magadan / ll_Airtable-in-Unity

Airtable to Unity 3D

ll_Airtable-in-Unity

This project demonstrates linking an AirTable data sheet to the Unity scene and showcases some examples to utilize this feature for immersive information visualization.

The Virtual Art Gallery scene reads from the Airtable data sheet Artists_small and shows all images with the title, subtitle, and bio on play.

Tutorial Updated: 02/04/2022

1. Configure to connect to Airtable

• Inspect AirTableDB object in the Virtual Art Gallery scene
• Insert App Key and Api Key of your own Airtable account
  • You can find your Airtable Api Key under Account Overview
  • App Key is the string after "airtable.com/" url when you open your base. It should be started with 'app'
• Fill in the Table Name, Artists_small if you use the example base, or change to your Airtable base' sheet name, under both List Airtable Records and Get Airtable Record script

2. Current data sheet structure

Currently Unity program reads five columns from airtable data sheet, defined in AirTableField.cs file under Assets\AirtableUnity\Scripts\Customization.

1. Name: name of the art or author
2. Subtitle: subtitle of the art
3. Bio: bio of the art or author
4. Genre: multiple strings describing the genre of the art
5. url: open link to the image
6. ID: order of the art

3. Change to your own data sheet

If you want to connect to your own Airtable base, follow the steps in 1. Configure to connect to Airtable to change to your App Key, Api Key, and data sheet name.

Make sure you follow the data field names in 2. Current data sheet structure unless you want to customize them.

4. Customize Art Object and data structure

• If your data sheet has different column names, go to AirTableField.cs to update to your column names and types.

• You can also modify ArtObj prefab or create your own art object you want the image from Airtable to be attached to. You only need to change the tag to "Art".

If you do either step above, you will need to make change in the DownloadImage function in the GetAirtableRecord.cs script.

Step by step guide to create your own Virtual Gallery with Airtable without writing any code

1. Download this repository and unzip the folder.
2. Open the project in Unity version 2021.2.5f1 or newer.
3. Create an empty scene.
4. Create a floor by creating a Plane object.
5. Add Assets/Prefab/AirtableDB.prefab to the scene.
6. Follow 1. Configure to connect to Airtable to configure your Airtable.
7. Hit play to test out. You should see the arts created in front of you.
8. Adjust direct light's rotation to make the arts visible (recommended rotation: x: 25, y:0, z:0).
9. Add Assets/FirstPerson AIO Pack/FirstPersonAIO/Prefab/FirstPerson-AIO.prefab to the scene.
10. Hit play. Now you can walk around using arrow keys and see your arts!

Create your own art gallery

1. Create an empty game object and name it "Gallery".
2. Add multiple Assets/Prefab/ArtObj.prefab objects to the scene under Galery game object. The number of ArtObj should be the same as items in your Airtable.
3. Place each ArtObj at your desired place in the scene. You can add cube or plane as a wall to hang the ArtObj, or add lights to different place.
4. Uncheck Auto Gallery for AirtableDB under Get Airtable Record.
5. Hit play. The art images and texts from Airtable should be automatically attached to the gallery you create!

5. Build upon example scenes

There are other examples provided under Assets/Scenes folder. You can replace App Key, Api Key and Table name in the AirTableDB object to link to your own dataset.

1. Projects Showcase

This scene shows an example of an interactive project showroom. An Airtable data sheet Learning-lab contains the project image and description. Users can approach the image to see an overlaying pop-up window with project details.

2. Map

This scene integrates Mapbox map in the background. An Airtable data sheet Harvard-campus is used to generate the POI onto the map.

3. Timeline

This scene demonstrates the use of timeline. An Airtable data sheet timeline is used to generate key events of the Olympic Games history.

Credits

The project is built upon lipemon1's Airtable Unity Plugin examples here. Huge thanks for their contributions to the open-sourced community.