Here’s a list of useful tips/tutorials/advice for Unity3D beginners I gathered for several weeks.
I’ll list the main chapters of each topic so you can have a good vision of what it’s about.
Hope it would help/convince you to join our growing community!
Don’t forget to look at the link lists in the right menu to find tones of other references. 😉
Unity Fundamentals tutorial videos
A great set of tutorial videos teaching you the basics of Unity3D editor and scripting.
Start here if you’re completely new to Unity3D.
First drop of DOWNLOADABLE videos
- Section 1 – Introduction
- Section 2 – Terminology
- Section 3 – Our First Level
Second drop of DOWNLOADABLE videos
- Section 4 – Primary Interface
- Section 5 – Secondary Interface
- Section 6 – Customizing the User Interface
- Section 7 – Working with Game Objects
- Section 8 – Working with Prefabs
- Section 9 – Working with Packages
- Section 10 – Snapping
- Section 11 – Tags and Layers
- Section 12 – Cameras
10 things to know before coding
Read this just before typing your first line of code, it will prevent you from doing the classic rookie mistakes.
http://abitgames.com/2011/blog/10-things-to-know-programming-unity3d-games/
- Naming variables as myFooBar instead of my_foo_bar.
- Be careful at operating transform.localPosition directly.
- Public variable are also available for animation view.
- Inherit is great, and GetComponent.<base_class>() works well!
- Invoke, yield is affect by timeScale.
- Instantiate() may cause performance issue for big amount of spawns.
- The difference between Awake() and Start()
- List<T> can be exposed in the Inspector but Dictionary<K,V> can’t.
- You can reference Components in a GameObject instead of the GameObject itself.
- #pragma strict
Unity3DTutorial blog posts
Using Keyboard Input to Move Objects or Characters in Unity 3
- Moving a Character or Object Using Input Based Movement
- Using Keyboard Input in Unity
- Moving in 3d Space Instead of 2d
Unity 3 Javascript Tutorial – Scripting Basics
- Javascript Variables in Unity 3
- Common Variable Types in Unity 3
- Javascript Dynamic Variable Typing
- Javascript Arrays in Unity
- Javsascript Built In Arrays in Unity 3
- Putting it All Together and Using Javascript in Unity
- Javascript Practice Challenge
Dealing With Directions & Movement In Unity 3
- Useful Scripts For Dealing With Direction in Unity 3
- Move an Object In the Direction You Are Currently Facing
- Move an Object In the Direction Of the World Space
- Determine the Distance Between 2 Objects
- Rotate an Object Around An Axis
- Rotate an Object to Look At Another Object
- Create a Vector From 2 Vectors
- Find The Location Of An Object Relative to the Current Object
- Rotate an Object to a Specific Angle in Degrees
Troubleshooting rigidbodies
The physics engine is one of the best features in Unity3D but when starting your first projects, it can be a real pain in the *** if you missed anything from the doc about colliders, rigidbodies and triggers.
Read this one if you’re starting to get headaches.
Unity3D: Troubleshooting Rigidbody problems
- Gameobjects are interpenetrating each other
- Gameobject with attached Rigidbody can’t be controlled or moved by any script
- Controllable Character totally/partially ignores the Rigidbody
- Rigidbody needs to be controlled through user input, but Unity3D doesn’t allow the Rigidbody and Character Controller components in the same Gameobject.
- Controllable character can’t stand on top of a Rigidbody or can’t use it as a platform
4 Responses to Unity3D beginner tips
Ryan @ Unity3DTutorial April 8, 2011
Hey,
Thanks for the links! I’ve been pretty busy so I havn’t had a chance to add any new tutorials recently but I have quite a few in the works.
I played your brick breaker game on kongregate a while back – nice work! Simple but effective.
Ryan
GFX47 April 9, 2011
Ok keep me posted!
Thanks for Kuta, it was a wip version, I’m working on a better one with protect/destroy gameplays mixed and hosted on facebook to implement and test virality features.