How did you learn to use Unity?

Hello everyone,

I’m fairly new to Unity and looking for a way to learn the engine. I’ve went through some of the official tutorials for the basics
and have watched some tutorials on Youtube. Unfortunately the Youtube ones said they was going to make a complete game
but then end after a few videos showing what I already learned in the official tutorials.

So since a bunch of the forum posters here have made games, and know the engine really well, I’m curious as to what worked for you.
How did you learn Unity?

Also a question for the javascript programmers, I’m still deciding on what language to use. I’ve heard Unity’s javascript is supposed to be easier than c#. But, since it’s not regular javascript, what was your sources on learning Unity’s version?

Google. Lots of google.

And following tutorials. In fact, the reason my game is an FPS is because the best tutorial series I could find was for an FPS.

Choose a few small prototype ideas for yourself to achieve. This gives you a goal and then use Google as mentioned above. It takes time so the more time you can give towards learning the better. Learn unity script and C# - these are just scripting languages… the principles of what you do with them in your games is the same.

This. After doing a few tutorials to get familiar with Unity, I started with some very simple games, then finished them from start to end.
It’s important to design the game on paper first, then create a TRELLO BOARD (see www.trello.com) for your tasks, then work on each task and move them over to a completed list when done. As you complete each task not only will you learn something new but you will get a good sense of achievement and satisfaction.

Right now, I’m using tutorials from 3D Buzz, YouTube, and the GameInstitute.com lessons. I also have a “Learning Unity 3.x.x” book on my Kindle I refer to from time to time, but it’s already pretty outdated (and I only got it last year!).

And as others have said, lots and lots of Google, and luckily there’s plenty of tutorials out there to find!

Hi, well to start of with unity I reccommend starting with a very simple game for example a simple first person controller and an enemyAI, enemAI script (This is C#):

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class EnemyAI : MonoBehaviour {
public Transform target;
public int moveSpeed;
public int rotationSpeed;

private Transform myTransform;

void Awake(){
myTransform = transform;
}

// Use this for initialization
void Start () {
GameObject go = GameObject.FindGameObjectWithTag(“Player”);

target = go.transform;

}

// Update is called once per frame
void Update () {
Debug.DrawLine(target.position, myTransform.position, Color.yellow);

//Look at target
myTransform.rotation = Quaternion.Slerp(myTransform.rotation, Quaternion.LookRotation(target.position - myTransform.position), rotationSpeed * Time.deltaTime);

//Move toward target
myTransform.position += myTransform.forward * moveSpeed * Time.deltaTime;
}
}

this is a very simple enemy script where the enemy will follow the player (if the player is tagged player and if you’ve adjusted the speed and rotation on your enemy) maybe you could make a game where the cube has to push the player of an edge or something ( just add the script to a cube) You will need to add a box collider for it to work correctly. And then you could have a simple respawn script where when your player falls it respawns at the the start, this is an example respawn script (In Javascript):

function Update ()
{
if(transform.position.y <-20)
{
transform.position.x = 2;
transform.position.y = 2;
transform.position.z = 2;
transform.rotation.x = 0;
transform.rotation.y = 0;
transform.rotation.z = 0;
}
}

You will need to add that script to the player so when it falls it respawns, maybe you should add one to the cube as well in case it falls.

Anyway I hope this helped.

That is one huge package. Is it as good as they say it is? I might buy it, currently on sale for only $50

It’s pretty good so far! They have a lot of lessons on C++, which is good for learning all about object-oriented programming, and quite a few Unity lessons, but it’s all for making the one game so far. For $100/year, it was definitely worth the money, but I honestly think 3D Buzz has a lot more to offer for Unity-specific lessons. Using both sites would be a great choice. :slight_smile:

This works quite well actually. Just start building something. When you get stuck on a particular step, fire off a search. You won’t always learn exactly how to do something, but it will usually at least get you close.

All depends of your dev background, personally, as an experimented C/C++ developer, I’ve started with Unity tutorials and then, I’ve looked at complete Unity projects to understand them.

Now I mostly use Google when I need a specific information, but I always look at newer tutorials or complete projects when Unity releases them (Stealth, Robot Lab …etc.)

Not to mention how much I’ve learned by looking at source code of packages from the Asset Store.

Think of the simplest game you want to make (a breakout clone, a pong clone), then make it, complete (this is HARD :smile: ) and ship.

A little play but mostly google. And if I was really feeling crazy… bing…

I started my 3D life in VRML, so by the time I looked at Unity, I understood things like creating geometry, animations, lighting etc. I watched a series of tutorials at cgcookie.com by Gabriel Williams on creating a space game. (Gabe is now involved with the creation and improvement of ProBuilder for Unity, I believe. )

Then like others have said - I created a complete simple game:

A Space Maze

That involved scripting, object to object communication, mesh colliders, simple elements of GUI creation and just getting the feel for Unity.

cheers, gryff :slight_smile:

I learned Unity basics from lynda.com. It’s kinda out-dated (it’s a tutorial for Unity 3.5), but still gave me the start I needed. After that, I Googled, then Googled some more. Seriously, Google is your best friend when learning Unity (or just about anything for that matter). The Unity reference guides can be very helpful, but often lack in-depth explanations.

Yeah, the Unity documentation needs a lot of more in-depth explanations for a lot of things.

That’s why I signed up for so many lessons. :stuck_out_tongue:

By setting unrealistic goals and forcing myself to complete them.

Ha that is what I use to do.

I started learning Unity to bring my vision of my own game to life… and my friends brought me on to this program… glad I did.

Well I ended up getting the Game Institute deal. With the year of free updates hopefully the Unity RPG that was in the video comes out with a tutorial by then. If not the rest is still worth it.

I also got the “Unity 3.x game development essentials”. A Friend of mine said it’s pretty much compatible with the current version unity except a couple small problems with some of the animation and particle chapters that he easily solved by a couple google searches.

If you’re interested, it and other Unity books are on sale at the Packt Publishing site as Ebooks for only $5. I downloaded the pdf version but one of the downloads had the amazon logo so I guess they’ll work on your Kindle also.

If that is the book by Will Goldstone then I also started with that one. Highly recommend it as it’s additionally very fun to go through!