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

Book Image

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

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.

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Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 5.x - Second Edition
Mar, 2016 | 230 pages
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Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 5.x Second Edition
Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 5.x Second Edition
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewer
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Discovering Your Hidden Scripting Skills and Getting Your Environment Ready
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
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
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
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
Lists, Arrays, and Dictionaries
What is an array?
Storing items in the List
List<T> versus arrays
Retrieving the data from the Array or List<T>
ArrayList
Dictionaries
Summary
6
Loops
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
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
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
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
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
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
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?
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

Creating a C# script file

We are now ready to create a new C# file in our learning project:

  1. Create a new Unity project and name it Learning Project.

  2. Right-click on the Project tab and create a folder named Scripts.

  3. Right-click on the Scripts folder, as shown in the following screenshot, and create a C# script:

  4. Immediately rename NewBehaviourScript to LearningScript.

We have created the Scripts folder, which we will be using to organize our C# files. This folder will contain all of our Unity script files. We have also used Unity to create a C# script file named LearningScript.cs.

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