Unity Tutorial - PlayMaker Tutorials

Date: 18 January, 2014
Time spent: 6 hours, 16 min

Tutorial by: PlayMaker

This is a very interesting tool which allows you to write code without writing it. It uses a drag and drop method and it's used as a plug-in for Unity.

This is a very handy tool for people like me who are having a hard time with code. Even though a followed a lot of tutorials with C# programming I still have some difficulty understanding it fast enough to be useful for me. I recently made a modified Pong game whitch some Breakout influences and I combined several tutorials to achieve the result of the game. Although I'm glad with the result it took me a really long time to make and even to understand some basic code.

This is the reason I like the PlayMaker plug-in because I see myself as I Game Designer and not a programmer. I would like to be able to make fast prototypes to see if a concept would be able to work and then present it to someone who can code it.

Below are some handy tutorials to get to know PlayMaker:

Introduction to PlayMaker tutorials: 

http://www.hutonggames.com/tutorials_game_design_with_playmaker.php

2D Physics Platformer with Unity and Playmaker part 1: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0shjECpuDIk

IOS Fundamentals (PlayMaker Tutorials):
http://www.hutonggames.com/tutorials_ios_fundamentals.php

Unity Tutorial - Melee Weapons Systems in Unity 

Date: 18 January, 2014
Time spent: 2 hours, 43 min

Tutorial by: http://www.digitaltutors.com

In this series tutorials, you learn how to create a melee weapon system that you can use and change yourself to use in all different kinds of games. 

You start by importing a rig into Unity and use that for that tutorial.
You will create a user interface that will tell you what damage you are dealing with your weapon. After that you will create a script that makes it possible for the player to deal damage and the script will also take care of the range of the attacks.
In the end you will learn to apply AI to the enemy and use physics in you melee combat system.

If you would like to watch this series you can find it at the following link (note that you need to have a paid subscription to DigitalTutors) : 

http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/659-Melee-Weapon-Systems-in-Unity

Unity Tutorial - C# Tutorial Series (youtube) 

Date: 18 January, 2014
Time spent: 4 hours, 40 min

Tutorials by: Jonathan Weinberger

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR_3ge9-CEhA6USXMuthwDw?feature=watch

Jonathan Weinberger is a Youtube channeler who has a nice way of teaching C# and Unity.
He repeatedly states that he doesn't just write code and tells you to write along because you won't really learn how to do and discover things yourself. He believes that it's better to get a hint of what you are looking for and then answer questions via youtube comments if you really can't get it working yourself. 

This is an interesting way of learning and definitely worth a try.

If you would like to watch this series you can find it at the following links:

c# Unity3D Tutorial Series #04 - Pausing your game Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gh0myraIFo

c# Unity3D Tutorial Series #04 - Pausing your game Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBW0t_VJUiA

c# Unity3D Tutorial Series #05 - Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBW0t_VJUiA

c# Unity3D Tutorial Series #06 - Enemy Spawn Manager

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gzs4M1m7oE

c# Unity3D Tutorial Series #07 - (part 2) Enemy Spawn Manager

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKyIk9Nitwc

Unity Tutorial - Creating Seamless Textures For Games 

Date: 16 January, 2014
Time spent: 7 hours, 21 min

Tutorials by: http://www.digitaltutors.com

In this tutorial you start by looking at photos and which are fit for using as texture materials.
You learn how you can recognize a good photo and adjust and retouch the photo where it is necessary using Photoshop.

Afterwards you learn how to create your own textures from scratch using a 3D modeling program like Maya or 3Ds Max in combination with Photoshop.

You will aslof learn how to use ZBrush to sculpt a 3D mesh from which you will get a normal map so it can be used as a texture on a simpler 3D model with a significant lower poly count.



If you would like to watch this series you can find it at the following link (note that you need to have a paid subscription to DigitalTutors) : 

http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/804-Creating-Seamless-Textures-for-Games

Unity Tutorial - 2D Racing Game Series 

Date: 15 January, 2014
Time spent: 13 hours, 3 min

Tutorials by: http://www.digitaltutors.com

Volume 1

This is the first course of a total of 5 courses which teach you about how to create a 2D top down view racing game.  The videos first shows you which resources you need to be able to prototype this racing game in a fast and effective way so you can keep changing and improving your game.

First you will need to set up your project and in the video it's shown how to set up your environment and how to create your basic track.
After that you've made your track you will be creating the player and the script for the basic movement of the car.


If you would like to watch this series you can find it at the following link (note that you need to have a paid subscription to DigitalTutors) : 

http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/1245-2D-Racing-Game-Series-in-Unity-Volume-1


Volume 2

In the second course of this 'learning path' as they call it you will be using Unity and Adobe Photoshop.
First the tutorial shows you how to set up unity so you can later on add your sprites of the car and other images you will be creating in Photoshop.
Next is the actual step by step creating and iterating of the player vehicle and some surroundings.
And last but not least creating sprite tiles of the tracks so you will be able to create your own custom track in unity.


If you would like to watch this series you can find it at the following link (note that you need to have a paid subscription to DigitalTutors) : 

http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/1286-2D-Racing-Game-Series-in-Unity-Volume-2

Volume 3

In this course you'll learn how to set up boundaries for the player to stay between and setting up the core gameplay functionality of the Power Ups system in the game.

Here is where it gets interesting. You will learn how to create the code for the projectiles that will be fired and 'tell' them when they should be destroyed. The lifespan en collision will be determined and after that you will be dealing with other things like the trap and boost functionality for the powerups in the game. 

If you would like to watch this series you can find it at the following link (note that you need to have a paid subscription to DigitalTutors) : 

http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/1288-2D-Racing-Game-Series-in-Unity-Volume-3

Volume 4

You start by cleaning up any issues you have with the powerups. Here you will create the exact behavior of each powerup and keep each one balanced during gameplay.

After that, you learn how to keep the player on the track by allowing the player to drive full speed while on the track but at half speed while in the grass. Once you have these systems finished, you need to give the player some feedback on what powerup is currently equipped. 

You also learn how to display the speed and current lap. After that you learn how to create AI for the game. Then you learn how to set up the 2d animations for the enemy car. At the end of this course you will create a game state which will determine when the game starts and when it should end.

If you would like to watch this series you can find it at the following link (note that you need to have a paid subscription to DigitalTutors) : 

http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/1311-2D-Racing-Game-Series-in-Unity-Volume-4

Volume 5

In this final course you will learn how to create the menu for the game so the whole things becomes one complete game.

Next you will learn how to look up which part of the game could give you performance issues by using the profiler in Unity and try to figure out how to solve these issues. 

Finally  you will learn how to create a standalone executable and learn how you could prepare yourself to publish our game.

If you would like to watch this series you can find it at the following link (note that you need to have a paid subscription to DigitalTutors) : 

http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/1312-2D-Racing-Game-Series-in-Unity-Volume-5

Unity Tutorial - Multiphase Boss Battle

Date: 13 January, 2014
Time spent: 4 hours, 11 min

Tutorial by: http://www.digitaltutors.com

This was a really interesting tutorial to watch and follow along. In this course you learn how to create a boss which reacts to the movement of the player (you).

First the course takes you along to make the boss model show all of his animations correctly and next you learn how to make the boss react to the player. For example if the player shoots the boss he will get angry and charge towards the player.

The intimidation state (anger) is made first so afterwards when you go and make the charging state of the boss you can of course actually see if it works. If it does he will come running towards you like crazy and if it doesn't work well... That's programming..I sttill have a lot of times when I think I made something right and find out it's not...something is wrong and you don't know what is it. With these DigitalTutors courses though I find that this happens rarely. The time they take to explain everything step by step is long but in a good way. When you finish a whole course you really feel like you've learned something. iT's worth the money!

Later on you'll learn to add a stunned state and a way to apply damage to the boss so he can actually be defeated (that's nice of course :-) ) 

If you would like to watch this series you can find it at the following link (note that you need to have a paid subscription to DigitalTutors) : 

http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/1343-Multiphase-Boss-Battle-in-Unity

Unity Tutorial - Introduction to C# full

Date: 09 Januari, 2014
Time spent: 8 hours, 25 min

Tutorial by: http://www.digitaltutors.com

I decided it would be totally worth it to watch videos of DigitalTutors and by that I mean the full series of videos they provide. To view these full courses you have to get a paid subscription and it's not really cheap either but when you follow DigitalTutors tutorials you see why they ask money for it. The courses are really long and not that hard to follow so you learn a lot by following along step by step. Everything is well explained.

In this series I got a better understanding of scripting in C# and I actually have the feeling I understand the programming logic better and better. I still have a long way to go but this is a good start for noobs like me who believe that programming is a form of futuristic sorcery.

It was pretty easy to follow along and ease into the programming itself. Even though you only get to move a cube around in the beginning of the course it feels pretty good when you translate the same knowledge to a fully animated character which is provided with the course.

If you would like to watch this series you can find it at the following link (note that you need to have a paid subscription to DigitalTutors) : 

http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/876-Introduction-to-C-in-Unity