Lab 1: Playing with Unity

The goal of this lab is to simply get familiar with the basics of Unity through exploration. There are a few things that you should look into - listed below - but otherwise, you are free to make whatever you like. Sort of like playing in a sand box.

You need to install Unity 3D on your own machine before you start. You get the latest version from the Unity 3D download page.

1. The Unity Interface The first thing to get familiar with is Unity's user interface. You can look up the purpose of each element on the screen in Unity's "Learning the Interface" documentation or by wathcing their "Interface Overview" learning video (use headphones for watching videos! )
2. Make a Ground When you start a new project, the only GameObject you have is the MainCamera, giving you a point of view into the environment you are constructing. Now add a second object, which will serve as your ground. From the main menu select GameObject→CreateOther→Plane, this will add a large flat object to the scene. If you now selct your Main Camera object from the Hierarchy panel, you may see from the little Camere Preview pop-up window that this ground is not visible due to the relative position of these two ojbects. You can place objects precisely in the world by adjusting the Position property of the object in the Inspector pane. From Hierarcy select Main Camera and then in the Inspector give the camera the position (0,1,0) in the Transform component. Now select the Plane and give it the position (0,0,0). You should now be able to see the ground in the camera previw. Press the Play (in the play control panel above the 3D view) button to confirm that when you run your environment you will see the ground below you and the sky behind it. Press the Play button again to stop running the scene (there is no stop button!).
3. The 3D Scene Interface While you are developing it is very important to be able to navigate the 3D scene you are constructing and to be able to adjust the properties of objects (e.g. position) from within the scene itself. The quickest way to start navigating the scene is to press and hold the right mouse button and then use the familiar game control buttons W, A, S, D to move. But understand that you are simply moving the point of view of the developer in the world and not changing what the user sees when they enter the world - they will always be bound to a particular camera. Get familiar with this 3D navigation and how you can interactively manipulate game objects by reading Unity's "Scene View" documentation
4. Add Lights and Objects Select GameObject→CreateOther→Cube and place the cube so that you can see it from the camera when you play the scene. Then select GameObject→CreateOther→Directional Light and see how adding the light changes the way things look. Bring in more objects, both lights and geometry, and experiment with their placement (manipulating them in the scene view) and properties (through the Inspector panel).
5. Add Shadow Select your Directional light and change the Shadow Type property to HardShadows. You should now see your objects casting shadows in the scene.
6. Add Fog and Sky Select Edit→Render Settings and turn on the Fog property (check box) and experiment with its settings, see if you can create the effect of having more distant objects appear faded. In the same settings panel, pick a Skybox Material. If you click on the little circle next to the property, it will show you a selection box, from which you can select a material to assign to this property. Type sky in the search box to limit the view to assets with the name sky in them. Pick something and see how it looks. Experiment with this.
7. Enable Walking From the Project panel, select the Assets→StandardAssets→Character Controllers folder and you should see that it contains two “pre fabricated” (Prefabs) character controllers. Drag the ''First Person Controller“ into your Hierarchy. You then have to position this object such that it is standing on top of your ground. When you press Play you can now walk around your environment in first person.
8. Register in the Unity Asset Store For additional assets, including more models and materials, you can browse the Unity Asset store by selecting from the main menu Window→Asset Store. You will have to register there to actually download assets, but is is definitely worth it. After you import assets, you will see them in your Project panel, from which you can drag them into your scene. You can always drag things like textures directly onto your objects to “paint” them. Try that.
9. Go wild Make any kind of environment you wish.