Unity on the fly: Using the Unity engine without the unity IDE

Unity Engine
1

Hi all,

I’ve just installed Unity (and, of course, I’m not jumping on the forums with a ‘Wut?’ question).

So - I’ve got a simulation I’m running; it simulates certain geological processes and outputs a bucket of data points. These data points are dry. I’d like to be able to spice things up a little bit with some optional 3D shinanigens, but since the demise of Managed DirectX (uh huh - that’s how out of date I am) I’m a little lost.

My research lead me to Unity as the best and brightest C# (for that is the language I use) 3D framework. So I amble off and install it - only to find that where I was expecting a set of libraries and an API document I instead find myself confronted with what may as well be a copy of 3Ds MAX. Not what I was expecting, and not going to solve my problem in a reasonable time! (Don’t worry - I’ll put the effort in later; now I have deliverables).

I would like to know the following:

How do I create a surface in C# (Visual Studio)
How do I add meshes to that surface
How do I colour (and possibly, later, texture - though I’m aware that’s where the IDE comes in!) those meshes.

Then some directions towards lighting and camera control.

Quite frankly, with all the info that’s out there, I imagine I can figure out all except the first one! I just don’t know how to turn the danged thing on! The question has been asked many times, but the answer is usually either, “Sure you can!” or something completely tangential.

I understand this isn’t how things are meant to be done - but this is what I feel I need. I’m likely wrong, but I’ll learn that when I come to learn me the IDE way.

2

It’s impossible to use Unity without the editor; it’s definitely not just a set of libraries. You can however create objects through code. It sounds like you’d want to look into the Mesh class.

–Eric

3

Cheers Eric, that’s a blow - but c’est la vie.

Right - so can you give me a pointer to a tutorial giving me the shortest route from opening the IDE to saving and closing it, including the project in my simulation and starting work in Visual Studio? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Can I - in fact - actually have the Unity project as part of another solution and use it without it being the start project?

4

Not as far as I know…that’s really not the point of Unity.

–Eric

5

0ddb411,

If you’re moving from managed directx and looking to get what you already have up and running quickly, why not look at once of the managed wrappers for DirectX like SharpDX or SlimDX? Both will work on Windows, Windows Store Apps and afaik Windows Phone 8 as well.

6

Couldn’t give a monkeys about phones and store apps :slight_smile: I’ll check them out.

I’ve been doing more reading on Unity. It’s good, isn’t it :smile:

When I’m not on the clock I’ll be exploring. When I start looking to push the results of my simulations on people, I may look to making a nice interactive UI in Unity.

Cheers all!