Creating a simple hover effect using C# script

#unity3d #csharp #gamedev #uidesign

Learning Unity - UI - Create button OnHover effect

Buttons are essential UI elements, and adding hover effects makes them feel more alive — which is crucial for engaging gameplay. In this guide, you’ll learn how to implement a hover effect using a C# script in Unity. For example, you can change button color, size, create a transition animation effect, create a sound effect, animate/change text color so on... These ideas only for a hover effect, but creativity can also kick in for a OnClick effect etc.

Step 1: Set Up Your Unity Project
Open Unity and create a new 2D or 3D project

In the Hierarchy panel, right-click and select UI > Button to create a new button

Step 2: Customize Your Button Appearance
Select the button in the Hierarchy

In the Inspector, find the Image component

Set the Source Image to your desired button appearance

Adjust colors in the Color property

From this screen shoot is possible to see some key points about the these buttons used to change application language using lean localization:

For more information about how to localize your game to local languages I have used this solution:

I have worked previously with translation only in the context of web apps using front-end frameworks like Vue.js and React.js. I remember back in 2019 I was working in a frontend application using Vue2 and translating between 2 or 3 different languages and keeping all the text hardcoded inside each different Single-File-Component (SFC) in sync with a centralized state variable managed inside Vuex store and using computed getters to trigger reactivity everytime the user changed the language, instantaneously the UI would update and replace all text from one language to another one everything handled by javascript on the browser during runtime. Remembering that javascript is a interpreted language, dinamically typed, multi-paradigm meaning that:

JavaScript is multi-paradigm, meaning it supports object-oriented,
functional, and imperative programming styles — allowing developers
to choose the most suitable approach or mix them fluidly, depending
on the problem at hand.
Object-oriented: Classes, prototypes, inheritance.
Functional: First-class functions, closures, higher-order functions,
immutability.
Imperative: Step-by-step commands, loops, conditionals.

Create the Script

C# Script - MonoBehavior Base Class in Unity. Commonly used hooks: Start, Update, Awake, Destroy. Their names are hints for the lifecycle of objects inside the game.


using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.EventSystems;
using UnityEngine.UI;

public class ButtonHoverEffect : MonoBehaviour, IPointerEnterHandler, IPointerExitHandler
{
    private Image buttonImage;
    private Color originalColor;
    public Color hoverColor = new Color(0.8f, 0.8f, 1f); // light blue tint

    void Start()
    {
        buttonImage = GetComponent<Image>();
        if (buttonImage != null)
            originalColor = buttonImage.color;
    }

    public void OnPointerEnter(PointerEventData eventData)
    {
        if (buttonImage != null)
            buttonImage.color = hoverColor;
    }

    public void OnPointerExit(PointerEventData eventData)
    {
        if (buttonImage != null)
            buttonImage.color = originalColor;
    }
}

At this points you should have something looking like this: