This book is designed to be a complete introduction to game development in Unity, but there’s much more to learn beyond this introduction. You’ll find lots of great resources online that you can use to go further after finishing this book.

Additional tutorials

Many sites that provide directed information on a variety of topics within Unity exist. Several of these are even provided officially by the company behind Unity.

Unity manual

This is the comprehensive user manual provided by Unity. Not only is it useful for looking up information, but the list of topics is useful by itself for providing a full idea of what Unity is capable of. You can find the manual at http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/index.html.

Script reference

Unity programmers end up reading the script reference more than any other (at least, I do!). The user manual covers the capabilities of the engine and use of the editor, but the script reference is a thorough reference to Unity’s entire API. Every Unity command is listed here at http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/index.html.

Unity learn tutorials

Unity’s official website includes several comprehensive tutorials, found in the Learn section. Most importantly, the tutorials are all videos. This may be good or bad depending on your perspective; if you are someone who likes to watch video tutorials, then https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials is a good site to check out.

Catlike Coding

Rather than walking learners through a complete game, Catlike Coding offers a grab-bag of useful and interesting topics. The topics aren’t even necessarily about game development specifically, but are a great way to build up programming skills in Unity. The tutorials can be found at catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/.

Game development at StackExchange

StackExchange is another great information site with a different format from the previous ones listed. Rather than a series of self-contained tutorials, StackExchange presents a mostly text QA that encourages searching. StackExchange has sections about a huge array of topics; https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/ is the area of the site focused on game development. For what it’s worth, I look for Unity information there almost as often as I use the script reference.

Maya LT Guide

As described in appendix B, external art applications are a crucial part of creating visually stunning games. Many resources that teach about Maya, 3ds Max, Blender, or any of the other 3D art applications are available. Appendix C offers a tutorial about Blender. One online guide about using Maya LT (a game development–oriented and less expensive version of Maya) is steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242847724.

Code libraries

Although the previously listed resources provide tutorials and/or learning information about Unity, the sites in this section provide code that can be used in your projects. Libraries and plug-ins are another kind of resource that can be useful for new developers, both for using directly but also for learning from (by reading their code).

Unify community wiki

The Unity wiki (called Unify) is a central database of code contributions from many developers, and the scripts hosted there cover a wide range of functionality. Throughout this book, I sometimes directed you to specific scripts hosted here (the messenger system, for example). You can find many more useful scripts at wiki.unity3d.com/index.php/Scripts.

DOTween, LeanTween, iTween

As mentioned briefly in chapter 3, a kind of motion effect commonly used in games is referred to as a tween. This is a type of movement where a single code command can set an object moving to a target over a certain amount of time. Tweening functionality can be added using libraries like dotween.demigiant.com/, https://github.com/dentedpixel/LeanTween, and www.itween.pixelplacement.com/.

Post-processing Stack

The post-processing stack is an easy way to add a bunch of visual effects like depth of field and motion blur to your games. Many of these effects had previously been provided separately in Unity, but now they’ve been integrated into one über effect. This component is available on the Asset Store or can be downloaded from https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/PostProcessing.

prime[31]

Unity provides deployment to mobile platforms like iOS and Android, but the platform-specific features are limited to core features. You can add a lot of more specific features through plug-ins, and prime[31] (https://prime31.com/) has many such plug-ins.

Agasper Android Notifications

While the plug-ins from prime[31] cover all sorts of different features, Agasper Android Notifications plug-in (https://github.com/Agasper/unity-android-notifications) focuses on just one thing: local notifications on Android. Since Unity has iOS notifications built in, you may only need Android notifications from a plug-in, in which case this is a streamlined option.

Play Games Services from Google

On iOS, Unity has GameCenter integration built in so that your games can have platform-native leaderboards and achievements. The equivalent system on Android is called Google Play Games; although this isn’t built into Unity, Google maintains a plug-in at https://github.com/playgameservices/play-games-plugin-for-unity.

FMOD Studio

The audio functionality built into Unity works well for playing back recordings, but can be limited for advanced sound design work. FMOD Studio is an advanced sound design tool that has a Unity plug-in. Find it at www.fmod.com/studio.