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Unity 5.x By Example
Unity 5.x By Example

Unity 5.x By Example: An example-based practical guide to get you up and running with Unity 5.x

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Unity 5.x By Example

Chapter 2. Project A – the Collection Game Continued

This chapter continues from the previous one by building a collection game with Unity. In this game, the player wanders an environment in first-person mode, searching for and collecting all coins in a scene before a global timer expires. If all coins are collected before timer expiry, the game is won. However, if the timer expires before all coins are collected, the game is lost. The project created so far features a complete environment, with a floor, props, and water, and it also features a first-person controller along with a basic coin object, which looks correct in shape and form but still cannot be collected.

This chapter completes the project by creating a coin object to collect and adding a timer system to determine whether the total game time has elapsed. In essence, this chapter is about defining a system of logic and rules governing the game. To achieve this, we'll need to code in C# and so this chapter...

Creating a coin material

The previous chapter closed by creating a basic coin object from a non-uniformly scaled cylinder primitive. This object was created by selecting GameObject | 3D Object | Cylinder from the application menu. See Figure 2.1. The coin object, as a concept, represents a basic or fundamental unit in our game logic because the player character should be actively searching the level looking for coins to collect before a timer runs out. This means that the coin is more than mere appearance; its purpose in the game is not simply eye candy, but is functional. It makes an immense difference to the game outcome whether the coin is collected by the player or not. Therefore, the coin object, as it stands, is lacking in two important respects. Firstly, it looks dull and grey—it doesn't really stand out and grab the player's attention. Secondly, the coin cannot actually be collected yet. Certainly, the player can walk into the coin, but nothing appropriate happens...

C# scripting in Unity

Defining game logic, rules, and behavior often requires scripting. Specifically, to transform a static and lifeless scene with objects into an environment that does something, a developer needs to code behaviors. It requires someone to define how things should act and react under specific conditions. The coin collection game is no exception to this. In particular, it requires three main features:

  • To know when the player collects a coin
  • To keep track of how many coins are collected during gameplay
  • To determine whether a timer has expired

There's no default out-of-the-box functionality included with Unity to handle this scenario. So we must write some code to achieve it. Unity supports two languages, namely, UnityScript (sometimes called JavaScript) and C#. Both are capable and useful languages, but this book uses C# because, going forward, support for JavaScript will eventually be dropped. Let's start coding these three features in sequence. To create a new script...

Counting coins

The coin collection game wouldn't really be much of a game if there were only one coin. The central idea is that a level should feature many coins, all of which the player should collect before a timer expires. Now, to know whether all coins have been collected, we'll need to know how many coins there are in total in the scene. After all, if we don't know how many coins there are, then we can't know if we've collected them all. So, our first task in scripting is to configure the Coin class so that we can know the total number of coins in the scene at any moment easily. Consider Code Sample 2.3, which adapts the Coin class to achieve this:

//-------------------------
using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;
//-------------------------
public class Coin : MonoBehaviour 
{
  //-------------------------
  //Keeps track of total coin count in scene
  public static int CoinCount = 0;
  //-------------------------
  // Use this for initialization
  void...

Collecting coins

Previously, we developed a coin counting variable telling us how many coins are in the scene. However, regardless of the count, the player still can't collect the coins during gameplay. Let's fix this now. To start, we need to think about collisions. Thinking carefully, we know that a coin is considered collected whenever the player walks into it, that is, a coin is collected when the player and the coin intersect or collide.

To determine when a collision happens like that, we must approximate the volume of both the player and coin in order to determine when the two volumes overlap in space. This is achieved in Unity through colliders. Colliders are special physics objects attached to meshes. They tell us when two meshes intersect. The FPSController object (First-person controller) already has a collider on it, through its Character Controller component. This approximates the physical body of a generic person. This can be confirmed by selecting FPSController in...

Coins and prefabs

The basic coin functionality is now created, but the scene needs more than one coin. The problem with simply duplicating a coin and scattering the duplicates is that if we make a change later to one coin and need to propagate that change to all other coins, we'd need to delete the former duplicates and manually replace those with newer and amended duplicates. To avoid this tedious repetition, we can use prefabs. Prefabs let you convert an object in the scene to Assets in the Project panel. This can be instantiated in the scene as frequently as needed, as though it were a mesh asset. The advantage is that changes made to the asset are automatically applied to all instances automatically, even across multiple scenes.

This makes it easier to work with custom assets, so let's prefab the coin right now. To do this, select the Coin object in the scene and then drag and drop it in the Project panel. When this happens, a new prefab is created. The object in the scene...

Creating a coin material


The previous chapter closed by creating a basic coin object from a non-uniformly scaled cylinder primitive. This object was created by selecting GameObject | 3D Object | Cylinder from the application menu. See Figure 2.1. The coin object, as a concept, represents a basic or fundamental unit in our game logic because the player character should be actively searching the level looking for coins to collect before a timer runs out. This means that the coin is more than mere appearance; its purpose in the game is not simply eye candy, but is functional. It makes an immense difference to the game outcome whether the coin is collected by the player or not. Therefore, the coin object, as it stands, is lacking in two important respects. Firstly, it looks dull and grey—it doesn't really stand out and grab the player's attention. Secondly, the coin cannot actually be collected yet. Certainly, the player can walk into the coin, but nothing appropriate happens in response.

Figure...

C# scripting in Unity


Defining game logic, rules, and behavior often requires scripting. Specifically, to transform a static and lifeless scene with objects into an environment that does something, a developer needs to code behaviors. It requires someone to define how things should act and react under specific conditions. The coin collection game is no exception to this. In particular, it requires three main features:

  • To know when the player collects a coin

  • To keep track of how many coins are collected during gameplay

  • To determine whether a timer has expired

There's no default out-of-the-box functionality included with Unity to handle this scenario. So we must write some code to achieve it. Unity supports two languages, namely, UnityScript (sometimes called JavaScript) and C#. Both are capable and useful languages, but this book uses C# because, going forward, support for JavaScript will eventually be dropped. Let's start coding these three features in sequence. To create a new script file,...

Counting coins


The coin collection game wouldn't really be much of a game if there were only one coin. The central idea is that a level should feature many coins, all of which the player should collect before a timer expires. Now, to know whether all coins have been collected, we'll need to know how many coins there are in total in the scene. After all, if we don't know how many coins there are, then we can't know if we've collected them all. So, our first task in scripting is to configure the Coin class so that we can know the total number of coins in the scene at any moment easily. Consider Code Sample 2.3, which adapts the Coin class to achieve this:

//-------------------------
using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;
//-------------------------
public class Coin : MonoBehaviour 
{
  //-------------------------
  //Keeps track of total coin count in scene
  public static int CoinCount = 0;
  //-------------------------
  // Use this for initialization
  void Start () 
{
    //Object...

Collecting coins


Previously, we developed a coin counting variable telling us how many coins are in the scene. However, regardless of the count, the player still can't collect the coins during gameplay. Let's fix this now. To start, we need to think about collisions. Thinking carefully, we know that a coin is considered collected whenever the player walks into it, that is, a coin is collected when the player and the coin intersect or collide.

To determine when a collision happens like that, we must approximate the volume of both the player and coin in order to determine when the two volumes overlap in space. This is achieved in Unity through colliders. Colliders are special physics objects attached to meshes. They tell us when two meshes intersect. The FPSController object (First-person controller) already has a collider on it, through its Character Controller component. This approximates the physical body of a generic person. This can be confirmed by selecting FPSController in the Scene...

Coins and prefabs


The basic coin functionality is now created, but the scene needs more than one coin. The problem with simply duplicating a coin and scattering the duplicates is that if we make a change later to one coin and need to propagate that change to all other coins, we'd need to delete the former duplicates and manually replace those with newer and amended duplicates. To avoid this tedious repetition, we can use prefabs. Prefabs let you convert an object in the scene to Assets in the Project panel. This can be instantiated in the scene as frequently as needed, as though it were a mesh asset. The advantage is that changes made to the asset are automatically applied to all instances automatically, even across multiple scenes.

This makes it easier to work with custom assets, so let's prefab the coin right now. To do this, select the Coin object in the scene and then drag and drop it in the Project panel. When this happens, a new prefab is created. The object in the scene is automatically...

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Key benefits

  • The most updated resource on Unity 5.x with comprehensive discussion on all the new features of Unity 5.x
  • Understand the core concepts surrounding Unity5 game development with this power-packed hands-on guide
  • Brush up your existing game development skills and create games that have a brilliant gameplay using the excellent examples from this book

Description

Unity is an exciting and popular engine in the game industry. Throughout this book, you’ll learn how to use Unity by making four fun game projects, from shooters and platformers to exploration and adventure games. Unity 5 By Example is an easy-to-follow guide for quickly learning how to use Unity in practical context, step by step, by making real-world game projects. Even if you have no previous experience of Unity, this book will help you understand the toolset in depth. You'll learn how to create a time-critical collection game, a twin-stick space shooter, a platformer, and an action-fest game with intelligent enemies. In clear and accessible prose, this book will present you with step-by-step tutorials for making four interesting games in Unity 5 and explain all the fundamental concepts along the way. Starting from the ground up and moving toward an intermediate level, this book will help you establish a strong foundation in making games with Unity 5.

Who is this book for?

The ideal target audience for this book would be game developers. They need not have previous experience with Unity since this book will cover all the basics about game development with unity. This would also be a very good resource for Unity developers who want to brush up their basic Unity skills and also get up and running with creating interesting games with Unity 5.x.

What you will learn

  • Understand core Unity concepts, such as game objects, components, and scenes
  • Learn level design techniques for building immersive and interesting worlds
  • Learn to make functional games with C# scripting
  • Use the toolset creatively to build games of different themes and styles
  • Learn to handle player controls and input functionality
  • Dive into the process of working with terrains and world-creation tools
  • Import custom content into Unity from third-party tools, such as Maya and Blender
  • Get to grips with making both 2D and 3D games

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Mar 23, 2016
Length: 402 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781785888120
Vendor :
Unity Technologies
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Tools :

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Product Details

Publication date : Mar 23, 2016
Length: 402 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781785888120
Vendor :
Unity Technologies
Languages :
Tools :

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Table of Contents

9 Chapters
1. The Coin Collection Game – Part 1 Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Project A – the Collection Game Continued Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Project B – the Space Shooter Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Continuing the Space Shooter Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Project C – a 2D Adventure Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Continuing the 2D Adventure Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Project D – Intelligent Enemies Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Continuing with Intelligent Enemies Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.7
(7 Ratings)
5 star 42.9%
4 star 14.3%
3 star 14.3%
2 star 28.6%
1 star 0%
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HLC Sep 11, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Good Introduction to Unity. This basically gives all the tools required to make your first basic games with minimal programming involved.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Hugo Apr 23, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This book teach how to build 3 complete and very different games on Unity 5.x from scratch, you will learn how to create the base of each project, how to proceed and create each feature, how to work in Unity editor using some features in a real project. The last two chapters teach how to create a more advanced game, by building a 3D terrain using terrain tools in Unity, a player that can explore and enemy's with AI that follows the player, this will apply most of the techniques showed in the previous chapters and also will able you to use your creativity to create gaming conditions, to finish this game, creating levels, more types of enemy's, the sky is the limit. I think book is for people that already know the basics of Unity and know how to code, more specifically in C#, but doesn't know about game development, but on the other hand, I think that everyone could take this book, even if you know nothing about game development in general but want to learn, or if you are already a game developer, because it will teach you very different techniques of game development, both 2D and 3D, the games are in an interesting scale of complexity, as you learn how to use the power's of Unity and after reading this book you become much more confident in game development, you will be prepared to start almost any kind of project, my suggestion is for start implementing more levels and features in book examples. This book helped me to learn more deeply Unity and I would suggest for my friends who like to create games, Unity is a good choice to start building games and this book is for sure an amazing guide to create complete games. The author know how to write and teach game development in Unity, if you search his name, you will see that he already has made some great games, write some good books and video courses.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Amit Kumar Oct 07, 2018
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This Book is good for Beginners who wanna learn Game Designing from Starting
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Xa4 Apr 18, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
Edit: the author just gave a link to the files in his twitter account ( @thorn_alan ) while we wait for the publisher to finally solve the issue. I've changed my rating accordingly, but it's only based on the first chapters so take the recoomendation with a grain of salt.The book is clear and well written, based on the first chapters. Unfortunately, later chapters require companion files to follow them, and one month after the book's release, they still aren't available on the book's website.I'll change my review when this problem is corrected, but in the meantime, you should delay your purchase.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
KeaganRiley Aug 10, 2020
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I'm new to game dev but had no issues learning until the book gets to coding its scoring system for the first game. It uses Mono Develop, which I found to be a pain to try and install successfully and just plain not worth it. I tried continuing anyway and just using Visual Studio Code instead but the book's code was not compatible and I'm not experienced enough to properly adapt it. Wouldn't recommend it to beginners unless you're skilled enough in C# to problem solve the code.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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