Lets Get Started In Unity Tutorial 004

Let's Fire Up Unity

                                                             By Michael Priest © 2016

    Image # 1 Photo of the start up screen. 

Your Start Up Screen Will Look Different

     Your start up screen will look a little different then mine does above but it is similar just made your way to new tab on the top right of your first launch of Unity and then in the center of the page click New Project and and it should bring you to this screen. Now we are ready to get this thing started and get to the bells and whistles of Unity Game Engine. 

Creating Your Very First Project

•  Default Name The Default name under Project Name is ( New Unity Project ) you can change this name to whatever you would like to name your Project in the box, for the sack of this Project just name it Practice 001.

•  Location Unity will create a default location for you to save your project but you can always change this location you can do this in two ways you could type in the path to a file that you would like to save it to or you can click on the three little blue dots to the right and select a location that you would like to save your projects to.

• 3D or 2D That Is The Question - Now Unity once again by default will chooses 3D as the Project type so for the purposes of this Tutorial we will leave it there for now. You will be able to change this at any time in the Unity Program. 

• How To Switch From 2D to 3D In Unity -  Now Switching between 2D and 3D Modes is relatively easy.

1. Go to and click the edit on the top left hand corner of the Unity program.
2. 
   

     

o change modes between 2D or 3D mode:

1. Bring up to the Editor Settings Inspector, via the Edit>Project Settings>Editor menu.
2. Then set Default Behavior Mode to either 2D or 3D.

    Image # 2 Photo of Project Setting from 2D to 3D.

• Asset Packages -  Now you will also see a button for selecting you asset packages, Asset Packages are all the things that you can use in creating your new world that have already been made for you or things that you have created outside of Unity such as Music Files, Sounds and such as well as Fonts and 3D Models made in 3D Modeling Programs. For Tutorials on creating 3D Models in 3ds Max Please see my Tutorials on 3ds Max Here

• How To Import Assets Into Unity - When you create a new Project in Unity it will set up a file system for that project, this is were you will save all of your Assets that you import or save to your files system for the project you are working on. You will need to navigate to where you saved your Project to your Asset Folder as in the example below were I saved My New Unity Project, yours will be different so again follow the the path to were you saved your project this  is were you will find your Project File Structure. 

    Image #3 Photo of the Path to File Structure on Computer.  

• The Project Window -  Now after you have saved whatever Assets you saved to you Assets Folder you can return to Unity and at the bottom left hand side of Unity you will see the Project Window where you will be able to select you Asset Files as shown in the Image below. 

    Image #4 Image of the File System within Unity.

• Inside The Project Window -  Inside the Project Window is were you will find all of the Assets that you have saved to your files if you click on any one of them they will show up in the Window to the right showing you all of the Assets in the Folder. You are also able to drag Assets from you Computer right into your Assets Folder right in Unity as well. Important Note -  The Files in Unity represent the files on your Computer so if you delete a file in Unity it will also remove it from your Computer so be very careful when deleting your files. 

     Image #5 - Photo of the Project Window. 

     In the next Tutorial we will be covering some of the different kinds of Assets there are. 

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Unity - What Are The Cameras All About - By Michael Priest - Tutorial Number 003

            Unity - What Are The Cameras All About - By Michael Priest 

     So what are Cameras and what exactly are they used for in Unity you may ask well the answer is somewhat simple they give you an Portal to see the 3D world that you have created mainly as the players POV ( Point Of View ), but they can be used in a number of different ways they can be used in scenes as needed they can also be used to control the rendering of images such as if you are far away from an object in your world you would see it less clearly as you would if you were very close to it, the farther you are from the object the less detailed it will be to save on rendering then if everything would be highly detailed. If you do not understand what Rendering is don't fret we will cover it in much more detail in the coming Blogs. Cameras in Unity can also be used in cut scenes and they also are capable of many different effects like Sun Glare and many other useful things.

     This is a great video that I found that will give you a little better understanding of Camera Effects in Unity. I am a visual learner so I will try to use videos to help get my some of my main points across to you when I am able to find them.




     When we get into the Unity Game Engine and start working with it I will be going into much more detail with lots and lots of screen shots so do not beat yourself up about any of these concepts as of right now I just want to you have a general idea of what they are and what they are used for in a 3D Environment. 

Unity - Understanding The (X,Y,Z) Also Called The Cartesian Coordinate Method - Tutorial Number 002

Understanding The (X,Y,Z) Cartesian Coordinates Method

                                                  By - Michael Priest

What is the Cartesian Method

     Unity uses the Cartesian Method to represent positions on the Plain in the 3D Environment you will often see these measurements in Parenthesis Such as (15,03,10)  in that order represents the values of (X,Y,Z) in 3D Space. The X value is used for Horizontal Locations and Y is used for Vertical Positions and Z value represents Depth. The order in which you write these values are important as they are used in Programming Languages as well has having the effect of keeping them nice and neat.

                    Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-dimensional_space_(mathematics)

Space In The 3D World

     There are a couple other very important concepts that we need to understand in our new 3D world that that is there are two forms of space that you will be using and this is what is refereed to as World Space, World Space is the area of the Game that you will be creating in other words the World at large that you will be creating all of your Objects in. The other Space is typically called Object Space and this is relative to said Objects that are placed within the 3D environment that you creating or importing into Unity. In trying to simplify this as much as I can think of the World Space as an empty room it has measurements and then think of a table in that same room it also has measurement that fit inside that room, The Table is an Object and Objects have Properties and one of those Properties is it's Size and there are many other Properties of Characteristics of a Table and we will get into those another time but for now we will focus on the fact that Objects have measurements that take up space inside your World. 

Introduction to 3D Vectors

     In the simplest terms Vectors are measurements of Space, Vectors as in other measurements have length and Vectors also have Directions. Vectors allow us to measure distances between Objects as well as the direction of said Objects in the 3D Realm.

Resources For Understanding 3D Vectors

     These videos go way more into depth of understanding Vectors than you will need to know at this point in time but it is a good idea to get familiar with the concepts.

Intro to 3D Vectors Youtube.

Angles Of Vectors In 3D Space Youtube

   

 

Unity Version 5.3.41 Personal Edition - Tutorial Number 001 By - Michael Priest

Unity Version 5.3.41 Personal Edition - Tutorial Number 001