Book Image

Getting Started with Unity 2018 - Third Edition

By : Dr. Edward Lavieri
Book Image

Getting Started with Unity 2018 - Third Edition

By: Dr. Edward Lavieri

Overview of this book

The Unity game engine has revolutionized the gaming industry with its complete set of intuitive tools and rapid workflows, which can be used to create interactive 3D content. With Unity, you can scaffold your way from the basics and make make stunning interactive games. This book will guide you through the entire process of creating a 3D game, from downloading the Unity game engine to publishing your game. It not only gives you a strong foundation, but puts you on the path to game development. Beginning with an overview of the Unity engine and its interface, you will walk through the process of creating a game environment and learn how to use built-in assets, as well as assets created with third-party 3D modeling tools such as Blender. Moving on, you will create custom scripts to control non-player character behaviors and gameplay. You will master exciting concepts such as Heads-Up-Displays, mini-maps, game navigation, sound effects, and lighting effects. Next, you’ll learn how to create your first VR experience, right from setting up the project to image effects. You'll be familiarized with all the tools that Unity has to offer to create your own immersive VR experiences. Each section is a stepping stone toward the completion of the final game. By the end of the book, you'll have learned advanced topics such as cross-platform considerations which enable your games to run on multiple platforms.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Title Page
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Welcome to virtual reality


Virtual reality is not a new term, but it has gained tremendous attention lately. The advent of 3D graphics and stereoscopes contributed to the state of virtual reality as it exists today. The following diagram illustrates the basic concept of stereoscopes and how they create virtual 3D images:

As you can see, the same image is presented twice from different angles. This results in a virtual 3D image. The same concept exists for videos.

Conceptually, virtual reality is fairly simple. It is the creation of a synthetic and believable virtual environment or world. There are two basic components: hardware and software. The hardware components typically involve a headset that has an individual lens for each eye and one or more display panels behind each lens. Most often, we are inserting our mobile phone into the headset, instead of having the display panels. Specialized lenses are used to focus the light from the mobile phone surface onto your eye's retina. 

Note

To see...