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

Working with lighting


In the previous sections, we explored the uses of cameras for Unity games. Just like in the real world, cameras need lights to show us objects. In Unity games, we use multiple lights to illuminate the game environment.

In Unity, we have both dynamic lighting techniques as well as light baking options for better performance. We can add numerous light sources throughout our scenes and selectively enable or disable an object's ability to cast or receive shadows. This level of specificity gives us tremendous opportunity to create realistic game scenes.

Perhaps the secret behind Unity's ability to so realistically render light and shadows is that Unity models the actual behavior of lights and shadows. Real-time global illumination gives us the ability to instantiate multiple lights in each scene, each with the ability to directly or indirectly impact objects in the scene that are within range of the light sources.

Note

Indirect light refers to lights bouncing off objects and...