How to add player movement in Unity

Adding player movement is crucial for dynamic experiences and interactive game designs. It is the primary method to engage users with the game world, interact with game characters or objects, and explore game environments.

Without movement, a game could limit the player's sense of immersion and make it feel static. Therefore, understanding and implementing player movement is essential in game development.

How to add movement

Here is the basic guide on how to add player movement in Unity.

Set up up the scene

  • Create a new 3D project

  • Set up the scene or any object you want to represent your player character

Create a player controller script

  • Select the player character

  • In the Inspector window, select Add Component

  • Name the script and press Create

Here is the sample C# script to enable movements of the player.

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
public class PlayerMovement : MonoBehaviour
{
    public float moveSpeed;
    private CharacterController ch;
    void Start()
    {
        ch = GetComponent<CharacterController>();
    }
    void Update()
    {
        float x = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal") * moveSpeed * Time.deltaTime;
        float z = Input.GetAxis("Vertical") * moveSpeed * Time.deltaTime;
        ch.Move(new Vector3(x, 0, z));
    }
}
Explanation

  • Lines 1–3: These lines make all the necessary imports.

  • Line 5: A class named PlayerMovement is declared here which inherits from the MonoBehaviour class. It provides basic player movement functionality.

  • Line 7: It declares a moveSpeed variable which controls the speed at which the player moves.

  • Line 8: This line declares an object ch with a CharacterController component attached to it. It allows easy character movement.

  • Lines 10–13: Start() method is called only once when the play button is clicked. It gets the controller component by GetComponent attached to the ch object.

  • Line 15: Update() function is called once per frame every frame.

  • Lines 17–18: These lines get input from the player which can be controlled by the keys. You can replace the Horizontal and Vertical with appropriate input axes if you are using different input methods. The moveSpeed is then multiplied by the Time.deltaTime to ensure smooth movement of the player.

  • Line 19: Move method is called on the ch object to move the character. Adjust the axes if your game uses other coordinate system.

Add Character Controller

  • Select the player object

  • In the Inspector window, select Add Component

  • Search Character Controller

  • Press Add

Tune and Test

  • Save all the changes

  • Select the player object

  • In the Inspector window, adjust the moveSpeed of the player

  • Play the game

You should be able to move your player character around with the arrow keys.

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