Getting nowhere slowly

Unity Engine
1

So I have been using Untity on and off for a little while now. I’ve followed some really cool tutorials and I know Unity is… how can I put this… er… EPIC-AWSOME! …But for some strange reason whenever I try to write my own script from scratch my mind goes blank and I start dribbling out of one side of my mouth - this is not what I want. I want to develop a game and or games eventually but when I’m experiancing these moments of ‘vaugness’ my desires and dreams seem unachiveable and I think jezz why am I bothering, I cannot even write a simple basic movement script. Then I think ‘I could use the 3rd person controller and the mouse look scripts’ …but I dont want to use those, I want to write my own because I dont nessisarily like the way they function, and they dont suit my game idea. I’d like to write my own scripts but I am SO confused with the keywords, functions, syntax ect… even the Scripting Referance confuses me! …when I look somthing up there I come away more confused than when I went! :frowning: …I dont know, maybe it is just me, maybe now I amslightly older than I was a few years ago my mind has decided it doesn’t want to absorb anymore information, its full up and going to bed, and I will be doomed forever to stare at a static cube on a flate plane for the rest of my days.

Im not a complete idiot, I know what variables & arrays are, I know what functions are, loops, if-statements & switch-statements. i.e; I know the basic’s of programming in-general. I have wrote a few games before though in another engine/language. Im sorry I have posted ths in the wrong forum it is just that I didnt know what else to do - I have been struggling with this for ages and I really dont have anyone/anywhere else to turn to… I was hoping maybe someone on here has had the same feelings/experiance and could point me in the right direction?

Like I said I’ve followed a few tutorials already, not limted to but including;

Roll-A-Ball
Space-Shooter
Survival-Shooter
Burzergs, Hack’n Slash tutorial.
&
GTGD

While following those was/is fine and have helped me understand how-to use Unity in general and what differant parts are and mean, I still havent got a clue when it comes to doing it myself. Im not a uni student or a qualified anything I am just your regular lay-man, but I want to improve my knowlege and skills - hence why I am here.

Maybe I’m so confused because now I am opperating in 3D space whereas with the other engine it was just 2D. Things that should be easy I am finding very hard. Like simply moving a transform. Should I continue banging my head against all this and hope I get it before my skull cracks and its inerds flop onto the floor? or is there some magic wand one of you could wand my way which will help me go from ZERO to HERO ??

Any and all advise/help/links appreciated thanks, but please no more Video tutorials! I cannot take any more of them.

PS: my appologise if this is not a good topic.

2

Start very simple. Move a cube around. Make it a prefab once you have some scripts on it. Make it change color when you click on it. Hang out on the forums and read the questions and answers, even if you don’t fully understand them. Read the manual and or script reference. Myself, I spend most of my time with the script reference, because that’s your tool set. Try the examples, and then change them a little and rerun them.

1 Like
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Yep, take things one step at a time and always keep google open!

If you are making a platformer for example:

  1. Google how to make an object move. When you find out it needs a character controller–
  2. Google how character controllers work.
  3. Download some free models and animations from the asset store.
  4. Check out the demos and google how to make models and animations work.
  5. Play around some more with movement.

Watching a bunch of video tutorials at once won’t do anything. Think of what kind of game you want to make, then take it 1 step of the way and let google be your guide.

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4

Find an entry-level computer programming course near you and sign up for it (and complete it :wink: ). Doesn’t matter if it has anything to do with Unity.

–Eric

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5

I agree with Eric. Though, from what you’ve said, it doesn’t sound like writing code is the problem. It sounds like the problem solving is the problem.

I think fire7side and Juice-Tin are on the right track in telling you to start with simple stuff and work your way up. Pick a simple game… say a Breakout clone. Break it down into its constituent components - a paddle that can move between two points, a ball that can bounce off the paddle, bricks that disappear when hit by the ball, etc. Then start working on them, one thing at a time.

Can you make a paddle move between two locations? I’m pretty sure you can, go do it. Then, can you get a ball or cube bouncing off that paddle and some walls? Again, pretty sure you can. Then can you make some bricks…?

For the purposes of learning, also experiment with different solutions to each of those. How many different ways can you think of having the paddle move between the sides of the board? Think of at least three, weigh up what you think their pros and cons might be, and pick one. You probably won’t be very good at that at first, but that’s totally cool - you will get better, and it’s more important to be in the habit than it is to make perfect decisions right off the bat.

That might sound like it’s trivializing the problem solving, but that’s actually the trick to it - make the individual bits as simple and tiny as possible. With practice you’ll be able to do two things: a) come up with potential solutions to larger parts of problems at once, and b) more easily break larger problems down into smaller ones.

So… start cloning games. Not for the sake of making a clone but because it’s great dev exercise, and having a purpose makes exercise easier.

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