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Getting Started with Unity 5
Getting Started with Unity 5

Getting Started with Unity 5: Leverage the power of Unity 5 to create amazing 3D games

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Profile Icon Dr. Edward Lavieri Jr.
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Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 2.9 (27 Ratings)
Paperback May 2015 184 pages 1st Edition
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Arrow left icon
Profile Icon Dr. Edward Lavieri Jr.
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Paperback May 2015 184 pages 1st Edition
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Getting Started with Unity 5

Chapter 2. Creating the Game Environment

In the last chapter, we surveyed game engines, installed Unity, and became familiar with the user interface. We're almost ready to start creating our game. Before we do, we have two tasks to attend to: designing our game and creating the game's environment. We'll handle both of these tasks in this chapter.

This chapter will set the stage for developing our game using Unity. We'll start by examining our game's design, which will serve as the blueprint we'll follow throughout the rest of this book. Next, we'll create our game's environment, which will include terrain, water, and the sky. Our terrain will consist of trees, mountains, and a river.

Through this chapter, you will:

  • Understand the purpose of a game design
  • Be able to create terrain in Unity
  • Be familiar with using textures
  • Be comfortable with creating mountains
  • Be comfortable planting trees
  • Be familiar with creating bodies of water
  • Be able to create...

Game design

A game's design is like a blueprint for a house. You would not consider building a house without a blueprint and it is an equally bad idea to develop a game without designing it first. Our game design will document the look of our game, what the player's objectives are, what the gameplay will be, supported user actions, the required artificial intelligence, and game flow.

Designing a game is significantly more complex than simply considering these six elements. We do not have time to go through the entire game design process, so you'll see the primary areas of the game designed in this chapter.

Our game will be called Little Farmer Colt. It will feature a young farmer named Colt, who has to manage a farm. Let's look at the elements of game look, player objectives, gameplay, user actions, artificial intelligence, and end state.

Game look

All games have a look to them. For a game that takes place in space, the game look might be a futuristic/mechanical. If it...

Terrain

Our game environment will be a rural farming setting with water and land features. We'll create our terrain with a water feature running down the middle of the land and a natural bridge that allows the player to travel between sides. On the left side of our terrain, we'll put Colt's farmhouse and areas for both chickens and pigs. The old farmer will have a farmhouse on the right side of the terrain, surrounded by a corn maze.

To make the land look a bit more interesting, we'll include some hills and trees. The following diagram shows a mockup up of what we'll create in the remainder of this chapter:

Terrain

We'll create a Unity project and continually update it throughout the remainder of the book. To create the project, perform the following steps:

  1. Launch the Unity application on your computer.
  2. Click on the New Project button on initial Unity dialog window.
  3. Enter LittleFarmerColt for the project name.
  4. Select a folder location for your project. I recommend selecting...

Additional environmental features

We are now ready to enhance our terrain with additional features. First, we will add a natural bridge, and then we'll selectively plant trees. We'll also add water to the center of our terrain and create the sky.

Natural bridge

There are several ways to build a bridge for our game. We want the player to be able to walk from one side of the game map to the other. The approach we'll take is to use a textured geometric shape. Here are the steps:

  1. Use the transform tools in the Scene view to zoom into the area you want to place the bridge. I will put it in the center of the terrain.
  2. Select the GameObject drop-down menu, select the 3D Object, and click on Cube.
  3. Right-click on the cube in the Hierarchy view and select Rename. Rename the cube as Bridge.
  4. Use the transform tool to increase the width and length of the cube. A scale of 12, 5, 58 works nicely.
  5. Use the translate tool to move the bridge in place. Be sure to place both ends just beneath the surface...

Summary

In this chapter, we dabbled in the concept of game design and documented our Little Farmer Colt game. The game design will serve as a reference point for our remaining work on the game throughout this book. The game design also informed the characteristics of our terrain. We created a terrain, added a texture to the terrain, added mountains, trees, and a river. We even created a natural bridge. We concluded our chapter by adding a Skybox.

Our game's foundation is now created and you have the experience to create your own game environments.

In the next chapter, we'll take a close look at how to import and use assets in Unity. We'll do more than experiment; we'll actually import our game's main character Colt, the old farmer, and the animals.

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Description

If you are a game developer interested in learning Unity 3D from scratch and becoming familiar with its core features, then this book is for you. No prior knowledge of Unity 3D is required.

Who is this book for?

If you are a game developer interested in learning Unity 3D from scratch and becoming familiar with its core features, then this book is for you. No prior knowledge of Unity 3D is required.

What you will learn

  • Create, organize, and manage your game project with the Unity interface
  • Develop a 3D game environment with a custom terrain, water, sky, mountains, and trees
  • Import and use custom assets and asset packages to add characters to your game
  • Review existing animations and create custom animation clips to bring your game characters to life
  • Build custom scripts to make your game characters interactive
  • Add a graphical user interface to your game to enable easy user interaction
  • Explore advanced Unity concepts including workflow, scaling, physics, and crossplatform considerations
  • Customize your game with sound effects, shadows, lighting effects, and rendering options

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Publication date : May 29, 2015
Length: 184 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781784398316
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Length: 184 pages
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Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781784398316
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Table of Contents

9 Chapters
1. Getting Jiggy with the Unity Interface Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Creating the Game Environment Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Working with Assets Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Animating the Game Characters Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Scripting the Game Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Adding a Graphical User Interface Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Polishing and Optimizing the Game Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. What's Next? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

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Nicole.Garrow Jan 02, 2016
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A nice tutorial for beginners. Easy to follow.
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Great product!
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Philip Thornton Sep 22, 2017
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Super book. Very helpful.
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Very good book
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good book for beginners!
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