I’ve been playing around with Unity on and off for the last couple of months. This last week I’ve been playing around with terrain and creating maps to explore. When it comes to buildings, I’ve been knocking something up with cubes and create what I can only describe as a basic hut.
I’m now wanting to populate the map with houses, villages etc, so I’m going to have to either learn blender to create my own models, or download something from the Asset Store. While I want to be able to say, I’ve created this “world” all by myself, I thoroughly enjoy creating the maps, creating scripts to allow me to interact with objects, etc.
As a newbie, what would you recommend; let someone else create the objects (ie houses) and concentrate on what I’m enjoying, or put Unity of hold for a while so I can learn how to use blender?
I’d say it’s totally up to you — if you’re enjoying level layout, programming, etc., then treat yourself to a few cool asset packs from the Asset Store and keep doing that.
Conversely, if you want to twist your mind into unnatural shapes, then by all means learn Blender. (Though if you happen to be on a Mac, I will highly recommend this alternative.)
And any time you bump into anyone from Unity, point out to them how stupid it is that you still can’t gift Asset Store assets, and how much money they’re leaving on the table because you can’t fill up your birthday and holiday wish lists with cool assets they would get 30% of. (I’ve been complaining about this for years, but haven’t gotten anywhere with it… reminds me of a similar stupidity over at Amazon. Go figure.)
It’s not just whether or not you’re a newbie with Unity that matters, but rather what is your background outside Unity? For example, are you already more of an artist or an engineer? Also, how old are you? If you’re still learning your place in the world, then learn a bit of everything you can so that you can feel yourself out; if you’re more established as an engineer (just not in Unity) then I see little reason to fight against that.
I work in 3rd line support, so I’m quite technical. However I do like building/creating things, hence the reason why I like creating the maps and then creating the scripts to make things happen.
I’m not sure what “3rd line support” means, but that doesn’t sound like programming so I think you’re more in the place where you have to learn a bit about the various disciplines to figure out which suits you best. I mean, level editing is pretty technical too, but it’s also different from programming. There’s no “definitely do X” we can tell you, but more of a general “figure out which role you prefer, and then concentrate on that”.
For 3D modelling (I’'m looking at Blender tbh), are there any tutorials you recommend? Some of the Unity tutorials I’ve found on YouTube are complete rubbish, yet some of them are hidden gems.
For initially learning the basics of Blender, there’s actually an appendix about Blender in my book Unity in Action; since the majority of the book teaches how to program games in Unity, you’d be killing two birds with one stone.
(Though if you happen to be on a Mac, I will highly recommend 