Creating great Unity games for Windows 10 - Part 1

1. CreatingGreatUnity
Games forWindows 10
Part 1/2
Jiri Danihelka

2. What is Unity
• Unity is
– A game engine and ecosystem
– Supports more platforms than any other publically available tool
– Used by hobbyists & students, up to major studios
• Unity is not
– A 2D image or vector graphic creation tool (photoshop, gimp)
– A 3D modelling environment*
• It does have a built in terrain system
• Also supports third party plugins that enable some 3D modelling (ProBuilder)

3. Features/Capabilities
• AAA Game Quality
• Editor for scene (level) assembly & in-editor game play
• Physics
• Programming with C#, JavaScript, Boo
• 2D & 3D Support
• Audio
• Particle Effects
• Animation Systems

4. Asset Store
• Near everything you need for a game

5. Its all about the scene
• Think of a scene as a level
• Game is a collection of 1->many scenes
• Scenes are included in build
• Can have many test scenes not in final build
• Remember this icon

6. GameObjects are everything
• Near everything in a scene is a GameObject
• The System.Object of Unity
• Simply name, tag, transform
• Transform is very important
GameObject
Lights
3D Models
SpritesHUDs
Particle
Systems

7. Components make things happen
• GameObjects come to life via Components
• Includes
– MeshRenderers
– SpriteRenderers
– Audio
– Cameras
– Physics behavior
– Particle systems
– Scripts (your code)

8. Prefabs and Unity packages
• Prefabs allow reuse across (and within) scenes
– Objects will turn blue in hierarchy
• Update .prefab = update every instance in project scenes
• Unity packages allow reuse across projects
– Asset store downloads are actually .unitypackage files
– Can be imported just by double clicking

9. Unity’s Architecture
• Major Components
– Editor
– MonoDevelop
– Game Engine
• Editor
– Can play test game (play mode)
– Can extend easily

10. Project Structure
• Assets
– Always top level folder shown in Unity Editor
– Every file you bring into your project, prefabs, art, audio, and more.
• Library
– Local cache for imported assets & metadata for assets.
• ProjectSettings
– Stores settings from Edit->Project Settings
• Temp/Obj
– Used for temporary files during the build process from Mono and Unity

11. Compilation
• In the Editor
– Mono is always used to compile scripts
– Compilation in editor may be different than final build
– What works in game may be different in end build
• Your exported Visual Studio Project
– Assemblies generated by Mono or .NET
• Your game
– Compilation varies per platform. Different APIs supported.

12. Programming Model
• Game Loops are per GameObject
• Most major c# constructs, features, types valid
– Lambdas, events, LINQ, anonymous methods, classes, etc
• Do I have to code?
– No – check out PlayMaker, Behave, RainAI

13. Physics Engine
• 3D physics engine NVIDIA® PhysX® Physics
– Is it any good?
• Licensed by Unity, Unreal Engine 4, Gamebryo, Vision, Instinct, and more
• 2D physics via Box2D
– 2D physics generally much faster
– Is it any good?
• Used by Unity, GameMaker, Construct2, and more

14. The generated projects & compilation passes
Project Path Used
in
Pass
Description
Assembly-CSharp.csproj 3 All other scripts not inside folder
called Editor
Assembly-CSharp-
firstpass.csproj
1 Scripts in folders under /Assets
called Standard Assets, Pro Standard
Assets and Plugins
Assembly-CSharp-Editor-
firstpass.csproj
2 Scripts in folders called Standard
Assets/Editor, Pro Standard
Assets/Editor and Plugins/Editor
*-.vs projects n/a Can be added to Visual Studio for
editing code and debugging*
Assembly-CSharp-
Editor.csproj
4 All other scripts inside a folder call
Editor

15. What’s required?
• Logo
• Splash Image
• Options Buttons
• Animations

16. What’s required?
• Initial character sketch in any art program
– Pen/ink on paper works too of course, scanned in
• Create template layer in program
– Illustrator, Inkscape, Photoshop
• Bring sketch in as base layer for reference
• Create layers for character components
• Draw components on layers piece by piece
• Drawing tablet recommended

17. Creating 3D Assets
• Create sketch/reference
• Model in Maya, Blender, 3dsMax, etc
– Create basic shapes, extrude, tweak, repeat
– Third party plugins do support basic modelling in Unity (ex ProBuilder)
• Export or bring directly into Unity
– Export to .obj or .fbx, drag/drop in Unity
– Native file format drag/drop into Unity
• Requires modelling app installed on same machine

18. 3D
• 3D is simply X,Y,Z
– X Left<->Right
– Y Up<->Down
– Z Forward<->Backwards
• Left handed coordinates

19. Rigid bodies & Colliders
• Two components for physics
• Rigidbody
– Gives your object mass
– Makes it understand gravity (optionally)
– Can exist without collider, but won’t collide
• Collider
– Defines an area to calculate collisions based on
– Can also be triggers (no physical interaction, just code is called)
– Can exist without a rigidbody (ex. a platform)

20. Vectors are just values
• Vector2D contains two values (X,Y)
– var heading = new Vector2D(10f, 8f);
– Does not represent anything but values
• Vector3D contains three values (X,Y,Z)
– var heading = new Vector2D(10f, 20f, 7.5f);
• Vectors can represent direction, values, forces
• Vectors can be relative
– Forward can be where Z is
– Forward can be where character is facing

21. Moving objects manually
• Many ways, try to move only rigidbodies
• Non-rigidbodies Unity assumes aren’t moving

22. Top Row Source: Microsoft, as of 7/31/14
Bottom Row Source: Microsoft, 7/31/13 – 7/31/14
apps
$
active users
registered
developers
MO billing partners
help drive higher
monthly revenue
YoY growth YoY growth YoY growth YoY gross sales growth

23. • Advertising
• In-app purchases
• Paid –
– Trial
– Price tiers - $0.99 USD, $1.29
USD, $1.49 USD, etc.
• Free
Revenue Models
29% 26%
31%
44%
40%
29%
Windows Windows Phone
Revenue Source
Paid In-app Purchase Advertising

24. In-app purchases
• Full support from the publishing dashboard
– Consumables – used up and purchased again
– Durable items – can have an expiration
– Receipts – use receipts to verify purchase
• Use any 3rd-party system you want
• Cannot be offered from a trial version

25. Associate your games in both Stores
• You can associate the Windows
Store and Windows Phone
versions of your games
• This allows a one-time purchase
for the user across all platforms
• Can lead to higher usage and
engagement with your app.

26. Back button
• //Unity does this for you automatically
• <phone:PhoneApplicationPage
BackKeyPress="PhoneApplicationPage_BackKeyPress" >
• private void PhoneApplicationPage_BackKeyPress(object sender, CancelEventArgs e)
• {
• e.Cancel = UnityApp.BackButtonPressed();
• }
• //IN your unity code, handle back button, you should quit, go back or dismiss modal UI
• void Update {
• if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Escape)){
• Application.Quit();
• }
}

27. Hardware APIs that work seamlessly
• Touch
• Microphone
• Gyro & Accelerometer
• Webcam
• Location