Public vs SerializeField in Unity - Hands-On Comparison

Understanding Public vs SerializeField in Unity

📖 Scenario: You are making a simple Unity game where you want to control a character's speed. You want to learn how to make variables visible and editable in the Unity Inspector while keeping your code clean and safe.

🎯 Goal: Learn the difference between public and [SerializeField] in Unity by creating a speed variable that you can edit in the Inspector but keep private in code.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a private float variable called speed with the value 5.0f.

Add the [SerializeField] attribute to the speed variable.

Create a public float variable called jumpHeight with the value 2.0f.

Print both speed and jumpHeight values in the Start() method.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Game developers often need to adjust variables like speed or jump height in the Unity Editor without changing code. Using <code>public</code> or <code>[SerializeField]</code> helps with this.

💼 Career

Understanding how to control variable visibility and editing in Unity is essential for game programming jobs, enabling collaboration between programmers and designers.

1

Create private speed variable with SerializeField

Create a private float variable called speed and set it to 5.0f. Add the [SerializeField] attribute above it.

Unity

using UnityEngine;

public class PlayerController : MonoBehaviour
{
    // Create a private float variable called speed with SerializeField and set it to 5.0f
    // Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Use [SerializeField] just above the private variable declaration.

2

Add public jumpHeight variable

Add a public float variable called jumpHeight and set it to 2.0f inside the PlayerController class.

Unity

using UnityEngine;

public class PlayerController : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField]
    private float speed = 5.0f;

    // Add a public float variable called jumpHeight and set it to 2.0f
    // Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Declare the variable with the public keyword and assign 2.0f.

3

Print speed and jumpHeight in Start method

Create a Start() method and inside it, use Debug.Log to print the values of speed and jumpHeight.

Unity

using UnityEngine;

public class PlayerController : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField]
    private float speed = 5.0f;

    public float jumpHeight = 2.0f;

    // Create Start() method and print speed and jumpHeight
    // Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Use void Start() and inside it call Debug.Log twice.

4

Run and observe output

Run the Unity game and observe the Console output showing the values of speed and jumpHeight. Write a Debug.Log statement that prints "Speed: 5" and "Jump Height: 2".

Unity

using UnityEngine;

public class PlayerController : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField]
    private float speed = 5.0f;

    public float jumpHeight = 2.0f;

    void Start()
    {
        // Run and check Console output
        // Your code here
    }
}

Need a hint?

Look at the Unity Console window after running the game to see the printed values.