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Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 5.x - Second Edition

By : Greg Lukosek

3.8 (30)

Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 5.x

3.8 (30)

By: Greg Lukosek

Overview of this book

Unity is a cross-platform game engine that is used to develop 2D and 3D video games. Unity 5 is the latest version, released in March 2015, and adds a real-time global illumination to the games, and its powerful new features help to improve a game’s efficiency. This book will get you started with programming behaviors in C# so you can create 2D games in Unity. You will begin by installing Unity and learning about its features, followed by creating a C# script. We will then deal with topics such as unity scripting for you to understand how codes work so you can create and use C# variables and methods. Moving forward, you will find out how to create, store, and retrieve data from collection of objects. You will also develop an understanding of loops and their use, and you’ll perform object-oriented programming. This will help you to turn your idea into a ready-to-code project and set up a Unity project for production. Finally, you will discover how to create the GameManager class to manage the game play loop, generate game levels, and develop a simple UI for the game. By the end of this book, you will have mastered the art of applying C# in Unity.

Preface

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Free Chapter

1. Discovering Your Hidden Scripting Skills and Getting Your Environment Ready

1. Discovering Your Hidden Scripting Skills and Getting Your Environment Ready

Prerequisite knowledge to use this book

Dealing with scriptphobia

Downloading Unity

Teaching behavior to GameObjects

C# documentation – where to find it? Do I need it at all?

Working with C# script files

Creating a C# script file

Introducing the MonoDevelop code editor

Instance? What is it?

Summary

2. Introducing the Building Blocks for Unity Scripts

2. Introducing the Building Blocks for Unity Scripts

Understanding what a variable is and what it does

What is a method?

Introducing the class

The Start(), Update(), and Awake() methods and the execution order

Components that communicate using dot syntax

Making decisions in code

Paper and pencil are powerful tools

Summary

3. Getting into the Details of Variables

3. Getting into the Details of Variables

Writing C# statements properly

Understanding component properties in Unity's Inspector

Changing a property's value in the Inspector panel

Private variables

Naming your variables properly

Beginning variable names with lowercase

Using multiword variable names

Declaring a variable and its type

Assigning values while declaring a variable

Where you declare a variable is important

Variable scope – determining where a variable can be used

Summary

4. Getting into the Details of Methods

4. Getting into the Details of Methods

Using methods in a script

Naming methods properly

Defining a method the right way

Understanding parentheses – why are they there?

Specifying a method's parameters

Returning a value from a method

Summary

5. Lists, Arrays, and Dictionaries

5. Lists, Arrays, and Dictionaries

What is an array?

Storing items in the List

List versus arrays

Retrieving the data from the Array or List

ArrayList

Dictionaries

Summary

6. Loops

6. Loops

Introduction to loops

The foreach loop

The for loop

The while loop

while versus for loops

Loops in statements

Modulo

Searching for data inside an array

Breaking the loop

Summary

7. Object, a Container with Variables and Methods

7. Object, a Container with Variables and Methods

Working with objects is a class act

Instantiating an object

Bored yet?

Using methods with objects

Custom constructors

Overloading

Summary

8. Let's Make a Game! – From Idea to Development

8. Let's Make a Game! – From Idea to Development

Your first game – avoiding the trap of the never-ending concept

The idea

Breaking a complex idea into smaller parts

Jake on the mysterious planet – the feature list

Target platform and resolution

Target screen resolution

Summary

9. Starting Your First Game

9. Starting Your First Game

Setting up a new Unity project for our game

Preparing the player prefab

PlayerController

User input

Animator

Code

Summary

10. Writing GameManager

10. Writing GameManager

Gameplay loops

Singleton class

Starting the game

Setting up input keys

Using triggers

Restarting the game

Setting up the player starting position

Code in this chapter

Summary

11. The Game Level

11. The Game Level

Generating levels versus designed levels

Creating a copy of the level piece

Instantiating

Vector3

Testing LevelGenerator

Extending the level

The code used in this chapter

Summary

12. The User Interface

12. The User Interface

Introducting the Unity UI

Views

Buttons

Hiding and showing the Canvas

Reference exceptions

GameView

The code in this chapter

Summary

13. Collectables — What Next?

13. Collectables — What Next?

Collectables

The coin prefab

High score and persisting data

The Update function and UI values

What next?

The code in this chapter

Summary

Index

Index

C# documentation – where to find it? Do I need it at all?

Another resource that we will be using is Microsoft's C# scripting documentation. We can access it at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/67ef8sbd.aspx.

Let's not worry about it too much at the moment. We agreed to take baby steps, so bookmark this link in your web browser for now.

The Unity community – asking others for help

You are planning to become a game developer, or are using Unity for other interactive projects. During production, at some point, you will definitely need help from other developers. Unity has a very dedicated community of developers who are always keen to help each other.

When we encounter some hurdles, why not ask others? In most cases, there is someone like you out there with similar issues that have been resolved. A good place to talk about issues in your project is Unity Forums. Go ahead and create a forum account now! Don't be shy; say "hello" to others! Unity Forums are also the perfect place to read announcements about upcoming updates.

Use Unity Forums to read about others' work, share your work, and connect with other developers, at http://forum.unity3d.com/.

Use Unity Answers to ask specific questions about issues that you have encountered. Remember to be very specific, try to describe the problem in detail, and don't ask general questions (for example, "Why is my GameObject not moving?"). Instead, ask specifically, "GameObject not moving when adding a rigid body force" and then describe the details. Posting your code under the question is also a very good idea.

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Tech Concepts

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Programming languages

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