Unity Game Development Essentials is here. Now Read the F***ing Manual

Will Goldstone’s Unity Game Development Essentials (UGDE) has arrived. It’s the first book about the Unity Game Engine by the person whose videos were the first and most comprehensive Unity videos to date. Will also runs LearnMeSilly.com and LearnUnity3D.com. Unity Game Development Essentials
is a crisp and detailed primer into the powerful Unity engine, 3D programing and game development all at once. Will shares his hard-earned insight and productivity tips as he guides you through learning the Unity IDE. In the early chapters you will learn the various tools available for developing realistic terrains complete with varied trees and grass. You’ll take a deep dive into the First Person Controller and its components including the CharacterController. As Will puts it, “If you know how something is put together then you’re able to fix it when something goes wrong”.

Unity Game Development Essentials guides the learner through importing a 3D model into Unity with animations intact. You can then control the animations from the code. Speaking of code. You’ll cover how to use Javascript to add functionality to your game from requiring the player to have met conditions to earn rewards to deciding if he’ll be warm by bonfire for the night. Will explains it in such a way that developers coming from a Flash background will feel at home enough to reach for Control-Enter. Everything from making your variables accessible from the Unity workspace to manipulating your public static variables from other objects and updating your Heads-up display receives a generous yet concise coverage. Subtle reminders and reviews of key procedures help you walk away from the book with a habits that will make you productive and a foundation that prepares you for exploring the Unityverse.

One of my favorite parts of the book is the coverage of Collision detection. You first use colliders, with an initial examination of “isTrigger” then use Raycasting finally followed by a deeper discussion of the role of “isTrigger”. This is reviewed and summarized in the section of the book that made crystal clear the previously elusive decision-making algorithm between OnCollisionEnter(), OnTriggerEnter() and RayCasting.

My only complaint about this book is that I wish it could have gone on to some of the more advanced topics. I’ve read tutorials about physics and Springs, and animation but the clarity that Unity Game Development Essentials provides is unmatched and I would love to be as comfortable in those advanced topics as this book has made me with the topics covered. On another note- the clarity of this book and the thorough coverage of a standard set of approaches sets expectations. As this book get more well deserved circulation asking a question that is explained within might earn someone a serving of RTFM. I wish I could have taken the 3 short days that it took me to read this book several months and many long fruitless and error filled nights ago. The first book in the Unity Game Development arena sets the bar high.

If you’re a Flash developer interested in 3D in Actionscript you may also want to read Papervision3D Essentials by Paul Tondeur. It’s a great book to ease the transition into 3D thinking and provides a lot of information that applies equally to 3D development in Unity.

In case you’re having any second thoughts about purchasing the book take a look at what the rest of the Flash, Flex and Unity blogosphere has to say:

1. Drawlogic Review- “The book is a lot like Unity itself in that it gets uo and running quickly,gives the tools to do some damage and then opens the door to developing with Unity”.
2. Everyday Flash -”If you want to get into Unity, it’s probably a good idea to buy this book.”
3. RichardLeggett.com -”is a great way to expand your skills whilst having fun with particle emitters and explosions.”
4. Rozengain.com Review of Unity Game Development Essentials
5. Blog.Zupkco.com
6. Unity Game Development Essentials Reviewed by GameDev.net

Tagged as: game development, game development essentials, unity game, Unity3D, will goldstone