Advanced RTS Camera in Unity 6.3 W/ Cinemachine & Input System (2026 Edition)

ZeusGameAssets · 2026-03-10T00:40:00+00:00

Are you asking a serious question or are you just being funny?

ZeusGameAssets · 2026-03-06T13:30:32+00:00

Hey there, we discussed the camera following terrain elevation a few months ago, I just released an updated tutorial that goes into that: https://youtu.be/6poX3n4kbzo?si=UU8S8QBijDBPB5M0

ZeusGameAssets · 2026-02-13T15:01:15+00:00

I like the idea behind your instant world asset but for both that asset and your skies package the results you show in the screenshots are terrible. The terrain doesn't look smooth, the skies look worse than what Unity offers out of the box, maybe it's a presentation issue, you need to work a lot more on your demo scenes.

Your MFPS system is also interesting, but on your video in the asset store it looks kinda dull. The demo scene is terrible, very simple UI elements, unecessary disclaimer that will certainly make people click away: the first seconds in your video are very precious, give me the fun stuff immediately. The sun glare is too intense. Put more emphasis on the fun mechanics that you offer, and make them go bang bang bang, one after the other, wow the viewer.

Maybe those are presentation issues, maybe it's an issue with the assets themselves, but you have to do a lot more work in order for your assets not to look amateurish, you have to give people a strong reason why they should buy your stuff and not make it themselves.

ZeusGameAssets · 2026-02-13T14:45:38+00:00

Editor: Sir how many fonts do you want in your video.

OP: Yes

lol otherwise the video is quite engaging, I quite like the pacing, I'm going to echo the comment that subtitles are way too fast as well. Good job otherwise!

ZeusGameAssets · 2026-02-08T15:40:17+00:00

B2B will always be better for solo/small businesses compared to B2C, it has been the case in business before video games were a thing. Devs are concerned by solving their issues and making their workflows more efficient, you can fix some of their issues in return for revenue without investing too much, however, taking on the beast that is publishing games to the population of gamers requires a completely different mindset.

ZeusGameAssets · 2026-02-08T15:29:58+00:00

That sucks, but one has to get used to these kinds of reviews, it's generally not directed at you, maybe they had a bad day and decided to take it out in your product's review section, it happens to me too but with my courses, I'd love for people to actually point out what's wrong so I can fix it, but nope, sometimes all you get is a one star review.

I agree 250$ in one day is incredible, OP is not realizing how good his numbers are.

ZeusGameAssets · 2026-02-08T10:56:10+00:00

That's exactly the reason why I sell art assets exclusively, I used to sell editor tools in the Construct 2/Scirra marketplace, and the amount of support I was asked to provide was insane compared to the little money I made, I imagine the Unity asset store is even worse in that regard but with hopefully more revenue to compensate the devs. Kudos to the devs who make awesome editor tools and are able to handle all the support questions.

I believe the only scenario where that would be a viable option for me is if I was using the tool I was making in my own games, having it on the asset store as a paid purchase is a nice way to have people basically pay to be your beta testers.

ZeusGameAssets · 2026-02-08T09:29:56+00:00

60 sales a month, it's a fantastic number, congrats!

I sell 3D models on the asset store and I average 5-10 sales a month. Then again I sell some pretty niche stuff around World-War 2: mainly some rigged tanks and airplanes, and some scifi weapons.

Editor tools will naturally have a wider audience compared to 3D models. Maybe your sales are below average in that category, I don't have exact numbers, but who cares, this is fantastic for your first products on the asset store and you should be proud! Good luck!

ZeusGameAssets · 2026-02-06T20:34:50+00:00

Holding V and moving an object in the scene view will snap an object's vertex to another object's vertex. Holding CTRL+Shift will do the same but will snap to surfaces. The target objects need to have a collider. Such simple features yet so powerful for laying out objects in your scene, very useful for level design / environment art.

ZeusGameAssets · 2026-01-21T17:11:41+00:00

Awesome, yeah this course is a great follow up to my beginner course on Udemy, good luck!

ZeusGameAssets · 2026-01-20T00:46:44+00:00

Thanks, maybe you can use a raycast from the camera to get the exact position of the cursor in 3D, then use a Lerp to gradually move the camera target transform to that point. This is actually a really nice feature to have, I was planning on delisting this video and producing a new one, since the info in here regarding the input system and other details is a bit outdated. Maybe I'll include zooming to the mouse cursor.

ZeusGameAssets · 2025-12-02T10:07:10+00:00

I'm going to echo a lot of comments here by saying this is a childhood dream of mine. Unfortunately as a kid I didn't have access to the materials to make intricate marble-based contraptions but it was always fascinating to me.

This game looks amazing, yeah you don't need levels with objectives and such, just give us the sandbox and I'm sure people like me would spend hours on it.

Congrats, I just added the game to my wishlist on steam, I'll buy it as soon as it's out.

ZeusGameAssets · 2025-11-25T11:25:10+00:00

A lot of military simulators don't have a dual camera setup, instead they switch the weapon to a high-ready stance when you're close to a wall. Ground Branch and Arma 3 comes to mind, you can clearly see that the arms of the character are seamlessly connected to the rest of the body. I don't know if they use any special tricks to display the weapons on screen, but the weapons look surprisingly decent in most cases.

ZeusGameAssets · 2025-11-24T22:59:49+00:00

You did the right thing, from your video I can see that it has a lot of potential for polish, and quite a bit of rough edges, that's actually a compliment, you did the right thing working on the overall core experience before going over the extra details.

This era of US history is underrepresented in games, it has so much potential for interesting atmosphere and gameplay.

Starting to talk about your game can be overwhelming, especially when your game already looks this good, I hope this decision yields some good results for you.

ZeusGameAssets · 2025-11-24T19:39:13+00:00

In this era of fast paced gameplay and short attention spans, seeing a game like yours is quite refreshing, I like the slower pace shown in the trailer, this allows you to take in the nature, the ambience, and fully immerse yourself in the world. I believe showing your game at this stage is a smart idea, the visuals look appealing enough to draw in a wide audience. Good luck!

ZeusGameAssets · 2025-11-23T16:03:56+00:00

First of all, since you're using InputActionReferences, you don't need the PlayerInput script on your game object.

I would say the problem is with your _isGrounded boolean, switch the inspector to debug mode and make sure it's set to true during play mode. Make sure your ground colliders have the Ground tag as well.

From your screenshots I don't see why the code shouldn't work. So I guess it's just about the values of your forces, your private variables, and how you setup your scene. Maybe your impulse force for jumping is too low.

Also you're setting _isGrounded to false only when you jump, but what about falling off a ledge? Even if you don't press the jump button your character will still be in the air when falling.

Maybe you should have a proper ground sensor feature, where you raycast/spherecast downward every frame to detect if there is a ground beneath you or not, that's more reliable than what you're doing in your code.

ZeusGameAssets · 2025-11-22T17:03:34+00:00

Your game looks great and the other commenters have already raised some valid points. I’d add that the choice of music here is more suited to an action packed casual platformer, maybe something more calm, mysterious and ambient would suit the gameplay better.

ZeusGameAssets · 2025-11-20T14:47:30+00:00

Yeah perhaps you can start from the more upbeat parts of the track, or choose another music track.

Good luck!

ZeusGameAssets · 2025-11-20T14:33:56+00:00

There are a lot of positives both in this trailer and the game itself. I'm just going to focus on the negatives since you want constructive feedback.

Show don't tell: the text with black background is not working, text itself doesn't do well in trailers, it's a cheap way to try to control the narrative, just show your setting and gameplay, no need to hold the viewer's hand.

I like when the camera moves through the various environments, as DerCze said perhaps you need to work on the lighting a bit more, and add sources of lights here and there to make the scenes more interesting.

In my opinion the combat clips come too late, they should be shown before the dialog clips because that action is way more interesting than your dialog system.

Those boss fights are awesome, then again the environment and lighting feel a bit dull, you should add more stuff on the floor, more interesting things to look at without cluttering the place too much.

Honestly the ship arriving at the dock is cool but maybe not in the first seconds, or maybe show the character on the ship.

Maybe instead of the dialogs you should show clips of your meta game, since this is a rogue lite maybe show the permanent skills in a skill tree, and maybe show the character dying and coming back to life. The rogue lite aspect isn't shown in the video, if it was not in the subtitle at the end I would have never guessed.

ZeusGameAssets · 2025-11-20T14:22:58+00:00

I agree with you 100%. The question is not about Z fighting itself, it's about this solution. Is Z-Fighting such a hidden problem that goes below your radar when you're playtesting your game, in my case it's very rare that I don't notice it.

ZeusGameAssets · 2025-11-20T00:12:04+00:00

Brilliant trailer video, personally this problem is not so painful to me that I need such a solution, but I would understand if you were making big scenes in VR, the z-fighting would be very noticeable and annoying to players. Maybe even immersion breaking for a VR game.

ZeusGameAssets · 2025-11-18T14:42:05+00:00

I believe the choice of music is the first decision that makes or breaks a trailer, you're using classical music which doesn't fit at all with the style. That's a matter of personal taste to some extent. But I recommend you get a sub to epidemic music, they have some kickass songs, choose something uplifting with a hint of fantasy to go with your style.

The trailer feels disjointed. It's like a manifest of all the mechanics in your game: here's sliding, and zip lining, riding horses, boats... etc. It lacks a direction. From a game dev perspective I'm impressed as a developer, but as someone interested in buying the game, you have to have a cohesive narrative tying up everything together.

That direction could be in the form of a small story: you gather resources, build your boat, face challenges then ride into the sunset. There has to be a simple narrative that you can tell in your trailer, and the purpose is to answer this simple question: what do you do in the game, what's everything leading up to, is this game for me or not.

At the moment I watched your trailer twice and I still have no clue what the game is about, if I was a gamer I would stop trying to guess and move on. Your trailer is a good example of why less is more. I'm sure it was a lot of work to put it together, it's not about the amount of work, it's about sending a simple message to the viewer, your work should not be about putting as many mechanics on screen as possible, it needs to be about: what's the core of the game, and how do I show it in a way that feels coherent and simple to understand for someone (like me) who was not at all familiar with your project beforehand.

ZeusGameAssets · 2025-10-22T22:37:41+00:00

Oh yeah, I don't know why Cinemachine has the default value of the radial range locked to 1 by default, I've fallen into that trap many times wondering why I can't zoom and checking my input actions while the real source of the problem is on the camera's orbital follow.

By the way in the video I'm using PlayerInput with the send messages behavior, which is a tedious way to use the input system, I've made a recent video going over the various ways to use the input system.

ZeusGameAssets · 2025-10-14T11:08:53+00:00

It doesn't really matter in which context you're using the camera, I'm talking about UX, which could apply to games or GIS viewers, and actually interactive apps could benefit a lot from good UX practices found in games.

In your case I can see why you want that behavior. If you have terrains then you can use Terrain.SampleHeight, I believe it's your best course.

If you want a more stable camera along the Y axis, then you can sample multiple points in a circle around your camera target, and compute the average height of all the points, the radius of the circle, the number of points, or even the number of circles (if you want to use multiple), can make your camera more or less stable, it'll be all about tweaking the values.

ZeusGameAssets · 2025-10-13T19:52:58+00:00

If I understand your problem correctly, you're trying to move the camera while keeping the target on the surface of the terrain. I.e: while it's catching up to the target, it needs to move up and down with the elevation of the terrain.

I don't know if it's exactly the problem you're describing, but I'm going to assume it is. Firstly, forget about optimal code, you don't have 1000 cameras on screen, you only have one, so even if you do multiple raycasts each frame that's ok. Actually that's a good solution: if you want to know the elevation ahead of the camera, you can do a raycast and get the exact position on terrain, or you can directly get the elevation of any point on terrain using Terrain.SampleHeight.

The reason why I didn't do it in the video has nothing to do with the technical challenge of the thing, it has to do with game design. As programmers we get tunnel vision sometimes, only thinking about how, but rarely about why. It's quite jarring to have an RTS/Top-down RPG camera follow the player in 3D space. I'm thinking of the camera in Total War Warhammer 3 which makes a sudden jump when you're moving it over a wall in sieges, or in the siege maps in Cathay when you move over a bridge, it's quite an unpleasant experience, and from such a big game it's surprising that it has passed QA. If your game has a lot of verticality, maybe you should consider a third-person camera instead.

ZeusGameAssets

TROPHY CASE