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Getting Started with Unity 2018

By : Dr. Edward Lavieri Jr.

2.7 (7)

Getting Started with Unity 2018

2.7 (7)

By: Dr. Edward Lavieri Jr.

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.

Preface

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Get in touch

Free Chapter

Downloading and Installing Unity

Downloading and Installing Unity

Game engine overview

Unity – past, present, and future

The case for Unity

System requirements

Downloading Unity

Installing Unity

Summary

The Unity Interface

The Unity Interface

Screen real estate

Menu

Scene view

Game view

Project window

Hierarchy window

Inspector window

Toolbar

Layouts

Summary

Designing the Game

Designing the Game

Game concept

Game characters

Gameplay

The difficulty balance

Project organization

Summary

Creating Our Terrain

Creating Our Terrain

Creating the terrain

Shaping the terrain

Painting the terrain

Adding water

Adding vegetation

Summary

Lights, Cameras, and Shadows

Lights, Cameras, and Shadows

Working with cameras

Using multiple cameras

Working with lighting

Implementing reflection probes

Understanding shadows

Summary

Creating and Importing 3D Objects for Our Game

Creating and Importing 3D Objects for Our Game

Understanding assets and GameObjects

Creating 3D objects in Unity

Using the Unity Asset Store

Incorporating custom assets in our game

Working with imported assets

Summary

Implementing Our Player Character

Implementing Our Player Character

Working with Unity's standard asset package

Importing the game character

Configuring a player controller

Fine-tuning our character

Animating our player character

Terraforming the terrain for our Cucumber Man

Summary

Implementing Our Non-Player Characters

Implementing Our Non-Player Characters

Understanding the non-player characters

Importing the non-player characters into our game

Animating our non-player characters

Incorporating the non-player characters into our game

Terraforming the terrain for our Cucumber Beetles

Adding cucumber patches to our terrain

Adding cucumbers to our terrain

Scripting our non-player characters

Summary

Adding a Heads-Up Display

Adding a Heads-Up Display

Designing our Heads-Up Display

Working with a canvas

Creating a mini-map

Scripting for dynamic content

Summary

Scripting Our Points System

Scripting Our Points System

Collecting cherries from trees

Adding the cherry-throwing capability

Adding points based on cherry collection and combat hits

Summary

Scripting Victory and Defeat

Scripting Victory and Defeat

Designing victory and defeat conditions

Updating the player's health

Implementing victory

Implementing defeat

Updating the HUD with lives remaining

Scripting the player character's respawning

Summary

Adding Audio and Visual Effects to Our Game

Adding Audio and Visual Effects to Our Game

Discovering Unity's audio system

Planning our game's audio

Implementing our game's audio

Introduction to Unity's lights and shadows

Discovering Unity's special effects

Adding visual effects to our game

Summary

Optimizing Our Game for Deployment

Optimizing Our Game for Deployment

Using the Profiler window

Optimizing scripts

Optimizing graphics rendering

Additional optimizations

Creating builds

Summary

Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality

Welcome to virtual reality

Enabling virtual reality in Unity

Starter content

Summary

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Importing the game character

We will use a custom third-person character controller for our Cucumber Beetle game. First, we should make sure there are no conflicting assets in your game project. Let's start by launching Unity and opening your game project based on the work you did in Chapter 6, Creating and Importing 3D Objects for our Game. Alternatively, you can load the Starting-Chapter-07 Unity project available from the publisher's companion site. Once your project is loaded in Unity, delete any of the following listed items from the Hierarchy panel:

Camera (you will retain the main camera you first explored in Chapter 5, Lights, Cameras, and Shadows)
ThirdPersonController

Once the unnecessary assets are deleted, your Hierarchy panel should contain only the assets listed in the following Hierarchy panel screenshot:

You are now ready to import the...

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