This book depends upon example code which is to be downloaded from their website. Unfortunately, that code is messed up and is missing Chapter 1. You know, the very chapter you need in order to get started? I opened an account at the Packt publishing website and looked up the book to see if the available code there was more recent from that I had when I purchased the book (they sent me a link to download the code). This is what I see there as of today (12/22/13):
Code Download - 2012-02-23 - 201,767.08 KB
Errata - 1 submitted: last submission 06 Mar 2013
Errata type: Code
The code files for Chapter 1 and 7 will be uploaded soon.
Errata type: Code
The code files for the book are updated.
The book was published in Feb 2012. In March of this year, an errata was posted claiming that Chapters 1 and 7 would be uploaded soon (over a year after release). Now in December 2013, it is still unchanged. I downloaded the code file from there and it's still missing Chapter 1 (actually, there's a folder titled "Chapter 1" which is stuck inside the assets folder for Chapter 3, but Unity does not recognize it, probably due to missing content).
By the way, this is the second copy of the book that I have received. The first copy was mis-made: pages in reverse order, some pages upside down, some in the wrong location, some cut off. I returned it to Amazon and got a replacement that is at least made properly as a book, yet this book is useless without workable example code. You are to follow the instructions in the book on the sample Unity projects. That's how it works. The book cannot teach you anything without the sample code. I highly suspect that the positive reviewers of this book are shills, as how could they use the book without the sample Unity projects?
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Unity iOS Game Development Beginners Guide Paperback – February 23, 2012
by
Gregory Pierce
(Author)
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Print length314 pages
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherPackt Publishing
-
Publication dateFebruary 23, 2012
-
Dimensions7.5 x 0.71 x 9.25 inches
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ISBN-101849690405
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ISBN-13978-1849690409
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Product details
- Publisher : Packt Publishing (February 23, 2012)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 314 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1849690405
- ISBN-13 : 978-1849690409
- Item Weight : 1.2 pounds
- Dimensions : 7.5 x 0.71 x 9.25 inches
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Best Sellers Rank:
#12,779,743 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,107 in Digital Video Production (Books)
- #4,638 in Mobile App Development & Programming
- #5,520 in Computer & Internet Game Strategy Guides
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Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2013
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Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2012
Verified Purchase
I already know quite a bit about Unity, but wanted to learn a little more about some topics they claim to cover. This book would be worth the $16.19 on the Kindle Edition, even a few chapters that provide insight and save time when working with iOS would be worth it. The problem is the book offers nothing new or insightful.
The book basically covers a few pages of the Unity docs, then goes into 3rd party plugins they recommend, each plugin gets a couple of pages. Frankly, a simple search on Google will give you more insight. As somebody else already mentioned, if you want to learn how to use Prime31's plugins, Prime31 already does a good job of explaining them to you. If you want to understand Mixamo's animation system, they do a great job explaining it.
It's worth mentioning the book is already outdated in a few places, the three pages on particles reference the older pre-Shuriken particle system.
In summary, the book is a very few pages on Unity concepts, a few pages on iOS/iPhone concepts, and many pages are various plugins they recommend you buy and read the documentation from the vendors of those plugins. It's a dishonest offering, my expectations were already very low; however, they weren't even close to being met. Stick with the Unity documentation itself, it's better than what this book offers and you'll save money.
The book basically covers a few pages of the Unity docs, then goes into 3rd party plugins they recommend, each plugin gets a couple of pages. Frankly, a simple search on Google will give you more insight. As somebody else already mentioned, if you want to learn how to use Prime31's plugins, Prime31 already does a good job of explaining them to you. If you want to understand Mixamo's animation system, they do a great job explaining it.
It's worth mentioning the book is already outdated in a few places, the three pages on particles reference the older pre-Shuriken particle system.
In summary, the book is a very few pages on Unity concepts, a few pages on iOS/iPhone concepts, and many pages are various plugins they recommend you buy and read the documentation from the vendors of those plugins. It's a dishonest offering, my expectations were already very low; however, they weren't even close to being met. Stick with the Unity documentation itself, it's better than what this book offers and you'll save money.
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2013
Verified Purchase
This book has good things in it but as a beginner book the author sometimes skips a step and now you are trying to figure out how to follow the instructions. Errata for the chapters is also missing and when I tried to go to the support site the zipped file contains nothing. I'm a busy guy and would like to spend my time on how to develop games in unity and not spending on trying to second guess what the author meant. I ended up returning the kindle version.
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2012
Verified Purchase
This book is unbelievably bad. What specifically? All of it. It takes information which can be easily garnered from the Unity and/or Apple websites, distills it down to a minimally useful amount, then charges you for it.
For instance, the chapter on In-App purchase (which is called out in the books description- therefore one would imagine it would be covered in a useful way) is so poorly written as to be laughable. If you need In-App purchases, certainly do go get the prime31 plugin- and read the documentation and sample code that comes with it- it's 100x better than this book.
I'm hoping you save your money and go read the excellent tutorials and forums at Unity before spending a dime on this. If you must spend $40, go buy a month of video lessons from Digital Tutors- I guarantee you will learn more.
For instance, the chapter on In-App purchase (which is called out in the books description- therefore one would imagine it would be covered in a useful way) is so poorly written as to be laughable. If you need In-App purchases, certainly do go get the prime31 plugin- and read the documentation and sample code that comes with it- it's 100x better than this book.
I'm hoping you save your money and go read the excellent tutorials and forums at Unity before spending a dime on this. If you must spend $40, go buy a month of video lessons from Digital Tutors- I guarantee you will learn more.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2013
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The first thing chapter 1 has you do is open Unity and load and run the "Chapter 1" project. However the "Chapter 1" project is missing from the sample code download from paktpub.com. This makes the book essentially useless for me, since the whole reason I bought it was to quickly get up to speed on Unity for iOS.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2012
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Unity iOS Game Development For Beginners is a must read for anyone interested in developing games using Unity. Unlike most other game developing books, this book has the reader perform easy to follow exercises that when combined form a working game. Not only does this teach theory and technique, but also makes it exciting to see a full game come together one step at a time. It also walks you through the steps of getting your game in the Apple App Store with features that include iAds and In App Purchases.
I have only been working with Unity for two months and I was completely lost until I read Unity iOS Game Development For Beginners. In less than an hour I had a soldier moving around a terrain and even better, I understood what I was doing and how things work. This book gave me the jump start I needed. It took something as complex as creating a game from scratch, and made it simple by breaking it down into smaller, easier to learn sections. In addition, unlike most programming books that require a degree from Harvard to understand, this book is written in a way that is easy to understand and enjoyable to read. Anyone who is starting out in Unity can benefit from reading Unity iOS Game Development For Beginners.
I have only been working with Unity for two months and I was completely lost until I read Unity iOS Game Development For Beginners. In less than an hour I had a soldier moving around a terrain and even better, I understood what I was doing and how things work. This book gave me the jump start I needed. It took something as complex as creating a game from scratch, and made it simple by breaking it down into smaller, easier to learn sections. In addition, unlike most programming books that require a degree from Harvard to understand, this book is written in a way that is easy to understand and enjoyable to read. Anyone who is starting out in Unity can benefit from reading Unity iOS Game Development For Beginners.
Top reviews from other countries
Ferchar
1.0 out of 5 stars
Hope followed by despair
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 18, 2012Verified Purchase
This book states "Develop iOS games from concept to cash flow using Unity". That is a very lofty claim for such a short, basic and inadequate book.
The book started off badly in chapter 1 when it states to load chapter 1 project. Err ? There is no chapter 1 project in the files download from the publishers website(there still isn't). Chapter 1 deals with the horrors that is creating a provisioning profile. Having followed the instructions i couldn't get it work. Chapter 2 introduces you to the Unity buttons and windows and gets Unity Remote up and running. Chapter 3 creates an interesting hello world where you can fly through a world containing planet earth using the accelerometer. At this point i nearly wrote the review and to give it 5 stars.I'm glad I didn't because the book fell apart after that.
Chapter 4 clubs together a load of unrelated topics (exporting packages, prefabs,audio and more) where you do nothing but export a few assets as a package and create a red cube prefab. Chapter 5 is a bizarre short chapter on scripting (probably the most important topic for Unity) that has you do nothing but gives these little short snippets of scripts that you have no idea where they belong to or why they are mentioned.
Chapter 6 looked like the book might pick up. We are going to write a game now, Battle Cry! Err, no. We get a story and a screen layout but basically you import an asset of a soldier and locate him on a textured plane with some rocks for company and a light. That's it. Chapter 7 continues on and we are supposed to get a soldier animated using the dual joystick. Except that it the soldier doesn't have any animations . So basically you get a soldier in the T-position awkwardly dragging on the ground as you move the joysticks. The screenshots clearly show he is walking. There is some script text but the author doesn't explain where to put it. It's ridiculous ! I thought maybe the books download of chapter 7 would show me how its done but it is just an empty desolate project that bears little resemblance to what your supposed to do. You can't even see the soldier let alone see him animating. This chapter is really about using Mixamo animations except that it explains it poorly and it doesn't work anyway. Head over to Mixamo video tutorials on Unity, they explain it great and it's free. Download their RMCv2 project to do it.
And there i have lost patience with the book. So i have browsed through the remaining chapters. Chapter 8 is on audio.Ch 9 is on menus. Ch 10 is about gameplay scripting but it's about a particle system. What about adding a collider around those rocks we created in chapter 6. That would have been instructive! There's a section on rag dolls numbering a massive 3 pages (2/3rds of them pictures). Excuse me ? Ragdolls ? What about some basic physics instructions first ! Ch 11 is on optimisation. Forget optimisation, there is nothing worth optimising!
Ch 12 is about how to make 'fat loot' from your creation. You will be making no 'fat loot' from this book. You can read the review on Amazon USA for a more detailed description on Ch 12's problems. The book is short at 280 pages and is a paper thin book with very little content worthy of your £31. I think the book has been rushed through probably by the author. Unity (irrespective of which target platform you choose) is primarily driven by scripting. One of the most important points about Unity is to create a script describing some behaviour and then attach it to an object. Well, it's not covered in this book.You can do very little without it and this book has so little scripting info as to be laughable.
I bought Will Goldstone's Unity 3.x GD Essentials and it's a superb book. It teaches you about terrain editor, import assets, adding colliders, checking for collisions and lots and lots on scripting in C# and Javascript. When i got past ch 7 on Will's book my mind was very clear about the workflow required to make a Unity game. Buy Will's book and forget this one, it's drivel.
The book started off badly in chapter 1 when it states to load chapter 1 project. Err ? There is no chapter 1 project in the files download from the publishers website(there still isn't). Chapter 1 deals with the horrors that is creating a provisioning profile. Having followed the instructions i couldn't get it work. Chapter 2 introduces you to the Unity buttons and windows and gets Unity Remote up and running. Chapter 3 creates an interesting hello world where you can fly through a world containing planet earth using the accelerometer. At this point i nearly wrote the review and to give it 5 stars.I'm glad I didn't because the book fell apart after that.
Chapter 4 clubs together a load of unrelated topics (exporting packages, prefabs,audio and more) where you do nothing but export a few assets as a package and create a red cube prefab. Chapter 5 is a bizarre short chapter on scripting (probably the most important topic for Unity) that has you do nothing but gives these little short snippets of scripts that you have no idea where they belong to or why they are mentioned.
Chapter 6 looked like the book might pick up. We are going to write a game now, Battle Cry! Err, no. We get a story and a screen layout but basically you import an asset of a soldier and locate him on a textured plane with some rocks for company and a light. That's it. Chapter 7 continues on and we are supposed to get a soldier animated using the dual joystick. Except that it the soldier doesn't have any animations . So basically you get a soldier in the T-position awkwardly dragging on the ground as you move the joysticks. The screenshots clearly show he is walking. There is some script text but the author doesn't explain where to put it. It's ridiculous ! I thought maybe the books download of chapter 7 would show me how its done but it is just an empty desolate project that bears little resemblance to what your supposed to do. You can't even see the soldier let alone see him animating. This chapter is really about using Mixamo animations except that it explains it poorly and it doesn't work anyway. Head over to Mixamo video tutorials on Unity, they explain it great and it's free. Download their RMCv2 project to do it.
And there i have lost patience with the book. So i have browsed through the remaining chapters. Chapter 8 is on audio.Ch 9 is on menus. Ch 10 is about gameplay scripting but it's about a particle system. What about adding a collider around those rocks we created in chapter 6. That would have been instructive! There's a section on rag dolls numbering a massive 3 pages (2/3rds of them pictures). Excuse me ? Ragdolls ? What about some basic physics instructions first ! Ch 11 is on optimisation. Forget optimisation, there is nothing worth optimising!
Ch 12 is about how to make 'fat loot' from your creation. You will be making no 'fat loot' from this book. You can read the review on Amazon USA for a more detailed description on Ch 12's problems. The book is short at 280 pages and is a paper thin book with very little content worthy of your £31. I think the book has been rushed through probably by the author. Unity (irrespective of which target platform you choose) is primarily driven by scripting. One of the most important points about Unity is to create a script describing some behaviour and then attach it to an object. Well, it's not covered in this book.You can do very little without it and this book has so little scripting info as to be laughable.
I bought Will Goldstone's Unity 3.x GD Essentials and it's a superb book. It teaches you about terrain editor, import assets, adding colliders, checking for collisions and lots and lots on scripting in C# and Javascript. When i got past ch 7 on Will's book my mind was very clear about the workflow required to make a Unity game. Buy Will's book and forget this one, it's drivel.
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