Tips for a starter?

Howdy.

So I just installed Unity and I want to learn, I want to create a game.
I’m very very new to anything related to game development. I have no Idea how to create 3D models, I downloaded Blender but it’s like sorcery. I have no Idea what I’m doing even with tutorials. Same goes with unity, everything is very confusing.
But the main and most confusing thing for me is coding, how do I learn to code, how do I know what individual word in code does? Like seeing in tutorials how you add force to objects and such, but the code has nothing related to force or anything, it’s completely different words.
We had no coding lessons in high school, it was just basics of using MC office sadly.

So main thing that I want is tips, how do I start learning everything efficiently? How do I keep going forward without getting depressed and turning everything off? I also have a memory of a 6 year old so I need to repeat the same thing couple of times before I get it.

just to start off, these are just my opinions on how I started out here, when i knew that I wanted to make something, but didnt know where the heck to look… these are the ramblings of a fellow unity student…

unfortunately there’s no magic wand, and the matrix is still at the prototype stage in the shed…

but, take a breath… then look at the learn section here…

what you will find there is a list of projects to work through which are recorded in video episodes, there are also tutorial videos that are broken down into ‘topics’.

Since you are here, i presume you want to make something within Unity.

So with that in mind, start by getting familiar with what this mythical Unity beast is, by going through these editor videos is the beginner section, so you have an understanding when people say things like look its the inspector, or scene view etc…

ok so your armed with that… you have a couple of directions to take to start on your totally amazeballs journey.

you could look at Unitys’ live training archive, where all the hour long streaming sessions are recorded and kept for us to watch.
http://unity3d.com/learn/live-training
look at the ‘editor basics’ and ‘game objects’ videos at the bottom. this should give you a good grounding to get started.

why not jump in and follow along with a tutorial series to make a roll a ball game?
you have a familiarity now with the editor, so follow on with the tutorial to make a game…

where you go after that depends on how confident you feel, branch out by watching more tutorial videos or live training sessions that are related to questions you now have after roll a ball, and learn at a pace and direction that best suits you.

if there are questions, then the very forum your posting on here has a brilliant community to help you along the way.

the only things thats are required from yourself are, time and patience… it wont happen overnight, but the more you do, the more things will stick.

as far as your fear of all things modelly and stuff, leave that to harry potter and all the other wizards, you wont need it straight away, but when the time comes there is the asset store and free models, game projects etc from unity themselves for us to tinker with.

on a final note…

every time you do something or make something happen, its an achievement! its progress! its a step that furthers your learning! and be proud of it. even if its drawing a cube on the screen!

remember that.

but as a caveat

YOU MUST HAVE FUN :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Fellow newbie here, and heres my pearls of wisdom…
You will go through 3 stages…
1: eagerness to learn, will fire up the roll a ball tutorial and think “this is where it all starts”
2: after 10 minutes, you’ll turn your pc/laptop off in a fit of rage thinking “f##k it, its all beyond me!!”
3: you’ll come back the following night with a better attitude, knowing Rome wasnt built in a day… or even a week!

This will take time. You wont be knocking up the next blockbuster this month!
But stick with it, be patient, and things will start to sink in

To find what each individual term in C# means you can use a resource like MSDN. Be aware, its a very overwhelming resource at the start. But you should know it is there.

Thanks a lot!
I overlooked the live videos, they’re really really useful!

Also, Is it ok if I send you a message if I’m having a problem with something and good ol’ google doesn’t suggest anything?

P.S.
When I tried replying to your full message and adding it as a spoiler to conserve space it said that my message is most likely spam, that’s why I had to cut it. :expressionless:

no worries…

If there’s any questions, it should really be posted in the forum.
the beauty of doing it like that is three fold…

-This way everyone gets to look at questions and their responses, so that in the future, whoever searches the forum with a similar query can read the question and the answers. like a knowledge base of sorts.

-As you work through some of the tutorials, and projects, you will find the forum has specific areas for questions. like scripting, 2D, Teaching. so if you are working through say roll-a-ball, there is a Q&A forum thread specifically for that tutorial series.

-google, in the first instance I would use the search bar at the top of the paqe to search the entire unity site, then you can possible just search forum and answers. and if the almightly google cant fix it, pop it in the forum :slight_smile:

But yea, I don’t mind if you want to drop a question in a PM and and I can direct you where your question would be best suited, until you get used to the navigation of the forum and all its wee nooks and crannies :slight_smile:

1 Like

My tip for you is not just for unity, but for learning anything that has multiple components. Don’t think I need to learn 3d modeling, photoshop, sound mixing, unity and all the other bits that go with it. You will overwhelm yourself to quickly and never progress with any of them, focus your attention on one area at a time, if you want to make a game think of the most basic thing you can , once you feel you have the first thing down, move on to the next thing you want to learn.If you want to start with modeling again start basic modeling something like a ball or a cube, pretty much every software package you will want to learn will have tutorials taking you from fist time running to doing the more advanced stuff. There are plenty of assets in the asset story for unity so if your starting with games its not going to limit what you can do very much, there’s certainly enough there for a good few projects until yo decide now is the time to look into making y own models.

Source: I am one of the people who normally tries to learn everything at the same time.

1 Like

I am in a similar boat as you. Since I already have a few games I want to make I started with one of the easier ones for practice then I go into my four step approach: Read, Play, Tutorial, repeat. I have been reading a lot to increase my knowledge of the software I’m using. Than I started creating my first level, When I get stuck I watch a tutorial which usually ends up leading to more reading :smile: Then I go back to playing around with what ever it is your working on until you have that part figured out. Then on to the next part of my project ( and next thing I get stuck on and have to look up. ) I think I have made a half dozen practice projects before I finally have gotten around to starting to make my playable demo. Everything you need to know seems to be in the documentation and tutorials and the few things I had trouble with I was able to find a walk through ( or three ) on Youtube. I recommend watching a few different videos, find a guy or guys that you like and find informational and just keep cracking away at it. It just takes time my friend.