Tutorial Notes

Unity3D Tutorial Notes

Starting off

• Install Unity3D from: http://unity3d.com/unity/download/
  • locally from: //nas-wta/temp-transfer
• Open Unity3D
• Open MonoDevelop (for Unity)
• Open Unity Documentation from Unity menu under Help/Unity Manual
  • also online: http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/index.html
• Install Blender to enable importing of the sample assets. Just put it into Applications or anywhere else you want.
  • from website: http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/
  • or local: //nas-wta/temp-transfer/UnityTutorial

Overview of the Interface

• Project View
  • where you access and manage the file assets that make up your project
  • assets are the building blocks of your game scenes, one asset can be reused by many game objects
  • corresponds to the folder and file hierarchy used by your project
  • automatically updates when changes are detected on disk
  • Assets: Meshes, Textures, Materials, Shaders, Scenes
  • Scenes are assets, at anytime one scene is open in the editor
  • open menu in the Upper-right hand corner to select between one or two column layout. For small projects one column layout is easier to use.
  • In two column layout, bottom right of the window has a icon size slider.
• Hierarchy View
  • Shows the scene graph of game objects, building blocks of a scene
    • games made from one or more scenes, just a collection of game objects. *a scene must have at least one camera
  • Use Top toolbar to add some pre-defined objects to the scene, like a cube.
  • Select an object and press enter to change name
  • Drag one object on top of another to make it the child
  • Selecting one highlights it in the scene view and shows its details in the inspector
  • Make at least two cubes and make it so one cube has at least one child.
• Scene View
  • Select object in hierarchy view, then with the mouse over the scene view press (F) to zoom in on that object.
  • find manipulation toolbar in Top-Left of the editor window
    • (Q) Hand allows you to pan around the scene
    • (W) Move Tool allows you to move selected objects
    • (E) Rotate Tool allows you to rotate selected objects
    • (R) Scale Tool allows you to scale
  • Basic scene view camera controls
    • Top-right corner has the scene gizmo that helps choose viewing direction
    • Click on center box switches between orthographic (2D) and perspective (3D) views.
    • Hold Alt and click-drag to orbit the camera around the current pivot point.
    • Select an item by left click (or in hierarchy view)
    • press F to zoom in and make it the current pivot point.
    • scroll gesture to zoom in out
• Inspector View
  • Shows the details of the currently selected objects
  • Shows that each GameObject is composed of one or more Components
  • Every GameObject has a transform Transform to set location/scale/position
  • There are many built-in engine Components that make a game object do something interesting.
  • Top-Right there is book icon button that brings up documentation on each component
• Game View
  • Press Play to run the current scene in the game view
  • Any changes done to the scene objects are reset after the game is finished playing
  • iPhone Remote can be used to send touch events to editor
  • At this point there might be nothing in the game view.
• Other Views
  • Asset Store
  • Console
  • Animation, Particle etc.