Unity Ui ToolKit questions

[ath0rus]

Hey,
So I want to pickup the Unity UI Toolkit course as it looks super cool (from the trailer).
Before I do though I have a few questions about the course.

1. Can the UI’s made with the UI toolkit be used in game (in game hud, menu’s, etc) as well as in unity editor itself
2. Can the UI talk to other apps: e.g press button triggers a light in blender (through the likes of sockets or api call)

If i think of more questions ill add them as a comment

[ath0rus]

I found this video which explained that yes it can be used in game as well as in the editor.

Unity's UI Toolkit & UI Builder: What is It, and How Do You Make It Work ? - Space's Aces Devlog #03

[Brian_Trotter]

Hi @ath0rus, I’m the TA for the UI Toolkit course.

@ath0rus

Can the UI’s made with the UI toolkit be used in game (in game hud, menu’s, etc) as well as in unity editor itself

Absolutely, although this isn’t directly covered in the course, as this short course focused on Editor code. Looks like you’ve already found a good starting point for migrating from Editor Code to in game code. The work flow is a bit different from what you’re used to, as you have to activate documents at runtime, but once you get the hang of it, I find it more intuitive than Unity’s old style IMGUI.

@ath0rus

Can the UI talk to other apps: e.g press button triggers a light in blender (through the likes of sockets or api call)

The UI itself? No. It can, however, hook into methods in your own project that can then make those API calls in response to the UI.

[ath0rus]

@Brian_Trotter

Absolutely,

Cool, Happy to get another “Yes it can be done”

@Brian_Trotter

The work flow is a bit different from what you’re used to, as you have to activate documents at runtime, but once you get the hang of it,

Sounds like an easy fix. I can write a little auto start script that starts my UI scripts how i want it to. The reason i am doing this course is so i can make ui’s and stuff for my friend who makes the games (I do 3D art for him)

@Brian_Trotter

The UI itself? No. It can, however, hook into methods in your own project that can then make those API calls in response to the UI.

As I expected, What I assume you mean by that is you can make a button in the UI that runs part of a script (or calls a script) that makes a call to en external app or server. I am more of a Python coder (noob) and a 3D artist (Learnt from Rick and Grant), Now to work out how to get Unity editor and Blender to talk in some way or another, aswell as making some cool UI’s

[Brian_Trotter]

@ath0rus

Now to work out how to get Unity editor and Blender to talk in some way or another, aswell as making some cool UI’s

I’m not aware of any way to do that atm. You can export models in Blender into Maya’s .fbx format, and then import them into Unity. You can also export scene geometry from Unity to the fbx format using the FBX exporter (in the Package Manager on later versions of Unity). In terms of actually sending a command to Blender, or vice versa,I can’t find any information on that.