Unity Game Development Essentials [Paperback]

Will Goldstone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2009 | ISBN-10: 184719818X | ISBN-13: 978-1847198181 | Edition: 1

This book follows an informal, demystifying approach to the world of game development with the Unity game engine. With no prior knowledge of game development or 3D required, you will learn from scratch, taking each concept at a time working up to a full 3D mini-game. You'll learn scripting with JavaScript and master the Unity development environment with easy to follow stepwise tasks. The printed version of the book is in black and white, but a full color version of the images is available for download here. The eBook version, available from Packt, is in full color. If you're a designer or animator who wishes to take their first steps into game development, or if you've simply spent many hours sitting in front of video games, with ideas bubbling away in the back of your mind, Unity and this book should be your starting point. No prior knowledge of game production is required, inviting you to simply bring with you a passion for making great games.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Will Goldstone

Will Goldstone is an Interactive designer and tutor based in the south west of England. Spending much of his time online, he focuses on web design and game development, specializing in online tutoring of many interactive disciplines. Having discovered Unity in its first version, he has been working to promote its 'game development for everyone' ethic ever since. He spends his free time on graphic design, writing loud music and playing Frisbee on the beach.

Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing; 1 edition (October 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 184719818X
• ISBN-13: 978-1847198181
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #100,702 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Have For The Budding Game Developer, October 7, 2009

By 

Jacob Williams (Alabama, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unity Game Development Essentials (Paperback)

For those of you wishing to join the growing ranks of Game Developers, this book is for you. The author assumes no prior game development knowledge and guides you straight through the trenches. Using the Unity Game Engine as the development platform, the author really does prove that game development is not only for the elite or professional programmers. As a Unity game developer myself, I highly recommend this book to not only those who have been toying around with the idea of creating a game, but also those who want to learn a new trick or two with Unity.

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for beginners..., November 30, 2009

By 

Tim R "Game Dev" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Unity Game Development Essentials (Paperback)

The book is a solid offering, actually the ONLY offering, of paper references for the Unity engine. It is a clear, reasonable, well executed book that goes step by step from infancy to toddler stage in learning Unity. It thankfully doesn't spend a lot of time teaching common game programming concepts, but does cover them just enough to keep readers oriented in the right direction.

Much of the book is covered in the documentation available online, but in a sensible and orderly and readable fashion. The writer uses clear, understandable examples in most cases.

As a beginner book, it is stellar. What it begs is for another book to be written which covers intermediate and advanced topics. For professional development, there are quite a few topics that merit coverage (Asset pipeline, dynamic loading, professional code structure, advanced UI, advanced animation, render targets, build pipeline, advanced optimization and profiling, asset server, etc.) These are still untouched topics that could fill a second volume.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unity Demystified, October 7, 2009

By 

John Tripodo (California, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Unity Game Development Essentials (Paperback)

I wish all development books were written in this style. The author starts from ground zero using Unity and keeps building on the previous chapter until you end up with a complete game with physics, menus, sounds, animations, game play ... After completing this book I had the confidence to move on to start making my first Unity game!