With the pervasiveness of games and the use of gamification in nearly every industry, the desire to discover how to use state of the art development software has never been so great. There is an increasing number of software tools available to help developers create amazing games for consoles, the Web, desktop computers, and mobile devices. Game engines are among the most powerful of these tools available. The Unity 3D game engine is one of the elite game engines. It has been used to create popular 2D and 3D games by large game studios and indie developers. With a free version available, and the release of Unity 5, the time has never been better to start using Unity.
Getting Started with Unity 5 covers one of the most popular game engines available. This book will guide you through the entire process of creating a 3D game, from downloading the Unity game engine to publishing your game. You will enjoy having complete coverage of exciting topics including player-controlled characters and animation. Whether you are just getting started as a game developer or have experience with Unity or other game engines, this book will provide you with a guided tour of developing games with Unity 5. With clear explanations, tips, and ample screenshots, you will be provided with detailed steps to develop your game.
This book takes a practice hands-on approach to learning Unity 5. As you progress through each chapter, you will build a 3D interactive game called Little Farmer Colt. As you create the game, you'll learn key features of Unity 5 including creating a game environment, animating characters, scripting, and more. All meshes, models, textures, animations, and other assets are available on the book's website.
By the time you complete the lessons in this book, you'll have full confidence to start using Unity 5 to create your own games.
Chapter 1, Getting Jiggy with the Unity Interface, surveys the game engine landscape, comparing other game engines with Unity to give you a full appreciation for Unity's capabilities. You'll learn how to download and install Unity 5. You'll also learn about Unity 5's user interface and core tools, including transform tools and cameras.
Chapter 2, Creating the Game Environment, will teach you about game design by reviewing the book's game design of Little Farmer Colt. You'll start creating the game environment with terrain, mountains, trees, a lake, and the sky.
Chapter 3, Working with Assets, is all about the assets used to develop games with Unity 5. You'll learn about assets, where to get them, how to make your own, and how to import them into your game. You'll also learn about free 3D object creation software to create game objects compatible with Unity 5.
Chapter 4, Animating the Game Characters, is about Unity animations and player controllers. You'll see our game characters come to life and give your users the ability to control the player.
Chapter 5, Scripting the Game, is dedicated to teaching you how to script. You'll start with a primer on C# and experience with MonoDevelop. You'll also gain experience creating your own C# scripts for your game.
Chapter 6, Adding a Graphical User Interface, contains key information on graphical user interfaces and their importance to games. You'll gain hands-on experience with the Unity 5 user interface system. You'll learn to create a heads-up display, an in-game mini-map, and full-screen navigation menus.
Chapter 7, Polishing and Optimizing the Game, will teach you several ways to make your game shine and operate optimally. You'll gain appreciation for the importance of audio and visual effects in games and how to create them. You'll gain experience with sound effects, shadows, lighting effects, and camera rendering. You'll also learn about optimizing scripts.
Chapter 8, What's Next?, is the final chapter where you'll receive several specific suggestions on how to take the Little Farmer Colt game to a higher level. You'll also learn about Unity workflow, project scalability, cross-platform issues, and the importance of attribution. You'll also gain an appreciation for advanced topics.
In order to follow the examples in this book, you'll need a copy of Unity 5 or greater. This software is available for free at http://unity3d.com/get-unity/download. You can use up-to-date Windows or Mac operating systems. You'll also need an Internet connection to download the graphic assets presented in this book.
This book is written for people new to Unity or that have some experience with a version prior to Unity 5. If you want to take a look at Unity 5, get a refresher, or just want to see how games can be developed with a top game engine, this book is for you.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "In that folder, you'll find four subfolders titled Assets, Library, ProjectSettings, and Temp."
A block of code is set as follows:
public class EatCorn : MonoBehavior {
void Start ( ) {
}
void Update ( ) {
}
}New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "You will see a Download link at the top-right section of the web page."
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