Unity’s New Input System Thoughts
I’ll just get right into it.
I personally really enjoy the new input system. Its robust. The code doesnt rely on update methods constantly checking for input. You dont have to develop logic for different devices. Its over-all a lot better than the legacy input system to me.
Yes it involves a little more knowledge than the sea of Youtube videos with super vague subject matter can provide accurately. Yes it takes a little more time to set up if you want to rapidly iterate on thing.
These two “issues” arent really issues. They’re really dragons in a cave most people are afraid to venture into. Once you get over the fear of delegates, events, actions, and dive deeper into C#, those dragons end up looking like poodles in a kiddy pool.
It takes a little more studying and a little more C# comprehension, but if your C# comprehension stops somewhere before this, good luck with the rest of your game development journey. I’m not trying to be mean when I say this. There are concepts that stretch far beyond the realm of this system and Unity has done an amazing job at making this accessible.
Rapid iteration, to me, can be a death sentence to productivity and creativity. The “I’ll change this later” or “I’ll fix this later” attitude adds up so fast its insane. Sure checking really quick if an animation will trigger with a certain input or something can be done within a few seconds with the legacy input system. If you dont immediately change it after verifying things work, you’ll end up building the rest of your logic around that if statement in Update(). Suddenly you have monolithic code with very poor readablity……and you havent even implemented controller support…. Oh and you plan to port this game to mobile…. oh dear.
Anyway. I hope the articles in this list provide you with some insight and confidence to approach this system with a clear understanding of how useful it can be. Feel free to comment on the articles and reach out to me if you have any questions! I’ll be around! Until next time!
Aloha
