Building a Game with Unity and Blender

Lee Zhi Eng

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2015
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781785282140
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Programming Games
• Index: Computer Science

Learn how to build a complete 3D game using the industry-leading Unity game development engine and Blender, the graphics software that gives life to your ideas

About This Book

• Learn the fundamentals of two powerful tools and put the concepts into practice
• Find out how to designand buildall the core elements required for a great game - from characters to environments, to props—
• Learn how to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) into your game for sophisticated and engaging gameplay

Who This Book Is For

This book has been created for anyone who wants to learn how to develop their own game using Blender and Unity, both of which are freely available, yet very popular and powerful, tools. Not only will you be able to master the tools, but you will also learn the entire process of creating a game from the ground up.

What You Will Learn

• Design and create a game concept that will determine how your game will look and how it will be played
• Construct 3D models of your game characters and create animations for them before importing them into the game
• Build the game environment from scratch by constructing the terrain and props, and eventually put it all together to form a scene
• Import and integrate game assets created in Blender into Unity—for example, setting up textures, materials, animation states, and prefabs
• Develop game structures including a game flow, user interface diagram, game logic, and a state machine
• Make the game characters move around and perform certain actions either through player inputs or fully controlled by artificial intelligence
• Create particles and visual effects to enhance the overall visual aesthetic
• Deploy the game for various types of platforms

In Detail

In the wake of the indie game development scene, game development tools are no longer luxury items costing up to millions of dollars but are now affordable by smaller teams or even individual developers. Among these cutting-edge applications, Blender and Unity stand out from the crowd as a powerful combination that allows small-to-no budget indie developers or hobbyists alike to develop games that they have always dreamt of creating.

Starting from the beginning, this book will cover designing the game concept, constructing the gameplay, creating the characters and environment, implementing game logic and basic artificial intelligence, and finally deploying the game for others to play. By sequentially working through the steps in each chapter, you will quickly master the skills required to develop your dream game from scratch.

Style and approach

A step-by-step approach with tons of screenshots and sample code for readers to follow and learn from. Each topic is explained sequentially and placed in context so that readers can get a better understanding of every step in the process of creating a fully functional game.

Building a Game with Unity and Blender

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Table of Contents

Building a Game with Unity and Blender

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the color images of this book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Creating Your Game Concept

Job roles in game development

Gameplay design

Starting point

Choosing a game genre

Game mechanics

Level design

Rapid prototyping

Writing the game's story

Choosing a visual style

The characters concept

The environment concept

Summary

2. Creating Characters

Downloading Blender

A brief history of Blender

The basic user interface of Blender

Creating the monster's 3D model

Unwrapping the monster's UV map

Creating the monster's texture

Creating the player character's 3D model

Unwrapping the player character's UV map

Summary

3. Animating Your Characters

What is character rigging?

Creating a monster's armature

Creating the player character's armature

Weight painting

Animating characters

The 12 basic principles of animation

Summary

4. Creating the Environment

Building terrain and wall models

Building rock models

Creating rock and wall textures

Building grass models

Creating the grass texture

Summary

5. Integrating Your Assets into the Game

Basic user interface of Unity

Importing environment assets

Introducing prefabs

Setting up the terrain

Setting up water surfaces

Setting up foliage

Setting up environment lighting

Optimizing the scene with Occlusion Culling

Importing character assets

Summary

6. Developing the Game Structure

Introduction to game structure design

Planning the game flow

Designing the user interface structure

Player inputs and character movements

Creating basic artificial intelligence

Summary

7. Creating Levels and Game Progression

Creating character attributes

Adding in-game items and power-ups

Improving enemy AI

Adding save points

Summary

8. Post-Production and Visual FX

A basic particle system

Mist particles

Torch fire

Image FX

Quality settings

Summary

9. Deploying the Game

Build settings

Shared settings

The webplayer

PC, Mac, and Linux standalone

iOS

Android

WebGL

Optimization level

Player Settings

Cursor hotspot

Summary

Index

Building a Game with Unity and Blender

Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: November 2015

Production reference: 1251115

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78528-214-0

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author

Lee Zhi Eng

Reviewers

Matt Schoen

Tony V. Le

Gareth Wright

Acquisition Editor

Shaon Basu

Content Development Editor

Sumeet Sawant

Technical Editor

Edwin Moses

Copy Editors

Dipti Mankame

Jonathan Todd

Project Coordinator

Shweta H Birwatkar

Proofreader

Safis Editing

Indexer

Hemangini Bari

Graphics

Abhinash Sahu

Production Coordinator

Shantanu N. Zagade

Cover Work

Shantanu N. Zagade

About the Author

Lee Zhi Eng is a 3D artist-turned-programmer who is currently the cofounder-cum-chief technical executive at Reonyx Tech, a technology firm based in Malaysia.

Before he cofounded the company, he worked as an artist and programmer in several game studios before becoming a part-time lecturer for 2 years at a university to teach game development subjects related to Unity Engine and Unreal Engine. He has not only took part in various projects related to games, interactive apps, and virtual reality, but also participated in multiple projects that are more oriented toward software and system development, such as vehicle tracking systems, corporate management systems, web applications, and so on and so forth.

When he is not writing code, he enjoys traveling, photography, and exploring new technologies. You can find more information about him at www.zhieng.com.

About the Reviewers

Matt Schoen is an indie games developer and Unity guru. His primary focus is on systems and tools development with C#, but as a generalist, he's touched practically every feature of Unity. In his day-to-day work, he also uses Visual Studio, Maya, Blender, the Adobe Creative Suite, and a wide variety of creative and development software. He's worked with Unity since its early days and has been a part of the developer community for just as long. From presenting at and attending Boston Unity Group meetings and Unite conferences to participation in the Unify Wiki and Unity Forums, he has given and taken lots of help on a wide range of projects. He cofounded Defective Studios and has been proud to work on a wide range of internal projects and external contract work, including Archean Worldbuilder, CosmoKnots, and a number of collaborations. He is currently in the early stages of authorship on another PACKT title: Google Cardboard Projects with his co-author Jonathan Linowes.

Tony V. Le is an independent game and web developer who was born and raised in Chicago, IL where he attended Columbia College Chicago and graduated in spring 2015 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Game Design and a Minor in web developer. Currently now attending graduate school at DePaul University for his Master’s Degree in Computer Game Development, he had also started up his own company, tvledesign LLC, and is now working towards developing a professional career in both the game and web industry....

Table of contents

• Building a Game with Unity and Blender