Customer Reviews

Unity Game Development Essentials

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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!

If you were ever interested in learning how to get get started with he unity toolset, you could do a lot worse than this book. This is a from the ground up approach to teaching unity, which for advanced readers may find a little dull, I think most people would benefit by having flipped through the pages.

Pros:
Very clean, focused, writing which walks the reader through all the steps necessary to make a basic game in unity. UI, scripting, and editor usage are all covered and when coupled with the unity documentation leaves very little ambiguity.

Cons:
There is nothing in this book that you could not get out of the official documentation.

It is a short book that leverages unity in the simplest way possible and avoids covering the guts to the point that many people may feel lost at how to apply the concept in a broader way.

This book shows you the bare essentials, as the title implies, but it is still the responsibility of the reader to play and learn the details of the unity engine in order to leverage it for their own purposes. Making a non-FPS, side scroller, fixed camera, puzzle game, etc - this book will show you how the scripting language works, how to put objects in a scene, how to use the UI system: but it won't do much more than that.

Conclusion:
If you've tried to learn unity but got lost in all the documentation, didn't know where to start, or were just overwhelmed (even a little bit) this book is a great idea. It will ground you back by giving you a little focus and direction, as well as an ordered approach to using the unity tools.

That being said, if you've already ran through the documentation and tutorials and feel like you've got a pretty reasonable handle on things, this book won't really offer you much.

Will has done a great job writing a book that covers all the important bases. Anyone wanting to use Unity as their new game development tool would be wise to get this book!

Will Goldstone's Unity Game Development Essentials</a> (UGDE) has arrived. It's the first book about the [...] Unity Game Engine</a> by the person whose videos were the first and most comprehensive Unity videos to date. Will also runs [...] and [...] 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.



DISCLOSURE: I Would like to thank Packt Publishing for providing me with a copy of Unity Game Development Essentials for the purpose of reviewing the book.Unity Game Development Essentials

Will Goldstone has a way of clarifying and simplifying concepts that at first seem obscure. He's a natural teacher and his book is a great primer for those serious about delving into the Unity game engine. And for those new to scripting, it will all begin to make sense after working through his exercises. There's a lot to learn to master Unity, but this is a great place to start. I keep wishing I had Will sitting by my side while I learn to use Unity, but in a way, I guess I do since his book is sitting next to my computer keyboard as I write this.

When I considered purchasing Will Goldstone's Unity Game Development Essentials, I read a number of reviews first. Several of them complained that Will only builds a single project during the course of the book. What that complaint doesn't tell you is just how much Will makes sure you've learned when that project is complete.

It is very clear, to me at least, how much consideration the author had for us newbies with both the depth and breadth of exposure to Unity 3D gained by building that one project. In several instances, multiple approaches to solving problems were discussed (as there is never just one solution to anything.) Trade-offs in choosing a given solution over another were clearly explained. I don't know if this same level of knowledge could have been presented with multiple, smaller projects. The presentation of the knowledge is very carefully executed. No confusion, just a building desire to get coding and fire up Photoshop and Maya!!!

I found this book very approachable, easy to read, and packed with goodies to push me up the learning curve quickly, which is why I bought this plus six other books on Unity 3D in the first place. I am REALLY glad I didn't succumb to the negative reviews and found out for myself. If I had, I would have missed something very helpful.

This is a great read! Easy to follow, and great examples. As a Flash developer, I appreciate Will's description of Unity terms in relation to Flash/ActionScript terms. He walks you through each example with screenshots and encouragement to experiment on your own.

Highly recommended for anyone looking to begin their career in the exciting world of 3D game development.

iBrent

I wouldn't bore you with a long review. To put it plain and simple, this is a very good book and well paced. I would recommend it for a beginner as it slowly takes you through what is needed to catch up to speed with Unity. However, notice I rated it 5 stars because that is what is it, but I must point out that if you are learning unity with Unity 3.0 or above be aware that the book seems to use Unity 2.9 (if am correct) and below thus, when you get to topics such as writing scripts - you would notice the book uses examples on FPS Walker Scripts (to be found in 2.9 and below) where as it's been changed to (Character Controller Script in 3.0 and above) as of writing I haven't seen a well documented tutorial on the Character Controller Scripts. Hope this helps