Great news if you are a beginner in scripting! This book is for those with absolutely no knowledge of programming. It is devoted to teaching the basics of C# with Unity.

However, some knowledge of Unity's operation is required. We will only be covering the parts of the Unity interface that are related to writing C# code. I am assuming that you know your way around Unity's interface. I will help you, however, to prepare the Unity layout for efficient scripting.

You've got Unity up and running, studied the interface, and added some GameObjects to the scene. Now you're ready to have those GameObjects move around, listen, speak, pick up other objects, shoot the bad guys, or do anything else that you can dream of. So you click Play, and nothing happens. Well, darn it all anyway!

You've just learned a big lesson: all those fantastic, highly detailed GameObjects are dumber than a hammer. They don't know anything, and they surely don't know how to do anything.

So, you proceed to read the Unity Forums, study some scripting tutorials, and maybe even copy and paste some scripts to get some action going when you click Play. That's great, but then you realize that you don't understand anything in the scripts you've copied. Sure, you probably recognize the words, but you fail to understand what those words do or mean in a script.

You look at the code, your palms get sweaty, and you think to yourself, "I'll never be able to write scripts!" Perhaps you have scriptphobia: a fear of not being able to write instructions (I made that up). Is that what you have?

The fear that you cannot write down instructions in a coherent manner? You may believe you have this affliction, but you don't. You only think you do.

The basics of writing code are quite simple. In fact, you do things every day that are just like the steps executed in a script. For example, do you know how to interact with other people? How to operate a computer? Do you fret so much about making a bologna sandwich that you have to go to an online forum and ask how to do it?

Of course you don't. In fact, you know these things as everyday routines or maybe habits. Think about this for a moment: do you have to consciously think about the routines that you do every day? Probably not. After you do them over and over, they become automatic.

The point is that you do things every day following sequences of steps. Who created these steps that you follow? More than likely, you did, which means that you've been scripting your whole life.

You just never had to write down the steps for your daily routines on a piece of paper before you did them. You could write the steps down if you really wanted to, but it takes too much time and there's no need for it; however, you do in fact know how to. Well, guess what? To write scripts, you only have to make one small change, start writing down the steps, not for yourself but for the world that you're creating in Unity.

So as you can see, you are already familiar with the concept of dealing with scripts. Most beginners of Unity easily learn their way around the Unity interface, how to add assets, and working in the Scene and Hierarchy windows. Their primary fear and roadblock is their false belief that scripting is too hard to learn.

Relax! You now have this book. I am going to get really basic in the early chapters. Call them baby steps if you want, but you will see that scripting for Unity is similar to doing things that you are already doing every day. I'm sure you will have many Aha moments as you learn and overcome your unjustified fears and beliefs.

You have probably already installed and activated Unity. Where you should look for the latest Unity version and license might be obvious. However, I've noticed lots of questions online about where you can get Unity for free, and so I decided to cover this subject. If you feel that this step is unnecessary for you, skip this part.

The best place to download your Unity copy from is, of course, Unity's official website: https://store.unity.com/download?ref=personal.

In this book, we will be covering Unity Version 2017.1.1 and higher. We need to download the latest version of Unity and install it with all components ticked. It's a good idea to install Unity with the example project. The Unity Example project (the Angry Bots game) is there for us to play with, experiment, and learn.

Unity has a store where we can also download more example projects and start playing around with them. To access the store, you can do it online or directly from the Unity engine, so don't worry if you forgot to check the Unity Example project in the installation menu because you can download it at any time.

The easiest way to obtain a Unity license is by simply launching Unity for the first time. The following steps will guide you through it:

1. Fill in your details so that Unity Technologies can send you your Unity free license code.
2. Unity will present the License management window. Chose the Unity Personal (free version).
3. You should receive a verification email with a Confirm email button. Once you have clicked it, you should be able to log in to Unity.

You are now all set with the latest version of Unity and a free license!