Technical requirements

Sometimes it’s easier to start with what a thing isn’t, rather than what it is. The goal of this book isn’t to teach you everything there is to know about the Unity game engine or game development. By necessity, we’ll cover these topics at a basic level at the beginning of our journey, and in more detail in Chapter 6. These topics are included to provide a fun, accessible way to learn the C# programming language from the ground up, not an in-depth Unity tutorial. With programming as our main goal, there will be times when we opt for a code-based solution even though Unity may have a specific feature that does the same thing without any code. Don’t worry, I’ll point you in the right direction should you want to try them out later on in your game development journey!Since this book is aimed at complete beginners to programming, if you have no previous experience with either C# or Unity, you’re in the right place! If...

Getting started with Unity 6

If you don’t have Unity installed (or are running an earlier version), follow these steps to set up your environment:

1. Head over to https://www.unity.com/.
2. Select Download (shown in Figure 1.1):

To provide a complete view of the Unity Editor, all our screenshots are taken in fullscreen mode. For color versions of all book images, use the following link: https://packt.link/7yy5V.

1. This will take you to the Unity store page. Don’t feel overwhelmed by this—you can download Unity completely for free!

If the Unity homepage looks different for you than what you can see in Figure 1.1, you can go directly to https://store.unity.com.

1. Scroll down to the How to get started section and download the Unity Hub application for either Windows or Mac, as shown in Figure 1.2. I’ll be using a Mac, but everything works the same on a Windows machine:

   

2. Once the download...

Using C# with Unity

Going forward, it’s important to think of Unity and C# as symbiotic entities. Unity is the engine where you’ll create scripts and GameObjects, but the actual programming takes place in another program called Visual Studio Code.

Setting up Visual Studio Code in Unity 6

Before continuing, it’s important that Visual Studio Code is set up as the script editor for your project. Go to the Unity menu | Settings | External Tools and check that External Script Editor is set to Visual Studio Code (or Windows):

As a final tip, if you want to switch between light and dark modes, go to the Unity menu | Preferences | General and change Editor Theme:

We haven’t covered any basic programming concepts yet, but they won’t have a home until we know how to create an actual C# script in Unity. Let’s see how we can achieve this in the...

Exploring the documentation

The last topic we’ll touch on in this first foray into Unity and C# scripts is documentation. Not sexy, I know, but it’s important to form good habits early when dealing with new programming languages or development environments.

Summary

We covered quite a bit of logistical information in this chapter, so I can understand if you’re itching to write some code. Starting new projects, creating folders and scripts, and accessing documentation are topics that are easily forgotten in the excitement of a new adventure. Just remember that this chapter has a lot of resources you might need in the coming pages, so don’t be afraid to come back and visit. Thinking like a programmer is like strengthening a muscle: the more you work it, the stronger it gets.In the next chapter, we’ll start laying out the theory, vocabulary, and main concepts you’ll need to prime your coding brain. Even though the material is conceptual, we’ll still be writing our first lines of code in the LearningCurve script. Get ready!

Pop quiz: Dealing with scripts

1. What type of relationship do Unity and Visual Studio Code share?
2. The Scripting Reference supplies example code in regard to using a particular Unity component or feature. Where can you find more detailed (non-code-related) information about Unity components?
3. The Scripting Reference is a large document. How much of it do you have to memorize before attempting to write a script?
4. When is the best time to name a C# script?

Don’t forget to check your answers against mine in the Pop Quiz Answers appendix to see how you did!