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

Chapter 2. The Unity Interface

In Chapter 1, Downloading and Installing Unity, we explored game engines and took a quick look at four alternative game engines to help us appreciate Unity. We looked at the history of Unity and how it evolved from one release to the next. In addition, we discovered Unity's key capabilities and features. We covered Unity's system requirements for developing Unity games and the system requirements for running them. Finally, we downloaded and installed Unity.

In this chapter, we will examine Unity's primary views and windows; we will also cover layouts and the toolbar. The interface components covered in this chapter are the ones used most often. Additional interface components will be covered in subsequent chapters as new functionality and tools are introduced.

Specifically, we will cover the following components:

  • Screen Real Estate 
  • Menu
  • Scene view
  • Game view
  • Project window
  • Hierarchy window
  • Inspector window
  • Toolbar
  • Layouts

Note

Unity can be run on Windows PCs and Macs. The...