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

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