where did all of you learn unity? i just made my first game using a 2-hour long youtube tutorial, but i am debating if youtube is the most efficient way to learn this.
learn a bit from internet, try to build something on your own. When you hit problems, see if youtube has an answer. Just keep going like that.
Try to build a project with a clear end goal and let pain points be guidance for what to learn next. Naturally youâll have to learn something advanced that you canât understand yet, so then you figure out what the missing fundamentals are and go there when you need.
You can try to start from the bottom and learn everything incrementally but if you donât actually face the real problems and get repetition in with methods to solve them, I doubt youâll remember much. In other words, if you create a disorganized project and then see what methods people use to get organized, youâll understand them immediately. If you start with an academic memorization of tools and principles before understanding the problems first hand, I think you basically tired your brain out for nothing.
Maybe thatâs just me though.
Anyway, yeah just whatever google finds for you. And it doesnât have to be unity specific, especially if you are trying ot learn something fundamental. I am getting a lot of help in my 3d walking sim made with unreal blueprints by following a javascript how to create chess tutorial in spare time.
Besides that, itâs great to have some experts you can phone when you are really stumped. And it may be worthwhile to look into the IGDA mentorship program, or maybe reach out to some people for consultation here and there.
The only efficient way is through practice.
Every other methods by reading books, online docs, others code, modding, watching tutorials etc., are complementary.
Some will learn faster using one way than other.
Choose what works for you. Try different things.
Use tools which works for you and for your project.
Eventually you will be able recognize on your own, what you need and where you can get relevant information.
Take your time. Learning and making games / software dev requires a lot of time.
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Iâve read the manual and script reference then kept practicing.
Youtube is the least efficient way to learn, but thatâs my opinion. The best would be a tutor, the second best would be a book.
I started with the Junior Programming Course on the Unity Learn website. Itâs quite nicely structured and does a half-decent job of telling you the âwhyâ along the way.
Otherwise, mostly researching into each of the problems I encounter throughout my projects; reading the forums and keeping some of the information dished out in the back of my mind; always referring to the manuals and docs when needed.
Basically just be a ravenous, all-consuming monster constantly hoovering up knowledge at every step of the process.
Most important thing is to understand why youâre doing something, instead of just following along with what youâre being told to do.
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The problem I find with courses and tutorials is that vast majority do not follow clean code, SOLID etc. concepts and do not structure code well nor provide good architecture. Rarely the tutors show how to solve problems using design patterns, leaving students with bad practicies.
I bought some Udemy courses in the past for Unity and beeing an experienced programmer myself, I always was annoyed by the quality of the code the tutor has teached, and I had to âwasteâ my time to âfixâ it :). Hence I was so demotivated I never finished even one course fully.
Sadly on top of learning âUnityâ, Youd have to also get some books etc., for raw programming and practice it :).
Practicing is one thing, but practicing bad behaviours is not a good thing for a person that wants to learn programming, sadly with overbundance of resources on the internet, its kinda hard to find decent resources that does things right.
I really love Unity Learn, it is not advance but very useful to learn some features, like cinemachine or mobile stuffs, some scripting tutorials too. I want to keep learning on that website i have to work in my project and others things so i do not have much time. But is definitely very useful
I always start learning a new game engine by recreating an old Atari game or an old Arcade game from the 80s. These are simplest, most-basic games but youâll be able to focus on fundamental features in a relatively short amount of time. Having an existing design to work from will give you some goals to achieve in learning. Donât start off making your dream game before you know what youâre doing, but do start something- you need to work hands-on to really learn. Start a project where youâre not afraid to make mistakes or throw things away, but definitely finish the game, even if start to realize your code is bad or youâre doing something in sloppy way.
In my case, already knew how to program going in, That helps a lot.
I did one tutorial. It was an old written tutorial that Unity provided for Unity 3. Itâs gone now, but It went over all of the basics like the different areas of the editor (scene view, inspector, etc), how to add assets, create gameobjects, add components to game objects. Iâm sure Unity has some equivalent basic tutorial today.
After that I started making a clone of Berzerk from 1980. Everything I didnât know I looked-up in the scripting API and this forum (so far Iâve almost never asked a question on this forum because I can search and someone else will have already asked the same thing and been answered).
Instead of looking-up broad topics like âHow to make a player characterâ or âhow to make a power-upâ I think it works a lot better to break it down in to basic features like âhow do I detect a key pressâ, âHow do I make a GameObject move?â, âHow do I detect collisionâ etc.
I agree with neginfinity on this one.
I did the top down space shooter tutorial on Unity Learn right after I downloaded Unity. Wrote all the code, just copying from the tutorial video, not worrying about understanding it. Messed around with some variables to see what happened.
Was a great boost to have a functioning game that I wrote myself (though hardly understood) on the same day.
From then on I focused on learning a bit about every API that I used or came across by reading the docs. Did a couple more tutorials, downloaded some assets, and started writing a game.
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i completed my first game using youtube actually, and it was helpful with the basics, but since i dont want a tutor, i may buy a fairly basic book on more unity fundamentals.