on Udemy for coding and unity game development. I have zero background in coding. I do however have a background in music production. I recently discovered bolt as an "alternative" to coding games. and from what I can tell its sort of the equivalent to midi in music production. yes...you can most definitely add an orchestra to your song using midi...but you still need to understand the fundamentals of music and chord progressions and time signatures and notes etc. you don't need to know how to play all of the instruments in the orchestra but you still have to understand how music is made. same with bolt it seems. sure...you may not "writing code"...but its still code. its still based in c#. it reminds me of the program Stencyl. so you still have to have at least a fundamental grasp on the logic and how code "fits together". its basically coding without the syntax.
Bolt is hands down the best visual scripting solution for Unity. I've tried most, if not all, of them and as a programmer I was able to pick this up in a matter of hours instead of days/weeks.
I sure liked Blueprints on UE4, mostly did basic audio programming on summer game course. It was easy to add audio scripts on someone else's code and make my own things, like ambient sounds switch based on location. Still thinking about, should I try out Bolt. I've tried getting into Unity, but text based has been difficult for me, because of my eyesight and difficulties understanding what works with other.
I'm currently concidering switching to bolt. Playmaker is nice, but since one of the recent unity updates, half my stuff isn't working anymore and can't be upgraded to the new library. ALso heard that Bolt is close to Unreals blueprints. That one was confusing so hopefully by learning bolt i find it easyer to switch to the Unreal engine after a while for a different project.
Thank you. First and only one saying what it is, coding. I really thought I'm the only person on this planet who is completely stupid cause I couldn't manage to build one feature on my own
Thanks for posting this pretty depth review. I’m looking to switching from Construct 2 and Playmaker to Bolt. Might wait for Bolt 2 just for the C# Generator (Great way to to see correlations). By chance, have you come across a Bolt Beat Em Up tutorial? I haven’t.
Glad to hear the video was useful! Bolt is pretty awesome. As for a "Beat Em Up Tutorial" I haven't seen one at this point. As for Bolt 2, it's looking like it might be a while before it's out of alpha/beta. The update/upgrade is free and while there is some difference in workflow it's probably not that different - so why wait? :) Also! The developers have said that the price will increase once Bolt 2 is out.
I've spend months now, and countless video's on Unity/C# tutorials.. and still not getting the 'coding logic". Like selecting a method/function and therefor Unity/C# requires other things to input... kinda loosing on it. Now I've seen some Bolt video's and not there yet, but it does feel Bolt makes in literally more visual... case a box literally has 'input' and 'output' and I can see right away if and what needs to be put in to get the output... so much more clear! So right now, I want to leave C# a bit and focus on Bolt tutorials.. so I can get a better grip on 'how C# "thinks" '. Then, hopefully, when going further in more pure Unity/C#, I have better understanding that what I do. Basically all tutorial video's from experts, simply don't understand the distance a noob is... noob minds don't think like them and therefor things that are logic to the expert aren't logic to the noob (yet). The bridge to make this, is what pro teachers separate from experts who make video's. This skill is highly overlooked and very rare.. for high professionals to still make the right bridge between the 'noob language' and 'expert language'... Glad to see this video, it did confirm me what I need to do. Thnx! ;)
I haven't tried Unity's solution - I didn't think it was public yet... Also it's going to be DOT/ECS oriented so a totally different beast that will require some relearning. Its definitely on my radar.
I already know how to code, though I still consider myself a beginner. After watching this and a couple of other videos, I honestly feel as if coding directly in script is faster, but somehow I want to try Bolt. Would anyone recommend it in my position? Maybe what I'm trying to say is. Would learning Bolt at this stage make me a better programmer?
I would say it's free and any time spent "thinking" in code will make you a better programmer. The flow of Bolt is a bit different than C# and I think stretching yourself to think in a new way is almost always a good think :)
I think I'm gonna learn bolt, and basic c#. Gonna try to learn c# because I can understand troubleshooting bolt better. But I wanna learn bolt because I'm a very busy student, so learning c# for game design may take a while
Did you see that Unity acquired Bolt earlier this month? I'm curious what they're going to do with Bolt 2. It would be cool to see it eventually become free. It would make teaching programming *logic* easier on a wider scale, if it was readily available for anyone. I'm a C# coder, so I don't see myself using it for my personal projects. I would love to play around though. Maybe even prototype in it to get a good visual representation of how to put things together code-wise.
It will be very interesting to see what they do with the pricing. I'm hoping Bolt 2 will be free... Who knows. I generally prefer C# too, but the state macros could really come in handy and would work nicely with C# code for creating FSMs or similar.
@@OneWheelStudio That's an interesting take on FSMs. I'm tempted to try Bolt out. Might be nice to visually plan something and actually get results. With Unity owning it now though, I'm scared 4 months from now I paid $70 for something that will become free haha. Would you say its best to do more complex AI work (pathfinding, for example) with code or do you think Bolt would shine well for that?
I think your fear of it going free is well founded. No inside knowledge, just seems like a reasonable guess. As for more complicated AI definitely do it with C# or at least wait until Bolt 2 is able to generate C#. I have a basic A* style project with Bolt sitting in a dusty folder waiting for Bolt 2. With Bolt 1.x it was too slow. As for using a state macro for an FSM that runs C# in each state shouldn't be an issue at all.
@@OneWheelStudio I will go ahead and wait. At least for a sale (maybe a summer one?). And by slow I assume you mean actually slow to work out, or a performance slow? Thank you for all of your responses, sir, they've been really helpful. Happy programming :)
The performance is slow. There is some overhead for each unit, I think, and with something like A* you go through a lot of small steps which makes for slow (900ms vs 45ms) going.
No online class, but most of my videos were made to support my real life course. I'm wanting to start a "coding challenge" series which could be similar to small assignments or projects in a class... A bunch of people have asked about a Udemy course. We'll see. Short free videos are a lot easier :)
Based on your graph, playmaker should be used for total beginners. Then you move up to bolt then to C#. They're all useful. I've been trying to learn coding concepts like classes, properties, methods and I had a hard time because there was no visual aid.
It’s possible. With bolt you have to type less but there is a lot of back and forth between the mouse and keyboard. With C# you can take advantage of autocomplete so you often only need to type a few letters of each word. I’d experiment and see which is faster for you.
thank you that help me i will buy it. im new to unity and c# is hard to me bcz for now havent time to learn c# bcz im focussing on the other whole things like unity itself. 3d modeling ..... that help me a lot but i have something last is unity 2019.3.a has a visual scripting built in it will be available in the coming finale updates so that will be very powerful like unreal engine blueprints and the last last thing .....SUBSCRIBED😜
Glad to hear the video was helpful! Bolt is a great tool to get into Unity with. The visual scripting tool that Unity is (planning) on introducing is going to be based on the ECS so fundamentally different than Bolt or the current monobehaviour scripts. I'm very interested to see it, but I'm cautiously skeptical as Unity has a way of introducing but not always finishing products.
Great video, out of interest have you used dreams on ps4/5 and what are your thoughts on it? I have been using it for a year and love it as someone with absolutely no game development experience. It’s made me very curious about bolt as it looks quite similar to he logic side of dreams
I run a video game maker's club (and a makerspace) at my school and am considering using Bolt, but idk about dropping $70 on every student who *thinks* they *may* want to try programming -- especially in my low- or no- budget district. How, ahem, flexible are Bolt licenses / downloads for the various workstations in a lab / classroom?
I remember reading that Bolt might be included in an educational package... I'm hoping that it will happen and save my students some cash. As for the "flexibility" of the license, I'll let you figure it out.
Excellent, thanks, can I make a 3D boss using Bolt, instead of using coding, like to make my boss attack, and do complex movements, unique attacks? I got the level design down, and my FPS character controller, I just need my unique bosses, that move around, and attack, and do complex movements, and design my FPS guns in Blender 3D.
@@OneWheelStudio Thank you, so in order to make a 3D boss for my app game, ill need: 1. Make, and design the boss in Blender, use photos of monstors from then internet to copy from for inspiration, then learn rigging in Blender 3D. 2. Somehow make the boss animate, and move using Blender 3D, or Unity 3D. is this correct? are these the steps I must take? Is it as simple as this to do? thanks for all you help.
@@Stinger-rq4gy I think those are good steps. Making a boss, won't be simple. Making a boss could easily be 100s of hours of work even if you know how to do all the steps. It's doable but with most things in game design, it's not easy and takes a surprising amount of time. This year, I've made a big push for my students to do 2D, while still not "easy" it is far simpler than 3D - in general.
@@OneWheelStudio Excellent thank you.🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳✨✨🎇🎆🎆🎆🎇 Ill work on my game for the rest of my life. Ill try to learn shotcuts to save me time so its not 100 hours. Is the process of building a 3D character boss: 1. Design in Blender 3D, then rig it using Rigify, 2. Import it to Unity 3D, then use Bolt Visual Scripting to make it move, and do complex movements in Unity 3D? Anything I'm missing?
@@Stinger-rq4gy That sounds good. I would likely build up the boss with minimal art first. Just to get the code working and see if it's fun. In my opinion it's almost always good to start with functionality before diving into the art too much.
People keep asking... I'll look into it this summer, maybe :) I am looking to create short "coding challenge" videos that might be similar to an assignment or small project. Ideally folks could then share their solutions and we could all learn from each other. I think I need a larger community to pull it off.
@@OneWheelStudio I've been hopping in and out of C# and bolt tutorials. I would appreciate small challenges like that, to further my confidence in the craft lol. You could also consider adding the bolt beginner's community in these challenges, no? Thank you for the videos!
That vertical flow is from Bolt 2 and Bolt 2 was canceled by Unity. Hopefully, some of the features for Bolt 2 will be implemented, but we're still waiting to see what exactly that looks like.
@@OneWheelStudio i tried teaching myself C++ for a bit then C# over the past few months, but really hit a wall without an actual teacher, then i found bolt and I have been trying to learn that for a couple weeks now I have a LOT of game ideas, and i'm working on what i feel is the easiest of my game ideas right now But it's kinda hard finding help building each individual mechanic separately with bolt and trying to put it all together when i dont even have a solid foundation ^_^" And trying to find a community that can help is like pulling teeth yeesh Everyone just tells me to google it lol
Have you checked out the Bolt discord? It's fairly active. My discord is quiet and slowly shifting to more C#, but there are people there whiling to help too.
That's the plan! The last alpha of Bolt 2 is "mostly" done. With that will come significant changes. To the bolt workflow so I'm dragging my feet until then.
4 года назад+1
Nice video. I have question, how good do you have to be at coding c# before bolt is not helping you? I know the basis of C# but feel limited since I do not know the commands I want to use for certain actions. When I found the actions in Unity documentation / reddit ect, I do have to use some time to implement correctly. - quite a lot of try and error. Would it be better to continue learning the C# or would Bolt be a good step so I can make the games faster?
That’s a great question. Bolt will help some in that when you drag out a value it will tend to give you appropriate or useful commands to add next. Also you can look up say “collections” and you’ll see several related functions or functions to be used with collections. That said you still have to find or know what functions to use. Function names in Bolt are very close to C# so much of what you would learn with Bolt will transfer to C#. So short answer: it’ll help but it’s still work to learn.
I would say difficulty stems from learning style a visual learner will get visual scripting faster than pure C# where interpersonal (read/write) will get C# faster than Visual. You also have people who learn faster in via social/feedback and solitairy environments. Not all learning environments fit every individual. A more social learner learns more from asking questions from an instructor but be confused via textbooks, where a solitary learner may be confused when something is explained but understand through reading from the textbook.
It's true that the number of tutorials is somewhat limited, but truthfully for any game genre you'll need to learn the basics and then apply those to the chosen genre. If you can break down the game you have in mind in to small chunks and work on those. There's a ton of folks in the Bolt community that are happy to help!
Oh , ✌️ , i wanna learn C# and game development , but there's no sign of teachers that teaches these things in my place Anyways your tutorials are Awesome
Honestly i was just looking for a way to use both bolt and c# together, in one hand bolt makes it easier for me to create a prototype and set things up and running from the first day of development so i can tell if i should stick with the game idea or not on the other hand bolt will actually makes it harder for you the more complex your game will get. so i was thinking i should only be using bolt for prototypes and then proceed with normal c# even if it takes longer handwriting scripting feels more flexible or maybe its just a habit
At this point with Bolt 2 canceled and Unity still quiet on their VS roadmap I'd agree that Bolt doesn't scale well for many games. Hopefully with the new roadmap there will be new tools or new features that will restore some of the capability of Bolt 2.
I think that's a great plan. I think that is the best and most ideal use of Bolt. For me I did that with playmaker and finally jumped to C# a year or so in.
Why not use both Playmaker and Code as an integrated solution. What you could learn in 3 years of coding, you could easily learn in Playmaker in 3 months. The problem with PM is that it lacks the overall resources out there on RUclips. What PM does have over code is that the learning curve is a lot faster, yet there is always that tendency for things to hit a wall. Yet if you use PM in creative ways it does give you tremendous leverage over coding. It's simply easier to trouble shoot, break apart as you don't need to micromanage text. The important thing to remember is that PM is like a set on instructions, or elements that fire off code at runtime. You don't declare low level code, everything is done at a higher level. Essentially as long as you understand game logic it can make any designer incredible powerful. The real power of PM is when you combine, or draw out variables and properties of game objects that are written in code. So you could download a car controller, and access it's properties from within PM. Not only that you could also control a 3rd party assett within PM, or even have events activated by the condition of a 3rd party assett. Simply having PM control or read virtually any property of coded assetts really extends the functionality of PM. A lot of people have an all or nothing apporach and the question is do you build a house with a hammer, or a nail gun, or do you simply get both, and use both to automate the process.
I think you are totally right that the real power of PM is combining it with C#. If there's a coder/designer relationship then PM can be truly powerful! For many who are getting started and most of my real world students they're on their own and learning C# plus PM is too much. I wanted an environment where they could create more independently. Bolt fits that need a lot better.
Short answer: It won't effect it much in the next 2-3 years. Longer answer: My understanding is that Bolt will stay OOP for the moment. Once the DOTS or ECS is more developed it may get wrapped into it or be able to use it. Unity is working on their own visual scripting solution that will be ECS based - but I have my doubts about that being ready any time soon (see UNET for examples of half baked products).
@@LyokoUnite I've never played it but I've probably seen similar. There's no reason you couldn't create a similar mechanic with Bolt. Now how to write that code... That I'm not sure. For me this would not be a case of Bolt limiting me, but the difficulty of the task.
I think Bolts performance is way better then it used to be - maybe 10 times faster but C# will still generally be faster. In the past it wasn’t too noticeable unless you were doing lots of small calculations (lots of blocks in blot)
Question, as someone who is trained entirely in using C#, but would like to make things cleaner and more stream lined, how does bolt handle scriptable objects? I am working on a 3D platformer, and all of my variables are stored as scriptable objects so that 1) they can be serialized cleaner, 2) so they can be accessed easily via outside scripts without the overhead of loading an entire script for a single variable. I am going to be rewriting a lot of my character controller related programming and thing bolt may be a good approach, BUT only if it handles scriptable objects well
With Bolt you can add any types you need so it can easily handle SOs and do so reasonably gracefully. I can't speak to the performance of Bolt with SOs. That said, if you are comfortable with C# I would recommend staying with C#. I mostly view Bolt as a tool for learning and as an easier entry point for folks with little or no programming experience.
@@OneWheelStudio Ah ok, good to know. The main reason I was interested in Bolt is when working in a team node/graph based systems are easier to explain of to edit by other members of the team who aren't able to really ready C# fluidly. Also, it would be a good way to logic check something quickly before scripting it out fully when prototyping since node based systems are closer to persadocode format. Makes sense in my head at least lol
@@OneWheelStudio anyways thank you for letting me know about SO support. After doing some looking until Bolt, serialization was the one thing that a LOT of people had issue with since it converts everything to genetic objects, not specified objects, making the variables hard to reload in. SO's wouldn't have this issue.
I think those are great reasons to use bolt. You can also import custom classes so you can make higher level units/nodes by calling C# functions - even better for folks who aren’t comfortable with C#
This video is old info. Playmaker has no limitations. You have the same abilities as unity's built in visual scripting. Everything that may be missing in playmaker has already had custom actions built for it, or you can build your own. It all comes down to what interface you find easier to grasp, at this point. Also both are great starting points to learn the core concepts of C# when you decide to switch over...IF you decide to switch. It really isn't necessary unless you are pursuing a career in game development beyond indie games.
No code in visual scripting is the biggest lie. I am an outsider trying to get in and all the things dont make sense in a way i can just "draw" the game. Os there a good free ressource you can recommend?
Couldn't agree more about that biggest lie. It's a marketing gimick and a way to get YT clicks! As for a resources, if you want to use Bolt then RUclips search is the best you can find right now. I have a few Bolt playlist (check the channel page), but there is very little "official." You can check out this too: learn.unity.com/project/bolt-platformer-tutorial It was a video series turned into a written tutorial by Unity. Beyond that, if you are brand new to Unity and not determined to use Bolt, I'd recommend "Create with Code" on the Unity Learn site. My students used it this year and I was pretty impressed with it and what my students could do.
I'm a programmer who often times during prototyping gets bogged down in trying to write 'elegant' solutions, losing sight of the original goal I had when I sat down. I've been toying with the idea of visual scripting for prototyping but I'm afraid of it getting too unmanagable for complex behaviour, and I'm curious is it easy to mix custom c# scripts into bolt and handle commication between objects. Can you give any insight on this?
It’s really easy to mix in C# code with Bolt I haven’t made a video on it as the process will change and get far easier with Bolt 2. If you check out my videos on handling data (scriptable object’s) I show how to “bring the script” and thus any public variables and functions into Bolt. Here’s a link to the first video. ruclips.net/video/HMIeqhXU-6M/видео.html
For sure. It’s one of the harder genres to create so I would not recommend starting there. If you do start there plan it out and build it little chunk by chunk.
That was part of Bolt 2 and that was canceled by Unity. There is no word if C# generation will eventually become part of "Unity Visual Scripting" in the future.
Hi, I was thinking about prototyping my game and then hiring a dev to complete it. Would you recommend Bolt over PM specifically for this situation because of the C#? Or do u think that a PM prototype would be fine for them to adapt? I’m drawn more to PM because of it’s ease of use
That would depend on the developer. I would probably make that connection first and then go forward. That said, in my opinion, the Bolt units do translate to C# more directly than PM. Personally, I would find it easier to translate a Bolt flow macro to C# than a PM FSM.
@@OneWheelStudio So, any asset created using bolt would require any other user to have bolt installed as well, yes? But it sounds like that is about to change with the next update?
Correct. I have played a little with an alpha build of Bolt 2 and the code generation is there, but it’s still alpha so I didn’t get into to it too much.
I have a question. I started my Unity journey in April 2020. So Bolt was 70 USD. Unity Learn Premium was in a three month free period and I tried to understand how everything works. I never had much problems with coding. I was studying Python and had much fun with it. I started out, got some experience, and always felt that those visual aids as some kind of expensive hindrance. You always reach a point where you will end up hard coding anyway, so it's better start coding early. Now I'm almost at the intermediate C# level and everything is FREE! Could Bolt be used as a Visual aid to understand my code better? It's nice to have 20 neat scripts around your Scripts folder, but maybe those nice little boxes and colorful lines could be used like a code map. Like a visual helper to see where each class will connect with each function...
Interesting idea. Are you thinking of something like a mind map? Personally I would probably use a different tool to visually organize my code. You probably could do what you are talking about, but that’s not really what the tool is designed for. If you do want to explore that idea I’d suggest looking into state graphs. You can create and name states however you choose so maybe that’s helpful?
@@OneWheelStudio Exactly THANKS! Like a Mind Map! I'll Try it out or Suggest the Idea to the Unity Gnomes that are maintaining Bolt. For example. I'm learning from RUclips and a few Udemy Courses. Sometimes the teachers uses 15 different scripts. I Know that is better to do this way, I was learning Python before this awesome Adventure! But we reach a point that it becomes harder to remember where are the functions in those different Classes and How they Connect!
@One Wheel Studio How You save things in Bolt? I was trying to use Saved Variable and after a while I have a big list - is hard to deal with it. Also bunch of attempts with SerializeField - and I know isn't working with Bolt. Please response :
Well to be honest in my opinion you are starting to run into a limitation with Bolt and Unity Visual Scripting. It just doesn't scale up very well. It's great for small games, demos and learning, but yeah. I did a video a while back about text vs. visual scripting with mor of these thoughts. ruclips.net/video/wcZVWQlP-OM/видео.html To be more constructive, a solution could be to use lists and store all your info in there. That takes some work to save and load the data correctly but pulling element 43 or 102 out of a list is probably better than creating 300 separate variables. Another option is to use a tool like Easy Save. I use it in my C# projects. Its got a learning curve, but definitely works and once you understand how it works it's pretty easy to. I'd high recomend it, but it does cost money.
@@OneWheelStudio Actually I bought Easy Save 3 about a month ago. Now I am discovering its properties. Thanks, it's a sign that I'm on the right track! :3
On the surface I would say if you are comfortable with C# then just stay with it. I use C# in my personal projects, that said there are some times that visual programming can be highly useful and when Bolt 2 arrives it will all turn into to C#!!! The examples that I think about are things like AI where the you might be using "states" (creating a Finite State Machine) and transitions between states. This can be done with a enum and switch statement in C# but can get complex and be hard to debug. Playmaker and Bolt can also be good for making it easier because you can see the flow of the logic and actually this is the intention of PM as it is just an FSM.
I really don't know. It's enabled on the back end and my other videos have them... I'm looking into it, but it seems like YT just didn't do it and there appears no way for my to force YT to try again with the automatic CC. I'll keep looking into a solution.
Bolt is cool, it's a great concept and it's a lot easier for me at least. I used visual scripting for 1.5 years and I finally decided to switch to C# because all of my games would run soooo bad and I discovered that Visual scripting causes your games to have horrible performance. Visual scripting is 100-200 times slower when it comes to your games performance. Performance is the only bad thing about Visual Scripting
is Real time C# Generation is cancelled for unity Visual Scripting , Because I am not hearing anything about it . And also I can't see any C# generation option in latest unity versions.
Hi. I was wondering if Bolt scripting supports multiplayer. I always wanted to make a multiplayer game without having to code. I succeeded in making a team based coop offline (same network) multiplayer game through Playmaker when Unet was still around. But after that Unet became deprecated and so did all the Unet support from Playmaker. Is there a way that Bolt can support making multiplayer games?
Bolt works via reflection (i.e. it creates units all by itself) so it will work with most third party tools. The trick is to import all the assemblies and types that you will need - this will take a good chunk of research and reading of the documentation. I'm not sure what the "best" networking solution is these days - my first game was multiplayer I won't do that again :)
If someone can help a newbie out here: For a slow learner who learns best by being gradually exposed to more complex Versions, would it maybe still make sense to start with playMaker for a year or two, get to Bolt after that and after five years or so start trying strictly text C#? Differently put, would learning the easier playMaker first give me an advantage when starting with Bolt, or should I rather skip playMaker alltogether and start with Bolt from the getgo?
I'd say jump into Bolt. It's free, so no harm in trying it. Watch a few videos do try making some very basic things happen. If you don't like it try playmaker. That said if you are starting with Unity too, you'll be learning two things at once. My students this year, for a bunch of reasons, worked through Unity's Create with Code course. It's all C#, but starts with the basics of Unity as well. Right now that course would be my top recommendation if you are new to Unity and programming. learn.unity.com/course/create-with-code
Does bolt have ways to quickly search for references within my code like in visual studio's ctrl + , . Or if I need to rename something is there a way to make sure I'm renaming everything at once like with VS's ctrl + r + r ? Oh and jumping to other instances of the current function/variable/etc. like how you can do with ctrl + shift and the arrow keys in VS? Or is navigation pretty much limited to manually looking through the nodes all the time?
No it doesn't. That's one of the major short comings at the moment. Bolt 2 did... So we're hoping some of that will get addressed and added to Bolt 1 (i.e. Unity visual scripting) in the coming months as Unity works on Bolt.
I tend to agree. But everyone processes information differently and for many visual scripting reduces the barriers to creating games. For many a wall of text based code is impossible to read. One of the goals of the bolt creator was to creat a bridge to full text based coding. It’ll be interesting to see if Unity can follow through on that.
I feel never got the hang of visual scripting. You have to create nodes and connect them, and then set parameters, etc. C# with VS Code is the best Unity scripting workflow in my opinion. IntelliSense can't be beat, even with an idiot proof scripting solution. I may change my mind when Unity releases their Visual Scripting solution in a stable release, but for now, stick with C# kids. Direct access to the Unity Engine API and the language is transferable outside of Unity.
Bolt 2 actually generate C# on the fly, so I don't really get why you wouldn't use the best of both worlds? I mean, let's face it: debugging with Bolt is waaay quicker and more reliable than just scrolling through your C# script everytime... Though that doesn't mean you can't hook up existing C# scripts in Bolt either. Best of both worlds to me, though I can get why some devs don't find it that useful in their workflow.
lol construct 3 no-code is not anything like Bolt or Godot Visual Script. Not even close bc those visual scripting tools are almost 1:1 with the C languages they use they only take syntax out of the equation. Game maker studio, sure,, that one is robust too but but not Consruct 3, that one is literally as complicated as RPG maker. I saw title/thumbs from Mark Rises tutorials for Construct 3 in there. Not a great comparison because those logic editors are like those in RPG maker which anyone can understand without much help at all. !=
Are you thinking about making the move to Bolt? What's holding you back? It's not for everyone, but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.
As you said in the video, I'm faster with code! When I started programming I was 9 I wanted everything to be visual and direct over the years I have started to get more and more into game development and started to see that coding is much better than visual scripting solutions! Currently I'm 17, I used over 7 visual scripting tools and I find myself repulsed by them! Although I love Bolt and love how polished it is, I still can't use Unity without writing code! (sorry for my bad English I hope that you get what I mean)
I think im gonna make a game and it seems like bolt is better in the end even if it takes longer then playmaker
Bolt will take s bit longer to learn but will be faster in the end. Have fun making a game!
Hi, thanks for your videos on Bolt! I have the Asset Store open at the shopping cart with Bolt in it right now, but I'm still not sure if It serves what I need. I'm not an expert programmer, but I'm not afraid of writing code.
The problem that I have is mostly with the general game structure or game flow and making sure that everything that needs to happen at a given moment do happen and at the right order. I could write it directly, using what my friends and I call "mão grande" ("big hand", in portuguese), but in a way that everything is coupled, it's really difficult to edit or add.
Examples: I'd like to create the flow between "Open Game > Splash > Menu with menu navigation > Load Level > End Level > Return to menu..." and so on, without much trouble, with the UI activating/deactivating correctly, sounds playing, transitions. Also, let's say that I'm making a point and click adventure and when the player moves to a new scene, I need to move him to the correct starting position THEN move the camera to the new position THEN fade in from black. But maybe if he goes there when some conditions are true, the game plays a cutscene instead, before giving control back to the player.
Do you think Bolt would be useful for managing this kind of stuff?
Thanks again!
@@felipenanni Bolt can definitely help with visualizing the flow of logic. This can be done really well with a combination of C# and flow graphs OR using state graphs. State graphs in Bolt often get ignored and I suspect are under used. Once Bolt 2 is released (will generate C# code) I can definitely see myself using Bolt state graphs in combination with my own C# code on my personal projects for AI or other more complex behaviors.
Hope that helps. Happy to answer more questions if it didn't.
Watching this after Bolt went free. Great channel. Subscribed
Same
Glad folks are enjoying the videos. Hopefully there's many more in the channel's future! Although I will be focusing most on Bolt 2... If you're looking for help make sure to get on the Bolt and the OWS discord. Lots of folks out there willing to help.
Me.to
@@theonepuck5735 lets hope it happens!
Mee toooo
Bolt is FREE now!
Unity bought it, so you don't have to ;)
Screw it... :P xD
Thank you Unity!
What about darkmode xP
@@ezblends516 darkmode is also free in the latest version
@@disruptive_innovator How do I activate it!??? TELL ME
Great video! I'm a full-stack senior dev in the spatial computing industry. The interplay between visual scripting and higher level languages fascinates me. I believe VPLs are the new higher level language. They will eclipse languages like C# eventually, the same way higher level languages eclipsed their predecessors in the 90s. I think programmers are generally not onboard with this idea yet, but as your students graduate and become professionals, I think we're about to see a Renaissance in computer science. Visual scripting IS programming, as you said. It's just a matter of perspective, and the sooner we all recognize this, the sooner tools like Bolt will become even more robust.
Thanks! I think the visual nature of the "state macro" or FSM is particularly useful and could be very powerful when combined with C#.
I started my indie dev journey middle of last year. I've studied most of the building blocks for making games for atleast a year and a half before. But I've always struggled with C#, it's not that C# is HARD it's just that for me it keeps building a wall in front of my progress.
So I got Bolt.. and honestly so far it's amazing and I hope it continues to prove to be so, even if you dont know how to code bolt does a good job of giving you simple terms to understand sometimes complex logic, I am even finding myself learning more about C# now then I was before.. only now I am making progress at the same time.
But that said keep up the good vids man really enjoying them!
gotta say, Bolt made it easy to understand how unity functions. took a week instead of months to learn.
I'm 34 years old.... but can I attend your high-school game dev class? Seriously.
For Playmaker variables, there is a handy little checkbox on the variables tab that lets you add them to the inspector so you can edit them there without needing to keep switching to the variables tab. :) Very good breakdown between the two assets!
**makes a board game**
I made a game without coding...
Everyone: "Oh Come Onn!!!"
i mean....there's still logic. not trying to be pedantic, just yea: board games aren't a piece of cake exactly either.
@@benfluke523 my 5th grade self totally agrees with you XD i haven't tried making a board game since then.
it reminds me of Unreal Engine. I've done Unreal Engine's bluprint scripting before I started with Unity. Once I got Bolt it was very easy to use because of how much it works like UR Blueprints.
That's also a reason because 2d is bad in UE4 and it crashes by loading substance material.
I'm teaching a high school and middle school class using unity. I've been doing it for eight years now. This semester I'm going to have my students build a game using C# and then build the same game using bolt. Hopefully they will reinforce each other!
Awesome video. Speaks to my situation perfectly and helps me a lot.
"you cant make a game using only visual scripting"
construct: pathetic.
Construct also doesn't have 3D
Visual scripting is very powerful, however it has its limits. It's not the solution for everything.
@@KasparrTV meaning?
@@GameDevUE Meaning it's not the solution for everything. For the kind of game that require high versatibility and performances like simulation, rts, or implementing true AI. Some will even prefer C++ and data oriented programming. Look at games like total war it's impossible to achieve that with visual scripting.
@Nik Creativity to design the game or the code?
Motivated to start with my project again
Lol same
Thanks for the review.
Amazing tool thanks for your tutorials they are super helpfull 😁👍
This was really helpful!
im brand new to unity and game development in general. decided to take some courses on Udemy for coding and unity game development. I have zero background in coding. I do however have a background in music production. I recently discovered bolt as an "alternative" to coding games. and from what I can tell its sort of the equivalent to midi in music production. yes...you can most definitely add an orchestra to your song using midi...but you still need to understand the fundamentals of music and chord progressions and time signatures and notes etc. you don't need to know how to play all of the instruments in the orchestra but you still have to understand how music is made. same with bolt it seems. sure...you may not "writing code"...but its still code. its still based in c#. it reminds me of the program Stencyl. so you still have to have at least a fundamental grasp on the logic and how code "fits together". its basically coding without the syntax.
Bolt is hands down the best visual scripting solution for Unity. I've tried most, if not all, of them and as a programmer I was able to pick this up in a matter of hours instead of days/weeks.
I sure liked Blueprints on UE4, mostly did basic audio programming on summer game course. It was easy to add audio scripts on someone else's code and make my own things, like ambient sounds switch based on location. Still thinking about, should I try out Bolt. I've tried getting into Unity, but text based has been difficult for me, because of my eyesight and difficulties understanding what works with other.
I'm currently concidering switching to bolt. Playmaker is nice, but since one of the recent unity updates, half my stuff isn't working anymore and can't be upgraded to the new library. ALso heard that Bolt is close to Unreals blueprints. That one was confusing so hopefully by learning bolt i find it easyer to switch to the Unreal engine after a while for a different project.
Thank you.
First and only one saying what it is, coding.
I really thought I'm the only person on this planet who is completely stupid cause I couldn't manage to build one feature on my own
Thanks for posting this pretty depth review. I’m looking to switching from Construct 2 and Playmaker to Bolt. Might wait for Bolt 2 just for the C# Generator (Great way to to see correlations). By chance, have you come across a Bolt Beat Em Up tutorial? I haven’t.
Glad to hear the video was useful! Bolt is pretty awesome. As for a "Beat Em Up Tutorial" I haven't seen one at this point.
As for Bolt 2, it's looking like it might be a while before it's out of alpha/beta. The update/upgrade is free and while there is some difference in workflow it's probably not that different - so why wait? :)
Also! The developers have said that the price will increase once Bolt 2 is out.
I've spend months now, and countless video's on Unity/C# tutorials.. and still not getting the 'coding logic". Like selecting a method/function and therefor Unity/C# requires other things to input... kinda loosing on it. Now I've seen some Bolt video's and not there yet, but it does feel Bolt makes in literally more visual... case a box literally has 'input' and 'output' and I can see right away if and what needs to be put in to get the output... so much more clear!
So right now, I want to leave C# a bit and focus on Bolt tutorials.. so I can get a better grip on 'how C# "thinks" '. Then, hopefully, when going further in more pure Unity/C#, I have better understanding that what I do. Basically all tutorial video's from experts, simply don't understand the distance a noob is... noob minds don't think like them and therefor things that are logic to the expert aren't logic to the noob (yet). The bridge to make this, is what pro teachers separate from experts who make video's. This skill is highly overlooked and very rare.. for high professionals to still make the right bridge between the 'noob language' and 'expert language'... Glad to see this video, it did confirm me what I need to do. Thnx! ;)
Thank you
may Bolt be the gateway drug to C# development
how about Bolt VS Unity's own Visual Scripting feature 2020?
I haven't tried Unity's solution - I didn't think it was public yet... Also it's going to be DOT/ECS oriented so a totally different beast that will require some relearning. Its definitely on my radar.
@@OneWheelStudio Coolest :D will wait for Unity visual scripting and video cheers - Crash of the Titans?
I already know how to code, though I still consider myself a beginner. After watching this and a couple of other videos, I honestly feel as if coding directly in script is faster, but somehow I want to try Bolt. Would anyone recommend it in my position? Maybe what I'm trying to say is. Would learning Bolt at this stage make me a better programmer?
I would say it's free and any time spent "thinking" in code will make you a better programmer. The flow of Bolt is a bit different than C# and I think stretching yourself to think in a new way is almost always a good think :)
code comes down to logic, so just use what you're comfortable with
I think I'm gonna learn bolt, and basic c#. Gonna try to learn c# because I can understand troubleshooting bolt better. But I wanna learn bolt because I'm a very busy student, so learning c# for game design may take a while
Can we make a endless running game like temple run in Bolt?
😍
Yep. I haven’t done myself but I’d think that would be very doable.
@@OneWheelStudio
Thanks sir for your quick reply 👍
If possible, make some little tutorial on this....
Love from Pakistan 😍😍😍😍
Did you see that Unity acquired Bolt earlier this month? I'm curious what they're going to do with Bolt 2. It would be cool to see it eventually become free. It would make teaching programming *logic* easier on a wider scale, if it was readily available for anyone.
I'm a C# coder, so I don't see myself using it for my personal projects. I would love to play around though. Maybe even prototype in it to get a good visual representation of how to put things together code-wise.
It will be very interesting to see what they do with the pricing. I'm hoping Bolt 2 will be free... Who knows.
I generally prefer C# too, but the state macros could really come in handy and would work nicely with C# code for creating FSMs or similar.
@@OneWheelStudio That's an interesting take on FSMs. I'm tempted to try Bolt out. Might be nice to visually plan something and actually get results. With Unity owning it now though, I'm scared 4 months from now I paid $70 for something that will become free haha.
Would you say its best to do more complex AI work (pathfinding, for example) with code or do you think Bolt would shine well for that?
I think your fear of it going free is well founded. No inside knowledge, just seems like a reasonable guess.
As for more complicated AI definitely do it with C# or at least wait until Bolt 2 is able to generate C#. I have a basic A* style project with Bolt sitting in a dusty folder waiting for Bolt 2. With Bolt 1.x it was too slow. As for using a state macro for an FSM that runs C# in each state shouldn't be an issue at all.
@@OneWheelStudio I will go ahead and wait. At least for a sale (maybe a summer one?).
And by slow I assume you mean actually slow to work out, or a performance slow?
Thank you for all of your responses, sir, they've been really helpful. Happy programming :)
The performance is slow. There is some overhead for each unit, I think, and with something like A* you go through a lot of small steps which makes for slow (900ms vs 45ms) going.
Do you have an online course? I'd like to take your class!
No online class, but most of my videos were made to support my real life course. I'm wanting to start a "coding challenge" series which could be similar to small assignments or projects in a class... A bunch of people have asked about a Udemy course. We'll see. Short free videos are a lot easier :)
Based on your graph, playmaker should be used for total beginners. Then you move up to bolt then to C#. They're all useful. I've been trying to learn coding concepts like classes, properties, methods and I had a hard time because there was no visual aid.
OK so I can only type with one hand, would Bolt be faster to get things done for someone like me than typing everything out?
It’s possible. With bolt you have to type less but there is a lot of back and forth between the mouse and keyboard. With C# you can take advantage of autocomplete so you often only need to type a few letters of each word. I’d experiment and see which is faster for you.
thank you that help me i will buy it. im new to unity and c# is hard to me bcz for now havent time to learn c# bcz im focussing on the other whole things like unity itself. 3d modeling .....
that help me a lot
but i have something last is unity 2019.3.a has a visual scripting built in it will be available in the coming finale updates so that will be very powerful like unreal engine blueprints
and the last last thing .....SUBSCRIBED😜
Glad to hear the video was helpful! Bolt is a great tool to get into Unity with.
The visual scripting tool that Unity is (planning) on introducing is going to be based on the ECS so fundamentally different than Bolt or the current monobehaviour scripts. I'm very interested to see it, but I'm cautiously skeptical as Unity has a way of introducing but not always finishing products.
well, here we are, 2019.3.7f, still no sign of visual scripting at all.
Great video!! Is it possible to make 2d RPG games using Bolt?
Definitely. You can pretty much make whatever you’d like. The improvements with Bolt 2 will make it even easier.
@@OneWheelStudio thank for answering ^^
Great video, out of interest have you used dreams on ps4/5 and what are your thoughts on it? I have been using it for a year and love it as someone with absolutely no game development experience. It’s made me very curious about bolt as it looks quite similar to he logic side of dreams
Sorry, no haven't used it.
I run a video game maker's club (and a makerspace) at my school and am considering using Bolt, but idk about dropping $70 on every student who *thinks* they *may* want to try programming -- especially in my low- or no- budget district. How, ahem, flexible are Bolt licenses / downloads for the various workstations in a lab / classroom?
I remember reading that Bolt might be included in an educational package... I'm hoping that it will happen and save my students some cash.
As for the "flexibility" of the license, I'll let you figure it out.
its free now
Excellent, thanks, can I make a 3D boss using Bolt, instead of using coding, like to make my boss attack, and do complex movements, unique attacks?
I got the level design down, and my FPS character controller, I just need my unique bosses, that move around, and attack, and do complex movements, and design my FPS guns in Blender 3D.
You definitely can. I've never programmed a boss fight in C# or in Bolt, but it should be possible.
@@OneWheelStudio Thank you, so in order to make a 3D boss for my app game, ill need:
1. Make, and design the boss in Blender, use photos of monstors from then internet to copy from for inspiration, then learn rigging in Blender 3D.
2. Somehow make the boss animate, and move using Blender 3D, or Unity 3D.
is this correct? are these the steps I must take? Is it as simple as this to do?
thanks for all you help.
@@Stinger-rq4gy I think those are good steps. Making a boss, won't be simple. Making a boss could easily be 100s of hours of work even if you know how to do all the steps. It's doable but with most things in game design, it's not easy and takes a surprising amount of time. This year, I've made a big push for my students to do 2D, while still not "easy" it is far simpler than 3D - in general.
@@OneWheelStudio Excellent thank you.🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳✨✨🎇🎆🎆🎆🎇 Ill work on my game for the rest of my life. Ill try to learn shotcuts to save me time so its not 100 hours.
Is the process of building a 3D character boss: 1. Design in Blender 3D, then rig it using Rigify, 2. Import it to Unity 3D, then use Bolt Visual Scripting to make it move, and do complex movements in Unity 3D? Anything I'm missing?
@@Stinger-rq4gy That sounds good. I would likely build up the boss with minimal art first. Just to get the code working and see if it's fun. In my opinion it's almost always good to start with functionality before diving into the art too much.
Will definitely check out a udemy course that mirrors your IRL class if you were to make one!
People keep asking... I'll look into it this summer, maybe :)
I am looking to create short "coding challenge" videos that might be similar to an assignment or small project. Ideally folks could then share their solutions and we could all learn from each other. I think I need a larger community to pull it off.
@@OneWheelStudio I've been hopping in and out of C# and bolt tutorials. I would appreciate small challenges like that, to further my confidence in the craft lol. You could also consider adding the bolt beginner's community in these challenges, no?
Thank you for the videos!
is 7:50 IMPLIMENTED YET???
That vertical flow is from Bolt 2 and Bolt 2 was canceled by Unity. Hopefully, some of the features for Bolt 2 will be implemented, but we're still waiting to see what exactly that looks like.
@@OneWheelStudio oh darn :(
Yep. Major loss to the community in so many ways.
@@OneWheelStudio i tried teaching myself C++ for a bit then C# over the past few months, but really hit a wall without an actual teacher, then i found bolt and I have been trying to learn that for a couple weeks now
I have a LOT of game ideas, and i'm working on what i feel is the easiest of my game ideas right now
But it's kinda hard finding help building each individual mechanic separately with bolt and trying to put it all together when i dont even have a solid foundation ^_^"
And trying to find a community that can help is like pulling teeth yeesh
Everyone just tells me to google it lol
Have you checked out the Bolt discord? It's fairly active. My discord is quiet and slowly shifting to more C#, but there are people there whiling to help too.
will you make more yt tutorial with bolt?
That's the plan! The last alpha of Bolt 2 is "mostly" done. With that will come significant changes. To the bolt workflow so I'm dragging my feet until then.
Nice video. I have question, how good do you have to be at coding c# before bolt is not helping you? I know the basis of C# but feel limited since I do not know the commands I want to use for certain actions. When I found the actions in Unity documentation / reddit ect, I do have to use some time to implement correctly. - quite a lot of try and error. Would it be better to continue learning the C# or would Bolt be a good step so I can make the games faster?
That’s a great question. Bolt will help some in that when you drag out a value it will tend to give you appropriate or useful commands to add next. Also you can look up say “collections” and you’ll see several related functions or functions to be used with collections. That said you still have to find or know what functions to use. Function names in Bolt are very close to C# so much of what you would learn with Bolt will transfer to C#.
So short answer: it’ll help but it’s still work to learn.
I would say difficulty stems from learning style a visual learner will get visual scripting faster than pure C# where interpersonal (read/write) will get C# faster than Visual. You also have people who learn faster in via social/feedback and solitairy environments. Not all learning environments fit every individual.
A more social learner learns more from asking questions from an instructor but be confused via textbooks, where a solitary learner may be confused when something is explained but understand through reading from the textbook.
realtime c# generation in bolt not found
Yeah. Bolt 2 was killed by Unity. It’s unclear if the code generation will happen. Big bummer.
tbh whats holding me back from using bolt is wanting to make a hack and slash game but not really tutorials to support that
It's true that the number of tutorials is somewhat limited, but truthfully for any game genre you'll need to learn the basics and then apply those to the chosen genre. If you can break down the game you have in mind in to small chunks and work on those. There's a ton of folks in the Bolt community that are happy to help!
You don't need a tutorial, I am self taught blueprints.
Great about bolt, i just Sub to you :D
Do you teach online
No. I teach at a normal real life school 😀 All these videos started as a way to support those students.
Oh , ✌️ , i wanna learn C# and game development , but there's no sign of teachers that teaches these things in my place
Anyways your tutorials are Awesome
So do you think bolt could make a undertale like 2d rpg
With Bolt 2 it would have been very possible. I think with Bolt 1 it would challenging without using other third party asset in addition.
@@OneWheelStudio one more question, is bolt better at 2d or 3d?
@@applebeestacos4840 It would work equally well with both.
Honestly i was just looking for a way to use both bolt and c# together,
in one hand bolt makes it easier for me to create a prototype and set things up and running from the first day of development so i can tell if i should stick with the game idea or not
on the other hand bolt will actually makes it harder for you the more complex your game will get.
so i was thinking i should only be using bolt for prototypes and then proceed with normal c# even if it takes longer handwriting scripting feels more flexible or maybe its just a habit
At this point with Bolt 2 canceled and Unity still quiet on their VS roadmap I'd agree that Bolt doesn't scale well for many games. Hopefully with the new roadmap there will be new tools or new features that will restore some of the capability of Bolt 2.
I think I'll start using Bolt to learn the features of Unity and then switch to C#. What do you think? Please leave your feeback in the replies!
I think that's a great plan. I think that is the best and most ideal use of Bolt. For me I did that with playmaker and finally jumped to C# a year or so in.
Why not use both Playmaker and Code as an integrated solution. What you could learn in 3 years of coding, you could easily learn in Playmaker in 3 months. The problem with PM is that it lacks the overall resources out there on RUclips. What PM does have over code is that the learning curve is a lot faster, yet there is always that tendency for things to hit a wall. Yet if you use PM in creative ways it does give you tremendous leverage over coding. It's simply easier to trouble shoot, break apart as you don't need to micromanage text. The important thing to remember is that PM is like a set on instructions, or elements that fire off code at runtime. You don't declare low level code, everything is done at a higher level. Essentially as long as you understand game logic it can make any designer incredible powerful. The real power of PM is when you combine, or draw out variables and properties of game objects that are written in code. So you could download a car controller, and access it's properties from within PM. Not only that you could also control a 3rd party assett within PM, or even have events activated by the condition of a 3rd party assett. Simply having PM control or read virtually any property of coded assetts really extends the functionality of PM. A lot of people have an all or nothing apporach and the question is do you build a house with a hammer, or a nail gun, or do you simply get both, and use both to automate the process.
I think you are totally right that the real power of PM is combining it with C#. If there's a coder/designer relationship then PM can be truly powerful! For many who are getting started and most of my real world students they're on their own and learning C# plus PM is too much. I wanted an environment where they could create more independently. Bolt fits that need a lot better.
How will the new Unity DOTS (Data Oriented, instead of Object Oriented) effect BOLT?
Short answer: It won't effect it much in the next 2-3 years.
Longer answer: My understanding is that Bolt will stay OOP for the moment. Once the DOTS or ECS is more developed it may get wrapped into it or be able to use it. Unity is working on their own visual scripting solution that will be ECS based - but I have my doubts about that being ready any time soon (see UNET for examples of half baked products).
question is there a way make a climbing system in bolt.
I don’t see why not! Got a particular climbing idea in mind?
@@OneWheelStudio So you know in tomb raider she auto grab and stay stuck to one ledge if told.(if you played it.)
@@OneWheelStudio Basically procedural.
@@LyokoUnite I've never played it but I've probably seen similar. There's no reason you couldn't create a similar mechanic with Bolt. Now how to write that code... That I'm not sure. For me this would not be a case of Bolt limiting me, but the difficulty of the task.
C# vs bolt which performance is better
I think Bolts performance is way better then it used to be - maybe 10 times faster but C# will still generally be faster. In the past it wasn’t too noticeable unless you were doing lots of small calculations (lots of blocks in blot)
Question, as someone who is trained entirely in using C#, but would like to make things cleaner and more stream lined, how does bolt handle scriptable objects? I am working on a 3D platformer, and all of my variables are stored as scriptable objects so that 1) they can be serialized cleaner, 2) so they can be accessed easily via outside scripts without the overhead of loading an entire script for a single variable. I am going to be rewriting a lot of my character controller related programming and thing bolt may be a good approach, BUT only if it handles scriptable objects well
With Bolt you can add any types you need so it can easily handle SOs and do so reasonably gracefully. I can't speak to the performance of Bolt with SOs.
That said, if you are comfortable with C# I would recommend staying with C#. I mostly view Bolt as a tool for learning and as an easier entry point for folks with little or no programming experience.
@@OneWheelStudio Ah ok, good to know. The main reason I was interested in Bolt is when working in a team node/graph based systems are easier to explain of to edit by other members of the team who aren't able to really ready C# fluidly. Also, it would be a good way to logic check something quickly before scripting it out fully when prototyping since node based systems are closer to persadocode format. Makes sense in my head at least lol
@@OneWheelStudio anyways thank you for letting me know about SO support. After doing some looking until Bolt, serialization was the one thing that a LOT of people had issue with since it converts everything to genetic objects, not specified objects, making the variables hard to reload in. SO's wouldn't have this issue.
I think those are great reasons to use bolt. You can also import custom classes so you can make higher level units/nodes by calling C# functions - even better for folks who aren’t comfortable with C#
How does bolt compare to coding C# in terms of performance?
Bolt is definitely slower as it uses reflection. For many applications, it won't matter, if you are building a small indie size game for example.
@@OneWheelStudio what about when on a less powerful platform say mobile
Is there anywhere realtime C# bolt code? That would be gamechanging!
No there isn’t. Bolt 2 was canceled and with it went code generation. If unity does bring it back it’ll be a long while until it’s a reality.
This video is old info. Playmaker has no limitations. You have the same abilities as unity's built in visual scripting. Everything that may be missing in playmaker has already had custom actions built for it, or you can build your own. It all comes down to what interface you find easier to grasp, at this point. Also both are great starting points to learn the core concepts of C# when you decide to switch over...IF you decide to switch. It really isn't necessary unless you are pursuing a career in game development beyond indie games.
Do you have any off line course in somewhere alse? Like training Course in college or somewhere alse?
At the moment no. Everything I have is on the OWS channel. I've thought about more, but hasn't happened yet. ;)
No code in visual scripting is the biggest lie. I am an outsider trying to get in and all the things dont make sense in a way i can just "draw" the game. Os there a good free ressource you can recommend?
Couldn't agree more about that biggest lie. It's a marketing gimick and a way to get YT clicks!
As for a resources, if you want to use Bolt then RUclips search is the best you can find right now. I have a few Bolt playlist (check the channel page), but there is very little "official." You can check out this too: learn.unity.com/project/bolt-platformer-tutorial
It was a video series turned into a written tutorial by Unity.
Beyond that, if you are brand new to Unity and not determined to use Bolt, I'd recommend "Create with Code" on the Unity Learn site. My students used it this year and I was pretty impressed with it and what my students could do.
I can't see myself using visual scripting. Raw coding is in my blood.
I'm a programmer who often times during prototyping gets bogged down in trying to write 'elegant' solutions, losing sight of the original goal I had when I sat down. I've been toying with the idea of visual scripting for prototyping but I'm afraid of it getting too unmanagable for complex behaviour, and I'm curious is it easy to mix custom c# scripts into bolt and handle commication between objects. Can you give any insight on this?
It’s really easy to mix in C# code with Bolt I haven’t made a video on it as the process will change and get far easier with Bolt 2. If you check out my videos on handling data (scriptable object’s) I show how to “bring the script” and thus any public variables and functions into Bolt. Here’s a link to the first video.
ruclips.net/video/HMIeqhXU-6M/видео.html
Is it possible to make a RTS with Bolt?
For sure. It’s one of the harder genres to create so I would not recommend starting there. If you do start there plan it out and build it little chunk by chunk.
Hi. How can I open the realtime C# generation window? Thanks
That was part of Bolt 2 and that was canceled by Unity. There is no word if C# generation will eventually become part of "Unity Visual Scripting" in the future.
Hi, I was thinking about prototyping my game and then hiring a dev to complete it. Would you recommend Bolt over PM specifically for this situation because of the C#? Or do u think that a PM prototype would be fine for them to adapt? I’m drawn more to PM because of it’s ease of use
That would depend on the developer. I would probably make that connection first and then go forward.
That said, in my opinion, the Bolt units do translate to C# more directly than PM. Personally, I would find it easier to translate a Bolt flow macro to C# than a PM FSM.
One Wheel Studio thank u for replying!!
Noob question...
Can convert bolt to cs script?
Not in the sense of the computer doing it for you. But you can do it manually 😉
Is there any way to convert Bolt Macros to C# or vise versa?
Bolt 2 will do this. Every macro will get translated into C#. At the moment with Bolt 1.4x there is no system to convert.
@@OneWheelStudio So, any asset created using bolt would require any other user to have bolt installed as well, yes?
But it sounds like that is about to change with the next update?
Correct. I have played a little with an alpha build of Bolt 2 and the code generation is there, but it’s still alpha so I didn’t get into to it too much.
@@OneWheelStudio Good to know. I'll be looking for that feature in the updates.
Thanks, not just for this answer, but for your whole effort here. (c:
I have a question. I started my Unity journey in April 2020. So Bolt was 70 USD. Unity Learn Premium was in a three month free period and I tried to understand how everything works.
I never had much problems with coding. I was studying Python and had much fun with it.
I started out, got some experience, and always felt that those visual aids as some kind of expensive hindrance. You always reach a point where you will end up hard coding anyway, so it's better start coding early.
Now I'm almost at the intermediate C# level and everything is FREE!
Could Bolt be used as a Visual aid to understand my code better? It's nice to have 20 neat scripts around your Scripts folder, but maybe those nice little boxes and colorful lines could be used like a code map. Like a visual helper to see where each class will connect with each function...
Interesting idea. Are you thinking of something like a mind map? Personally I would probably use a different tool to visually organize my code. You probably could do what you are talking about, but that’s not really what the tool is designed for. If you do want to explore that idea I’d suggest looking into state graphs. You can create and name states however you choose so maybe that’s helpful?
@@OneWheelStudio Exactly THANKS! Like a Mind Map! I'll Try it out or Suggest the Idea to the Unity Gnomes that are maintaining Bolt.
For example. I'm learning from RUclips and a few Udemy Courses. Sometimes the teachers uses 15 different scripts. I Know that is better to do this way, I was learning Python before this awesome Adventure! But we reach a point that it becomes harder to remember where are the functions in those different Classes and How they Connect!
@One Wheel Studio How You save things in Bolt?
I was trying to use Saved Variable and after a while I have a big list - is hard to deal with it.
Also bunch of attempts with SerializeField - and I know isn't working with Bolt.
Please response :
Well to be honest in my opinion you are starting to run into a limitation with Bolt and Unity Visual Scripting. It just doesn't scale up very well. It's great for small games, demos and learning, but yeah. I did a video a while back about text vs. visual scripting with mor of these thoughts. ruclips.net/video/wcZVWQlP-OM/видео.html
To be more constructive, a solution could be to use lists and store all your info in there. That takes some work to save and load the data correctly but pulling element 43 or 102 out of a list is probably better than creating 300 separate variables.
Another option is to use a tool like Easy Save. I use it in my C# projects. Its got a learning curve, but definitely works and once you understand how it works it's pretty easy to. I'd high recomend it, but it does cost money.
@@OneWheelStudio Actually I bought Easy Save 3 about a month ago. Now I am discovering its properties. Thanks, it's a sign that I'm on the right track! :3
I'd like to ask a quick question, is it worth getting bolt or playmaker if you are already good at c#? or would that be a waste?
On the surface I would say if you are comfortable with C# then just stay with it. I use C# in my personal projects, that said there are some times that visual programming can be highly useful and when Bolt 2 arrives it will all turn into to C#!!! The examples that I think about are things like AI where the you might be using "states" (creating a Finite State Machine) and transitions between states. This can be done with a enum and switch statement in C# but can get complex and be hard to debug. Playmaker and Bolt can also be good for making it easier because you can see the flow of the logic and actually this is the intention of PM as it is just an FSM.
@@OneWheelStudio Thanks for your quick reply :) i'll keep in mind what you have said here and in your video. Thanks again!
Hi. Why aren't there subtitles?
I really don't know. It's enabled on the back end and my other videos have them... I'm looking into it, but it seems like YT just didn't do it and there appears no way for my to force YT to try again with the automatic CC. I'll keep looking into a solution.
I like visual scripting because it doesn't take months to learn.
and its free now !!!
Unity bought Bolt and now it's called Visual Scripting and they canceled Bolt 2.0 so now we are stuck for ever with horrible performance with bolt
hey ... um I know this is an old video but I want just to know what program did you use to make this video ... after effects or adope premiere?
This was made using Camtasia. Not cheap but much easier to use than premier and can do an awful lot for simpler videos like this.
Bolt is cool, it's a great concept and it's a lot easier for me at least. I used visual scripting for 1.5 years and I finally decided to switch to C# because all of my games would run soooo bad and I discovered that Visual scripting causes your games to have horrible performance. Visual scripting is 100-200 times slower when it comes to your games performance. Performance is the only bad thing about Visual Scripting
is Real time C# Generation is cancelled for unity Visual Scripting , Because I am not hearing anything about it . And also I can't see any C# generation option in latest unity versions.
Yep it died when Unity bought Bolt. Big bummer.
Hi. I was wondering if Bolt scripting supports multiplayer. I always wanted to make a multiplayer game without having to code. I succeeded in making a team based coop offline (same network) multiplayer game through Playmaker when Unet was still around. But after that Unet became deprecated and so did all the Unet support from Playmaker. Is there a way that Bolt can support making multiplayer games?
Bolt works via reflection (i.e. it creates units all by itself) so it will work with most third party tools. The trick is to import all the assemblies and types that you will need - this will take a good chunk of research and reading of the documentation. I'm not sure what the "best" networking solution is these days - my first game was multiplayer I won't do that again :)
@@OneWheelStudio Thank you very much
nice
If someone can help a newbie out here: For a slow learner who learns best by being gradually exposed to more complex Versions, would it maybe still make sense to start with playMaker for a year or two, get to Bolt after that and after five years or so start trying strictly text C#? Differently put, would learning the easier playMaker first give me an advantage when starting with Bolt, or should I rather skip playMaker alltogether and start with Bolt from the getgo?
I'd say jump into Bolt. It's free, so no harm in trying it. Watch a few videos do try making some very basic things happen. If you don't like it try playmaker.
That said if you are starting with Unity too, you'll be learning two things at once. My students this year, for a bunch of reasons, worked through Unity's Create with Code course. It's all C#, but starts with the basics of Unity as well. Right now that course would be my top recommendation if you are new to Unity and programming.
learn.unity.com/course/create-with-code
@@OneWheelStudio Thank you! I´ll definately check it out!
Does bolt have ways to quickly search for references within my code like in visual studio's ctrl + , . Or if I need to rename something is there a way to make sure I'm renaming everything at once like with VS's ctrl + r + r ?
Oh and jumping to other instances of the current function/variable/etc. like how you can do with ctrl + shift and the arrow keys in VS?
Or is navigation pretty much limited to manually looking through the nodes all the time?
No it doesn't. That's one of the major short comings at the moment.
Bolt 2 did... So we're hoping some of that will get addressed and added to Bolt 1 (i.e. Unity visual scripting) in the coming months as Unity works on Bolt.
its not problem for tutorials and courses
the problem is ITS NOT FREEEEEEEEE
damn my life
It is or was on sale for the Global Game Jam - check my community page for a coupon code!
Now its free
u have a good news
So far it looks like learning these game programs is more difficult than learning C#. Drag and drop a variable? Uh? Just write it.
I tend to agree. But everyone processes information differently and for many visual scripting reduces the barriers to creating games. For many a wall of text based code is impossible to read. One of the goals of the bolt creator was to creat a bridge to full text based coding. It’ll be interesting to see if Unity can follow through on that.
I have The Same list of the things I don't love lol
Unity is not planning to improve bolt in future and you must know C# to use bolt. Unity versions 2021 with Visual Scripting are crushing constantly.
I don't know C# and I'm using Bolt (now Unity Visual Scripting). Not a single crash.
fun fact these visual scripts were made using codin like python.(atleast i think)
Fuck i just brought Playmaker...
bruh.........playmaker should sponser you!
haha, jokes on you bolt is free now! :D
Like
I bout it just before Unity did. Sadly no refund.
I feel never got the hang of visual scripting. You have to create nodes and connect them, and then set parameters, etc. C# with VS Code is the best Unity scripting workflow in my opinion. IntelliSense can't be beat, even with an idiot proof scripting solution. I may change my mind when Unity releases their Visual Scripting solution in a stable release, but for now, stick with C# kids. Direct access to the Unity Engine API and the language is transferable outside of Unity.
Bolt 2 actually generate C# on the fly, so I don't really get why you wouldn't use the best of both worlds? I mean, let's face it: debugging with Bolt is waaay quicker and more reliable than just scrolling through your C# script everytime... Though that doesn't mean you can't hook up existing C# scripts in Bolt either.
Best of both worlds to me, though I can get why some devs don't find it that useful in their workflow.
it's not coding but it is programming imo.
Games cannot exist without coding
undertale: *Are you sure about that?*
Someone had to script player movement and interactions
@@FoxyEntity nah he used Game Makers drag n drop system
@@kodiax9847 yeah that's called scripting. What do you think any sort of visual scripting compiles to? Actual code of course
Sorry guys BOLT 2 is dead😢😢
Using visual programming is like reading a classical literature in a comics version
luckly when i start my journey its free
Unreal Engine: Mhm Mhm ! ....
lol construct 3 no-code is not anything like Bolt or Godot Visual Script. Not even close bc those visual scripting tools are almost 1:1 with the C languages they use they only take syntax out of the equation. Game maker studio, sure,, that one is robust too but but not Consruct 3, that one is literally as complicated as RPG maker. I saw title/thumbs from Mark Rises tutorials for Construct 3 in there. Not a great comparison because those logic editors are like those in RPG maker which anyone can understand without much help at all. !=
am i the only one that thinks visual scripting is pain?