Hi Unity3d Community,
I downloaded Unity quite a few months ago and meant to use it along with the Microsoft Visual Arts Studio lessons to learn to C# to learn to develop games. However, I was kept busy enough to where I drifted away from the MVA tutorials, and Unity itself.
So my question is, are the tutorials on scripting enough to learn C# and understand what I’m doing, or would the process be faster if I found another tutorial online? If so, do you have any you recommend?
Thanks.
Depends on what your goal is.
If you want to make games in Unity, learning to script in C# for unity is probably enough to get your moving.
If you want to learn C# for the sake of learning to be a programmer… then yes, learn it outside of Unity.
Unity tacks on a lot of things you won’t usually need to do outside of unity, as well as is full of some pretty terribad design choices (which they’re working on remedying). But also you’ll miss out on a lot of fundamental stuff that unity tends to hide away from the average scripter not getting too advanced.
As for tutorials… I’m personally not a tutorial kind of person. I’m a fundamentals and textbook kind of person. Build a foundation of the fundamental concepts of a language, its design choices, and how to read it… rather than seeing how to adhoc a specific thing.
Tutorials I reserve for that last ditch, I can’t solve a problem, so I’ll see if someone else has solved it and see what they did. But seldom do I even follow the tutorial, but rather read through it to get a general idea, and then tackle it myself with this gained foresight.
But such a tactic requires knowing the fundamentals of programming, and the language in question. So that way you can see what chocies someone made in their tutorial, why they made them, and understand the consequences of them (good or bad).
So…
Get a book on C#, get a book on object oriented programming, get a book on design patterns (understanding that designs aren’t the gospel, but rather and idea you might want to consider), rip open some opensource projects, get messy… use the language, bath in the language… move to Paris and speak French with the Parisians. Don’t learn how to ask where the bathroom is, rather get lost in the city and trip over problems you need to figure out how to speak.
I usually do it by hanging out on active forums with my language of choice and just try to solve other people’s problems. Even if someone posted an answer… just try to solve it myself anyways. For me. To see if I can do it.
Well, thanks! I’ll go to Barnes and Noble and pick up some books when I get the chance. Right now I just want to know enough for the games but I think I’ll learn C# separate so that I get a more general use out of it,
I think the best way to go about this is to learn C# at a decent enough level. If you already have programming experience then learning C# should be quiet easy for a beginner especially if you know Java. My suggestion is learn C# then learn what Unity requires in order for you to make a game. Its best to know how to use tools rather than how to build the object as if you learn how to use the tools first, you can apply those skills to other areas for your future.
I watch Derek Banas when I either need a refresher OR if I need to learn a new language for a contract I am doing. His video are fast and edited to the point. He just recently started a C# Tutorial Series and does Twitch Streams so you can ask him questions live. So this is the perfect time for you!
Good luck!