Foreword
When we began creating Unity, we were just three programmers working on a beautifullittle game. There weren't any good game engines that one could license withoutputting down wads of cash, so we created our own. We eventually decided that we enjoyedthe challenge of making great tools even more than making games, and after some soulsearching we realized that the tools we had been creatingcombined with asimple licensing structure and an open communityhad the potential to changethe way that developers create, distribute, and play games.
It wasn't always an easy road to where we are today. Ridiculously long days andlate nights, gigs serving sandwiches and making websites for law firms, and generalhardship. Once, we were told by a potential investor (he passed on the deal) that ourdream of 'democratizing game development' had a 1 in 1000 chance of working out.We could think of nothing better to do than take on the odds!
Stuffing insanely complex technology into a polished package, and making it as simpleas humanly possible was job one, and so we were thrilled to see the first book about our software, Unity Game Development Essentials released in 2009.The book helped many people get off the ground with Unity, and so when Will told me hewas due to release an updated edition I was only too happy to be asked to write itsforeword. A long standing member of the Unity community, we first met Will back in 2007when he was teaching game development with Unity at UK based Bournemouth University. Hewent on to produce some of the first Unity video tutorials for his students and sharedthese on our forums, helping a generation of early adopters pick up Unity version 1.5and upwards.
Now working with us at Unity Technologies, Will has retained much of his former careerin teachinghelping us to grow adoption by new users through creating trainingmaterials, giving talks and keeping active in our community. The new Unity 3.x Game Development Essentials you hold in your hand (or read on your mobileor desktop!) is rewritten from the ground upbut holds on to everything thatwas so nice about the first edition: each part of the original has been expanded,improved or elaborated upon, and it also includes some of the many features we added toUnity since then. You will not only learn about new features however; Will thoroughlywalks through the basics, through scripting, learning scripting, and even addresses thatperpetual Unity conundrum: Should I learn C# orJavascript? by covering both programming languages in parallel,his book lets you decide what makes the most sense for you.
Whether you are an artist, level designer, or simply a young person choosing gamecreation as a potential career, this book represents a fantastic start for learningUnity. Starting out by covering the essential elements of 3D, you'll learneverything from scratchno prior knowledge is assumed, but the book moves at apace that will keep you turning pages and writing code!
I'd like to personally welcome you to the Unity community, and hope you have asmuch fun reading this book as we do working on Unity.
David Helgason
CEO & Co-founder, Unity Technologies
About the Author
Will Goldstone is a longstanding member of theUnity community and works for Unity Technologies as a Technical Support Associate,handling educational content, marketing, community relations and developer support. Withan MA in Creative Education, and many years experience as a lecturer in highereducation, Will wrote the first ever Unity book, the original Unity Game Development Essentials , and also created the first ever external videotutorials for the package. Through his site http://www.unity3dstudent.com, Will helps to introduce new users to thegrowing community of developers discovering Unity everyday. He also blogs intermittently at http://willgoldstone.com.
I would like to thank the following parties for helping to produce this book, and being generally awesomeTeck Lee Tan (@LoTeKk) for creating the Art Assets in the book; all the Ninjas at Unity Technologies: Rune Skovbo Johansen, Nicholas Francis (@unitynich), David Helgason (@davidhelgason), Joachim Ante, Graham Dunnett, Andy Brammall (@andybrammall), Andy Stark, Charles Hinshaw, Roald Hoyer-Hansen (@brokenpoly), Carl Callewaert (@carlunity), Chris Pope (@CreativeChris1), Dave Shorter, Mark Harkness (@IAmRoflHarris), Ricardo Arango, Rob Fairchild (@robfairchild), Olly Nicholson, Cathy Yates, Adam Buckner, Richard Sykes, Emil Johansen (@AngryAnt), Ethan Vosburgh, Joe Robins (@JoeRobins) and the many more awesome guys and girls I can't fit here!
Plus awesome Unity-powered friends Bob Berkebile (@pixelplacement), Tom Jackson (@quickfingerz), Thomas Pasieka(@thomaspasieka), Cat Burton (@catburton), Mike Renwick (@runonthespot), MarkBackler, Russ Morris (@therussmorris), Jasper Stocker (@jasperstocker), Paul Tondeur (@paultondeur), David Fugre-Lamarre, Benjamin Lee, Steffen Franz, Aaron Grove, Bastien Fontaine. And of course not forgetting Mum, Dad, Rach, Penny, and my awesome friends.
About the Reviewers
Rune Skovbo Johansen has been part of thedevelopment team at Unity Technologies since 2009, working on expanding the feature setof the editor and tightening the workflows and interface. He is based in Copenhagen,Denmark. Besides editor work he has developed procedural animation tools, writtensections of the Unity documentation, and has been a programmer on several of theofficial Unity demos.
In general, Rune is passionate about creating solutions that make advanced and cooltechnology simple to use. He has a creative and cross-disciplinary approach to softwaredevelopment grounded in a Master's degree in Multimedia & Game Programming andan interest since childhood in graphics, animation, and coding.