I recently started decided to stop procrastinating and to begin making my RTS game. I’m currently using a course on Udemy to learn more about making games in Unity (I must mention that I am a noob to coding and game-making in general). Because I am so excited, I multitask between actually learning Unity and thinking about/planning my game.
I just discovered the asset store today! So I came to the question; do I use assets to help make my game from the start, or do I do everything from scratch?
So, I googled it! And, of course, it turns out I was not the first person to ask themselves this question. I even read several articles about it, including a Unity blog post.
Back to my question:
I would like to learn from your experience, would you recommend I build something like my RTS camera (and especially the Multiplayer/Networking, which looks absolutely daunting) from scratch, or that I retrieve one from the asset store and modify it to my needs? What did you do when starting out? Would you do it again?
Personally, my research tells me it would be best for me to code a crude version of the camera myself, and then use the store to get a more feature-rich and efficient/optimized camera. This article helped me alot. The goal of this post is to know, from people who went through this before, whether or not this is the right path.
Unity 2017 is part of the move to putting core technologies onto the asset store. As a minimum I’d check whether Cinemachine and the Post Processing Stack fit the project before thinking of writing my own camera stuff.
I would stay well clear of an RTS when starting out. They are among the more complex of all of the game genres to build.
That said, if you want to tackle one, I would definitely suggest starting with a framework from the asset store. It will save years off of your development time.
Thanks! I checked out the links, but they seem to be more of a cinematic tool? I meant an RTS camera kind of thing where you can use your mouse to move the camera around the map, among other things. Also, Cinemachine has asset restrictions on it, so as far as I understand, one cannot use it in a program that generates revenue of any sort.
Thank you for the reply. Yes, I heard similar things regarding the scope of RTSs. I’m only excited in making an RTS at the moment, and I fear losing that excitement if I charge course! So I will nip at it piece by piece. The RTS I have in mind is already a very simple RTS, and has a different concept than most out there. For one, there will only be about a max of 30-50 units/NPCs per player.
Unless you are extremely familiar with Unity, programming, game design, and the many other disciplines required to complete your game idea, you need to put these dreams on hold for a while. You will most definitely need to know how to use Unity properly and have a pretty good history of writing your own code.
To that goal, you should start in the ‘Learn’ section, see link above. Complete several of the tutorials (or more). Tutorials not related to RTS are still very useful and can teach you much that can be used in your project. As previously stated, you’ve taken on a lofty goal, the more prepared you are the better chances of success you will have. Nobodys first project, even if completed, is not a masterpiece. Every project you do will give you more experience and the skillsets need for that RTS game you have pictured in your mind.
Cinemachines license.txt doesn’t block anything you can normally do with Unity as far as I can tell, where did you get the idea you can’t use it in a revenue generating game?
It is mostly being pushed for cinematics at the moment, but it also makes a nice base for your own camera setups.
Jasper Flick has a nice set of tutorials on hex maps you may or may not find useful too.
Yes, I am currently working on several games from my Udemy course. I have not yet actually started making my course other than for creating a virtual whiteboard with future plans and ideas. I also think I will do some of the Unity tutorials after the course is completed. Then finally I can get started bit by bit on my RTS!
In the link you provided, the description states “Please note that this is a Restricted Asset and, as per the Asset Store EULA, specific license terms apply to it. The specific license terms for this Restricted Asset are provided LICENSE file contained in the package.” From my google fu, I have come to understand that it does not use the same license as most of the other Unity Assets use. Am I correct with this regard?
Okay. You got me a little excited there, haha. I already decided that I will not use any “restricted assets.” One, because I’m against the idea of paying for something you cannot use, and two, because I don’t want to get into any litigation issues
No objections on either point one or two from me, but it’s worth reading what the restrictions are before making a decision on any particular asset. Some of them are “restricted” by including an open source library under the MIT license.
In Cinemachines case, the restrictions seem to be that you can only use it for a Unity project (ie you can’t port it to another engine) and that any changes to the Cinemachine code itself count as a derivative and are owned by UT and licensed back to you. Just using the asset with scripts to set the camera targets etc wouldn’t be a derivative and the license does clarify what counts as your own code. I think the intent is to make sure any improvements to Cinemachine can be incorporated into the main asset.
It’s completely different than something like the Adam character pack where the restrictions make it suitable for learning purposes only.
Oh, I see. I didn’t realize there were different types of restricted asset licenses. I will look into the license details in the future in the case I need to use one.
