- Author:
- Sue Blackman
Unity for Absolute Beginnerswalks you through the fundamentals of creating a small third-person shooter game with Unity. Using the free version of Unity to begin your game development career, you'll learn how to import, evaluate and manage your game resources to create awesome third-person shooters. This book assumes that you have little or no experience with game development, scripting, or 3D assets, and that you're eager to start creating games as quickly as possible, while learning Unity in a fun and interactive environment. With Unity for Absolute Beginnersyou'll become familiar with the Unity editor, key concepts and functionality. You'll learn how to import, evaluate and manage resources. You'll explore C# scripting in Unity, and learn how to use the Unity API. Using the provided art assets, you will learn the fundamentals of good game design and iterative refinement as you take your game from a simple prototype to a quirky, but challenging variation of the ever-popular first-person shooter. As can be expected, there will be plenty of destruction, special effects and mayhem along the way. Unity for Absolute Beginnersassumes that you have little or no experience with game development, scripting, or 3D assets, but are eager to get up-to-speed as quickly as possible while learning Unity in a fun and interactive environment. What youll learnHow to use the Unity editor, including key concepts and functionalityHow to use import, evaluate and manage resources for use in your Unity gamesHow to use the Unity API and script in Unity using C#The fundamentals of good game design and the process you need to use to make good gamesWho this book is for This book assumes that you have little or no experience with game development, scripting, or 3D assets, but are eager to get up to speed as quickly as possible while learning Unity in a fun and interactive environment.
Index Terms
- Unity for Absolute Beginners
Reviews
Tommaso Mazza
Generally I don't read book-manuals because the version of the tool dealt with in the text is unavoidably older than the latest release. However, Blackman did not format her work as a handbook, but as a case study; thus, she explains most features of Unity by taking advantage of a real and small, but complete, project. This is well done. I'm a 3D hobbyist with some experience with a few DCC applications. Thus, I can be considered an absolute beginner with regards to Unity, but not properly a newbie in the field. In my opinion, beginning the book by describing the Unity editor was the right choice. Its description is very detailed and somewhat pedantic, but it is okay for beginners as it stands. Chapter 2 continues by illustrating the basics. It deals with primitives and meshes, and the ways to transform and parent them. In this same chapter, the author explains how to create terrains and add textures and shadows in detail. I was astonished by the power of Unity as well as by the simplicity of these tasks. Chapter 3 describes how to interact physically with the scene. The first-person navigation controller is at the center of the chapter. The reader can learn how to set up the virtual keys as well as the character motor components. The physics section of this chapter is particularly interesting. Rigid body, forces, joints, wind, and cloth are quickly but effectively described just before the manner with which to interact with the first-person controller. The chapter ends with a first building of the project, which at this point is an outdoor environment with mountains, trees, grass, and a path on the ground. Chapter 4 deals with the import of static assets. I learned that "Unity supports many file types, both generic and application specific." The .fbx format is suggested because it embodies textures with the exported model. Once imported, Unity "automatically converts textures to an appropriate .dds format for in-game use." Improvements of these generated materials are also explained. Chapter 5 introduces C# scripting. The author correctly makes clear that Unity can interact with three programming languages: UnityScript, Boo, and C#. I know and use C# in my work and agree with the author that it is the most powerful and versatile of the three. C# is not introduced in this book, nor is its syntax. The reader can find some hints on how to declare and initialize variables and how to integrate scripts into a project. The reader must be conversant with C#. Chapter 6 presents the real projects that will accompany the reader throughout the book. The environment is a garden populated by hungry zombie bunnies. The aim of the game is to "eradicate the threat with the help of a ... gnome." This chapter deals with rigging, frames, and characters to design a sound animation environment. The next chapter describes how to populate the game environment. In particular, it explains how "the player can move through the ... environment and accomplish tasks or goals." Moreover, I discovered how to place zombies randomly in the scene, as well as how to randomly set their rotation and scale. The topics of chapter 8 are weaponry and special effects. The subsequent chapter starts driving the reader toward the finalization of the game. It shows how to incorporate 2D objects like, for example, the bunny count and battery life values for the player. Here, Unity's 2D sprite system is treated and its basics explained. The next chapter teaches how to put 2D text and control elements on screen, while chapter 11 helps to add additional details to the scene like, for example, a zombie bunny locator, which is a spy map, and a power-up to "give the player a chance to replenish his battery life." The final appendix explains how to rig a character with Mixamo. Generally, I found this book interesting and well written. Its arguments are fresh and explained in detail. I personally prefer video or web tutorials for 3D topics, but I recommend this book for absolute beginners. More reviews about this item: Amazon , Goodreads Online Computing Reviews Service
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