Unity Game Development Essentials

Will Goldstone

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781847198181
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Information Technology
• Index: Computer Science

In Detail

Game engines are central to the video games we know and love. From the artwork to the mathematics that underpin the frames onscreen, the engine calls the shots. Aside from offering one of the leading 3D game engines, Unity also provides a superlative development tool - a tool that can produce professional standard games for Mac, PC, and the Unity Web Player.

This book is a complete exercise in game development covering environments, physics, sound, particles, and much more, to get you up and working with Unity quickly.

Taking a practical approach, this book will introduce you to the concepts of developing 3D games before getting to grips with development in Unity itself. From creating 3D worlds to scripting and creating simple game elements you will learn everything you'll need to get started with game development for the PC, Mac, and Web.

This book is designed to cover a set of easy to follow examples, which culminate in the production of a First Person 3D game, complete with an interactive island environment. By introducing common concepts of game and 3D production, you'll explore Unity to make a character interact with the game world, and build puzzles for the player to solve, in order to complete the game. At the end of the book, you will have a fully working 3D game and all the skills required to extend the game further, giving your end-user, the player, the best experience possible. Soon you will be creating your own 3D games with ease!

Get started with game development using the Unity game engine with this hands-on, easy-to-follow guide

Approach

This book follows an informal, demystifying approach to the world of game development with the Unity game engine. With no prior knowledge of game development or 3D required, you will learn from scratch, taking each concept at a time working up to a full 3D mini-game. You'll learn scripting with JavaScript and master the Unity development environment with easy to follow stepwise tasks.
The printed version of the book is in black and white, but a full color version of the images is available for download here. The eBook version, available from Packt, is in full color.

Who this book is for

If you're a designer or animator who wishes to take their first steps into game development, or if you've simply spent many hours sitting in front of video games, with ideas bubbling away in the back of your mind, Unity and this book should be your starting point. No prior knowledge of game production is required, inviting you to simply bring with you a passion for making great games.

Unity Game Development Essentials

Will Goldstone

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Table of Contents

Unity Game Development Essentials

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

Preface

What this book covers

Chapter 1—Welcome to the Third Dimension

Chapter 2—Environments

Chapter 3—Player Characters

Chapter 4—Interactions

Chapter 5—Prefabs, Collection, and HUD

Chapter 6—Instantiation and Rigidbodies

Chapter 7—Particle Systems

Chapter 8—Menu Design

Chapter 9—Finishing Touches

Chapter 10—Building and sharing

Chapter 11—Testing and further study

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the necessary assets for the book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Welcome to the Third Dimension

Getting to grips with 3D

Coordinates

Local space versus World space

Vectors

Cameras

Polygons, edges, vertices, and meshes

Materials, textures, and shaders

Rigid Body physics

Collision detection

Essential Unity concepts

The Unity way

Assets

Scenes

Game Objects

Components

Scripts

Prefabs

The interface

The Scene window and Hierarchy

The Inspector

The Project window

The Game window

Summary

2. Environments

External modellers

Resources

Your first Unity project

Using the terrain editor

Terrain menu features

Importing and exporting heightmaps

Set Heightmap resolution

Creating the lightmap

Mass Place Trees

Flatten Heightmap

Refresh Tree and Detail Prototypes

The terrain toolset

Terrain Script

Raise Height

Paint height

Smooth height

Paint Texture

Place Trees

Paint Details

Terrain Settings

Sun, Sea, Sand—creating the island

Step 1—Terrain setup

Step 2—Island outline

Step 3—Volcano!

Step 4—Adding textures

Painting procedure

Sandy areas

Grass & Rock

Volcanoes Rock!

Step 5—Tree time

Step 6—Grassed up

Step 7—Let there be lights!

Creating sunlight

Step 8—What's that sound?

Stereo versus Mono

Formats

The hills are alive!

Importing your first package

Further audio settings

Step 9—Look to the skybox!

Step 10—Open water

Step 11—Island walkabout

Step 12—Sun alignment and final tweaks

Take Me Home! Introducing models

Importing the model package

Common settings for models

Meshes

Materials

Animations

Setting up the outpost model

Summary

3. Player Characters

Working with the Inspector

Tags

Layers

Prefabs and the Inspector

Deconstructing the First Person Controller object

Parent-child issues

First Person Controller objects

Object 1: First Person Controller (parent)

Transform

FPSWalker (Script)

Character Controller

Mouse Look (Script)

Object 2: Graphics

Mesh filter

Mesh renderer

Object 3: Main Camera

Camera

GUILayer and Flare Layer

Mouse Look (Script)

Audio listener

Scripting basics

Commands

Variables

Variable data types

Using variables

Public versus private

Functions

Update()

OnMouseDown()

Writing functions

If else statements

Multiple conditions

Globals and dot syntax

Using static to define globals

Dot syntax

Comments

Further reading

The FPSWalker script

Launching the script

Mac—FPSWalker in Unitron

Windows PC—FPSWalker in Uniscite

Deconstructing the script

Variable declaration

Storing movement information

Moving the character

Checking grounded

@Script commands

Summary

4. Interactions

Exploring collisions

Ray casting

The frame miss

Predictive collision detection

Adding the outpost

Positioning

Scaling

Colliders and tagging the door

Disabling automatic animation

Opening the outpost

Approach 1—Collision detection

Creating new assets

Scripting for character collision detection

Working with OnControllerColliderHit

Writing custom functions

Declaring the function

Playing audio

Checking door status

Playing animation

Reversing the procedure

Function efficiency

Finishing the script

Attaching the script

Approach 2—Ray casting

Disabling collision detection—using comments

Resetting the door collider

Adding the ray

Summary

5. Prefabs, Collection, and HUD

Creating the battery prefab

Download, import, and place

Tagging the battery

Scale, collider, and rotation

Enlarging the battery

Adding a trigger collider

Creating a rotation effect

Saving as a prefab

Scattering batteries

Displaying the battery GUI

Creating the GUI Texture object

Positioning the GUI Texture

Scripting for GUI change

Battery collection with triggers

Restricting outpost access

Restricting access

Utilizing GetComponent()

Hints for the player

Battery GUI hint

GUI Text hint

Using fonts

Summary

6. Instantiation and Rigid Bodies

Introducing instantiation

In concept

In code

Passing in an object

Position and rotation

Introducing rigid bodies

Forces

The Rigidbody component

Making the minigame

Creating the coconut prefab

Creating the textured coconut

Adding physics

Saving as a prefab

Creating the Launcher object

Scripting coconut throws

Checking for player input

Playing feedback sound

Instantiating the coconut

Naming instances

Assigning velocity

Ensuring component presence

Safeguarding collisions

Including the Audio Source component

Script and variable assignment

Instantiate restriction and object tidying

Activating coconut throw

Removing coconuts

Adding the coconut shy...

Table of contents

• Unity Game Development Essentials