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

Understanding shadows


As indicated earlier in this chapter, our game scenes can have numerous light sources, and we can enable or disable an object's ability to cast or receive shadows. We have shadows in the real world and it is important to consider, for our Unity games, what objects cast shadows and what objects receive shadows. 

The following screenshot shows the Mesh Renderer component of an object in the Inspector panel. Let's review the key settings of this component:

  • Light Probes: It can be set to Blend Probes, Use Proxy Volume, or Off. You will most likely use the default Blend Probes for simple Unity games.
  • Reflection Probes: This setting can be turned off or set to Blend Probes, Blend Probes And Skybox, or Simple
  • Cast Shadows: This setting can be set to On, Off, Two-Sided, or Shadows Only. The default is On, so you should disable this for all objects that do not need to cast shadows. 
  • Receive Shadows: This setting is a toggle that tells Unity whether you want that object to receive...