Simple 3rd Person Camera Controller in Unity

// Put this script on a GameObject with your camera and a character controller on it.

var target: GameObject;  // Assign this to your player
var maxDist = 20.0; // distance before triggering follow
var minDist = 10.0; // distance before untriggering follow
var speed = 6.0;  // Should be set to the same speed as your character
private var acc = 0.0; // Amount of movement on the camera. this starts at 0 and builds until it reaches speed. 

function LateUpdate () // Had to be late update becuase it was studdering otherwise.  
	{
	var myDist = 0; // This variable is a (changing) threshhold to determine whether or not our camera should be moving or not. 
	// when the camera is not moving (acc==0), it is asigned to maxDist. 
	// Once the camera starts moving, we set myDist to minDist. This means the camera needs to get even CLOSER to the player before it stops
	// moving than it took to trigger it in the first place. this behavior does 2 things: 
	// When the camera is stopped, it lets the character walk around a bit before the cam starts to move. 
	// When the camera is moving, it prevents studdering as the character walks in-and-out of threshold. 
	
	if (acc == 0) // If the camera	 is not moving
		{
		myDist = maxDist; // Set our threshhold to Max
		}
	else // else the camera IS moving
		{
		myDist = minDist; // set threshold to min
		}
	transform.LookAt(target.transform);  // Aim at the character 
	
	var idist = Vector3.Distance(transform.position, target.transform.position); // Get distance between the cam and the player
	
	if (idist > myDist) // If distance beyond our current threshold 
		{
		acc = Mathf.Min(acc + 2, speed); // accelerate by a fixed amount (+2) until we're at max speed (speed)
		}
	else  // Else the distance is inside our threshold 
		{
		acc = Mathf.Max(acc - 2, 0);  // deacclerate by (-2) until we're at stopped (0).
		}

if (acc > 0) // If we're moving
		{
	    //transform.Translate(0, 0,  acc	 * Time.deltaTime); // Old way without collision; 
		
		//--VV-- This turns the local angle into a world coord that can be passed to the Move command 
		var iangle = transform.TransformDirection(Vector3(0,0, acc * Time.deltaTime));  
		//--AA--
		var controller : CharacterController = GetComponent(CharacterController); // Get controller 
		var flags = controller.Move(iangle);// Move with collision but without gravity. 
		}
	}

Creating elevators in Unity

More Lightwave and Unity

Importing models and animations from NewTek Lightwave 3D to Unity

Dean Utian's Director Survey

Unity day 11: Terrain overview and Scripting

Executive Summary

More on terrain

Current wishes

• Save Game/Load game: a quick writeup on how to crawl the hierarchy and save off gamedata for instantiation later. Techniques for making this scalable so that you're not going back and changing the savegame code every time you change properties of the world.
  
• Building large worlds: the terrain engine has built in support for clipping trees and grass, but what about all the other objects you want to stick in your world? Can you just add objects to your world without worrying about it? or are there tricks that need to be used?
  
• Writing core functions: I want to write some functions that can be called from any script. How do I do that?
  

iPhone: Why won't you let me type my name?

• Type h a n but when going for the f, press and hold down. Don't release.
  
• You'll see that either the d or the g pop up instead.
  
• Now slide your finger over a little bit to hit the f.
  

• Type a d or a g instead. Then hit the backspace key.
  
• Now try and type an f again.
  

So what's going on with the iPhone keyboard?

Predictability and Smart Systems

iTunes Genius UI: Who designed this?

Unity: Day 5

Unity Support

Unity and Lightwave: first results

Hanford's Unity FAQs

Checking out Unity

Day 1: Installing the trial

First Impressions

Col. Sander's Paradox