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

Starter content


In the game industry, hardware manufacturers want you to buy their products and software toolmakers want you to use their software. And, with both hardware and software, their creators want you to develop games so people can play them. To be more specific, VR headset manufacturers would like to sell as many headsets as possible, so they encourage developers by providing them with free tools and assets. This is not an evil plan, rather a symbiotic relationship between hardware manufacturers and game developers.

Any look at the Unity Asset Store is a snapshot in time because of the dynamic nature of the store. At the time of writing, there were several free VR-related assets from various hardware manufacturers. This section reviews those assets.

Oculus VR

Oculus VR provides several free assets in the Unity Asset Store to support your development for Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR. 

Oculus Sample Framework

The first pack is the Oculus Sample Framework. It contains three sample scenes...