Building Games for the Humanities with Unity 3
Building Games for the Humanities with Unity 3 D Rudy Mc. Daniel University of Central Florida Orlando, FL USA
Today’s Topics • • Context: Why Games for the Humanities? Downloading Unity 3 D & Introduction to SW Starting a project Download and play a sample project Important vocabulary Understanding the software interface Understanding the scene and game views Building a basic scene environment (game level) using the terrain editor
Part I: Context
http: //www. princetonreview. com/top-graduate-schools-for-video-game-design. aspx
But… • Our recognition in this area is primarily for our efforts in preparing students to enter careers in video games design and development in commercial entertainment • Building games for the humanities is a huge area of opportunity for UCF and for other institutions • Building games is a complex endeavor that benefits from multi-institutional collaboration
2011 Workshop
2015 Workshop
Making Game Creation More Accessible & User-Friendly • Scratch: http: //scratch. mit. edu/ • Alice: http: //www. alice. org/index. php • Hour of Code: http: //code. org/learn • Game. Star Mechanic: https: //gamestarmechanic. com/ see also http: //www. forbes. com/sites/jordanshapiro/2013/02/ 18/how-game-based-learning-can-save-thehumanities/
Why Build Games for the Humanities? Engage young learners in familiar territory Implement multimodal strategies Provide context for exploring historical assets Allow for procedural learning Collect data in a non-intrusive, behind-thescenes sort of way • Provide engaging narratives that can be experienced in non-linear forms • • •
Humanities Learning Games • Desperate Fishwives: http: //www. neh. gov/humanities/2012/novem berdecember/curio/travales-travails
Many Other Examples • HASTAC’s “game” tags: http: //www. hastac. org/tag/games • The Cheeky Lit Teacher resources: http: //cheekylit. com/resources/games/ • University of Arkansas: http: //tesseract. uark. edu/
Part II: Unity Crash Course
Downloading Unity 3 D • http: //unity 3 d. com/unity/download • Current version is 4. 6. 3 • You will need to register a free account in order to install the free license version • License comparison: http: //unity 3 d. com/unity/licenses
What is Unity 3 D? 3 d game engine Can also create 2 d games Cross-platform (Mac and PC) Some popular games such as Temple Run and The Room were created in Unity 3 D • Large support community and asset store • Free! • • • View games made with Unity here: http: //unity 3 d. com/showcase/gallery
More Details • Unity only creates limited 3 d assets (spheres, cubes, etc. ) • That is why it is useful to combine with other tools (Maya, Blender, Photoshop, etc. ) • Mono. Develop is the scripting tool packaged with Unity 3 D for writing your programming code
Starting a Project • Select a location to store your project • Select “ 3 d” or “ 2 d” depending on genre • Import required packages (if you are missing something, you can import it later) • When developing a game later, you should only select the packages you plan to use in the game
Starting the Software
Asset Store • Free and paid assets for use in projects
Free Projects to Download
Learning by Deconstruction • Download a sample project from the asset store. Click “Build and Run” to run the game so that you can see a working example. • This method of reverse engineering is a common tactic for quickly learning how to solve complex design problems. This is similar to learning how to code HTML pages using “View Source”.
To Build and Run
Help Sources
Documentation • You can also view the documentation in Spanish and in other languages • Visit http: //docs. unity 3 d. com/Manual/index. html • Change the language in the right hand corner • Translation is still in progress for some areas of documentation
• We will spend some time today learning about the interface and the various features of the program
The Interface
Some Important Vocabulary • Scenes are individual levels in your game • Game. Objects are assets used within scenes • Components are used for creating behaviors, defining appearance, and customizing objects • Scripts are used to program custom functionality • Prefabs are containers that store Game. Objects with components and properties embedded
Project Browser
Project Browser • http: //docs. unity 3 d. co m/Manual/Project. View. html • Access and manage project assets • You can also search and add favorites using this feature
Hierarchy • Contains every Game. Object in the current scene. • Objects can have parent/child relationships.
Game. Object Relationships • This example shows one Game. Object as a child node within a parent Game. Object. http: //docs. unity 3 d. com/Manual/Hierarchy. html
Toolbar
Scene View http: //docs. unity 3 d. com/Manual/Scene. View. html
Working in Scenes • Scene view is where you design your levels. • Scene View Navigation • See Scene View Navigation for full details on navigating the scene view. Here’s a brief overview of the essentials: – Hold the right mouse button to enter Flythrough mode. This turns your mouse and WASD keys (plus Q and E for up and down) into quick firstperson view navigation. – Select any Game. Object and press the F key. This will center the Scene View and pivot point on the selection. – Use the arrow keys to move around on the X/Z plane. – Hold Alt and click-drag to orbit the camera around the current pivot point. – Hold Alt and middle click-drag to drag the Scene View camera around. – Hold Alt and right click-drag to zoom the Scene View. This is the same as scrolling with your mouse wheel.
Working with Game. Objects http: //docs. unity 3 d. com/Manual/Positioning. Game. Objects. html
Activity: Building a Scene
Things to Try • Use the terrain editor to create a game scene. • Add raised areas to indicate mountains. • Create a volcano. • Add trees throughout your level. • Drop a “first person controller” or “third person controller” prefab into your level. Try it out!
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