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Unity Learn platform free for three months
- eps 7y agoI was looking at getting it for my kids just last week. Went through a bunch forums, reading through what people are saying and the overwhelming tone was that it's just not good. An ad-hoc collection of tutorials with no overall structure and that are more confusing than helpful. Too complicated for noobs, too trivial with those with a bit of experience. If anyone has a firsthand experience with Unity Learn, I'd love to hear about it, and I'm sure others will find it useful too.
- metreo 7y agoI'm doing a relatively short course right now on optimization which is instructive. Profiling is an important but strangely ad hoc task so I'm always looking for fresh content on the subject.
- laegooose 7y agoI went through a bunch of Unity courses. Wrote about the best one here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22688437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22688437 In fact, it was my best experience among online courses on any subject.
- armatav 7y agoOut of all the online courses, I would say they have the most fun/engaging content. It kind of makes sense too.
- enjoiful 7y agoCheck out Dreams for PS4. It's perfect to create games with kids.
- sidlls 7y agoAn ad-hoc collection of tutorials with no overall structure and that are more confusing than helpful This is how I feel about most open source software documentation and tutorials/articles about library or software usage.
- cambalache 7y agoHell, this is how I feel about 90% of technical books and textbooks. Writing is hard. 10X harder for highly technical content.
- yuyangchee98 7y agoIs it good compared to Youtube tutorials?
- k__ 7y agoIs there something like Unity out there but with JavaScript support? I know a bunch of JS game engines, but they all have no tooling.
- heyitsguay 7y agoUnity has Javascript support, and can target WebGL for its builds.
- klodolph 7y agoDepends on what you mean by “JavaScript support”. Do you want to write code in JavaScript? That’s deprecated. Do you want to target WebGL? It works but it’s less than ideal. If you want to make a WebGL app, Unity would not be my choice. The tooling used to fall into the “that works, but it’s cursed” category, because it would compile the C# to CIL with Mono, then compile CIL to C++ with il2cpp, and the C++ to JS with Emscripten. I think. If you think this pipeline is “extremely cursed”, well, you’re not alone. If you want to make a browser game with tooling, there are some better options. Different options for 2D and 3D. You’re going to have to accept some kind of compromise and the ecosystem is a bit difficult to navigate.
- heyitsguay 7y agoWhoa, JavaScript support is deprecated? News to me! I always use C# anyway but still seems like a shame. And yeah, agreed, it's probably pretty clunky compared to what some WebGL-specific frameworks might give you. I don't know if anything out there has quite the UI setup or polish as Unity though. Do you know of any? Edit: Saw your edit. That sounds super cursed.
- klodolph 7y agoDeprecating JavaScript (UnityScript) is a good thing. Language bindings are a nightmare, and the more languages you support, the worse it gets. Consider that you might want to write a class in C++, wrap it in a C# interface, and then use it from UnityScript. Consider that if you write something for the asset store, the consumers may be using C# or JS. If you’re looking for something with good UI and polish, maybe GameMaker Studio fits the bill? I don’t keep tabs on this space. I use Unity when I’m collaborating with people, and use simpler frameworks when I’m working alone.
- brianjerez 7y agoPerhaps this is not the topic to ask but besides unity which other companies are offering free moocs and/or video tutorials because of the COVID-19?
- maroonblazer 7y agoNot a mooc or video but a number of Minecraft creators have generously made their educational content free until June. Disclosure: I'm a part of the Minecraft team. https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/free-educational-content-minecraft-marketplace- https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/free-educational-con...
- JCoder58 7y agoEpic Games has offered numerous free courses about Unreal Engine 4. Both game related and industry related courses are available. https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/onlinelearning-courses https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/onlinelearning-courses
- BossingAround 7y agoThey have offered a paid course for free due to COVID-19?
- tekknik 7y agoThey always have free coursework and content. Search their youtube. This is not in response to COVID
- BossingAround 7y agoHence not answering the original question: > which other companies are offering free moocs and/or video tutorials because of the COVID-19?
- tekknik 7y ago
- laegooose 7y ago[1] is the single best online course I had. It took ~30 hours to complete, and we all know how easy it is to drop a course after couple sessions. It teaches from very basics, at the same time the projects are diverse and fun because 3D-assets and effects are provided. Chunk size is perfect, few minutes video and then it's few minutes of work in the editor. Videos have short text summary so there's no need to rewind the video if I missed something. Often it solves a problem in a naive but incorrect way, and then fixes it. So when I encounter a problem in real project, I often have experience dealing with it. It has debugging projects, where you have a complete project which is broken in multiple ways. So smart. In my regular programming work I spend most time debugging, not creating from scratch. The narrator (Carl D.) is charismatic, videos are very professional. I wish there were more courses with same structure and quality. Can't recommend it enough. [1] https://learn.unity.com/course/create-with-code https://learn.unity.com/course/create-with-code
- metreo 7y agoThat course isn't even premium content I don't think.
- Delfino 7y agoCorrect. I've been using this with my high school Game Programming course this semester. It made the transition to distance learning pretty straightforward for that class. I think the title of the post should include the word Premium since Unity Learn in general is free, it's the Premium content that has been made free for 3 months.
- JshWright 7y ago> The narrator (Carl D.) is charismatic I just watched the intro video, it seemed like he was yelling the whole time...
- Delfino 7y agoMaking good instructional videos is tough. Speaking loud enough, clear enough and slow enough to be understandable to as many people as possible with different levels of language proficiency can make it seem weird for some. I met Carl at a Unite conference and his voice sounded a little off compared to my memory of it and I realized it's because I've been so used to listening at 2x on those videos.
- gentleman11 7y agoIf Unreal or Cryengine took the effort to create better learning resources like Unity does, they would grow dramatically. To find the name of a function I need in the c++ is a research project involving a dive through years of old forum posts.
- ThrowawayR2 7y agoIsn't Unreal already the dominant engine for AAA games?
- Scramblejams 7y agoUnity's dominant on mobile compared to Unreal. We (a FAANG) are actually looking for a dev experienced with Unreal on mobile devices. If anybody sees this and is interested, hit me up. Contact info in my profile. Edit: Added emphasis that we're looking for an Unreal mobile dev, not Unity.
- pj_mukh 7y agoAt a high level, how is Unity used at FAANG?
- ore0s 7y agomy guess: oculus. https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/unity/?locale=en_US https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/unity/?locale=en_...
- Scramblejams 7y agoUnreal, not Unity. Making a game.
- Impossible 7y agoI used both Unreal and Unity at FAANG. VR and AR apps are obvious use cases but you find the engines in all kind of random places. Especially common in ML research groups for scene and environment understanding
- antsoul 7y agoGodot 4.0, with Vulkan support, will replace Unity really quickly.
- pjmlp 7y agoNo it won't, because it doesn't have the GUI tooling at the same level, an optimizing AOT compiler for .NET, ability to write engine pipeline stages in .NET (DOTS), the quantity of items in the asset store, the sponsorship from Nintendo/Google/Microsoft and most important, it isn't part of the curriculum of many top level schools in games design. It is still a nice engine for small teams though.
- p2detar 7y agoAOT is in the making [0]. I also think Godot will win in the long run. Unity is a bloated mess. No sponsorship can fix that. 0 - https://godotengine.org/article/csharp-wasm-aot https://godotengine.org/article/csharp-wasm-aot
- pjmlp 7y agoIt seems to be only for WebAssembly. unless I am misreading it.
- UnpossibleJim 7y agoIt has gotten some limited support from Nintendo, surprisingly. They have let a limited number of developers develop for the Switch using Godot on a new SDK.
- pjmlp 7y agoBeing given access to Switch SDK is not quite the same. 50% of the titles, including some first party ones, are using Unity.
- UnpossibleJim 7y ago
- enjoiful 7y agoI would highly recommend learning Dreams for PS4. This is going to change the way video games are made. It provides an accessible way to get into game creation in a fun and accessible way. I would have killed to have Dreams when I was 12 years old. Look up all the amazing things that can be made with this engine. It's incredible!
- travbrack 7y agoNo PC version though sadly.
- samstave 7y ago"the change you want was rejected" on creating new login...
- mrfusion 7y agoWould this teach me to develop for the Oculus quest? I have some locomotion ideas I want to try out but I don’t know Where to start.
- jmckib 7y agoMost of the development you'd do for Oculus is 90% the same with what you'd do for any other game, so I'd say yes, but you'll need to supplement with tutorials specifically for Oculus/Unity.
- developer2 7y agoWhat does the other 10% entail, when creating a VR game vs. a (first-person) 3D environment for PC? I'd never pondered this, and am curious exactly which elements are any different whatsoever. The only obvious thing that comes to mind is making the camera smooth and flexible in terms of variable degrees of leaning/bending/crouching.
- meheleventyone 7y agoYou actually want the opposite, as little artificial camera motion as possible. The VR SDKs feed you the camera transform and settings against a reference point so you don’t need to do anything special except render a view from that. The organic platform comes with all the motion smoothing built in. If you watch VR footage you’ll get a feeling for how wobbly people’s heads actually are. In terms of level design VR has a looot more fidelity of input so the interaction design is richer and consequently there is more to setup. Game spaces tend to be less cluttered and have some slightly distorted dimensions. Both are more noticeable in VR. Games tend to have more fixed sight lines, the player is stood, crouched and maybe prone at most. In VR people will stick their heads everywhere.
- developer2 7y agoThanks for the insight. > In VR people will stick their heads everywhere. Particularly when players have any level of knowledge about what kind of complexities or edge cases are likely involved (eg. any software developer or QA, even if not part of the gaming industry). Or... hell, maybe it's even worse when you have ignorant players who expect the VR environment to mimic real life so perfectly that they get frustrated and can't understand why certain actions aren't supported/working. The first VR game I got to experience was one of the haunted house horror games, and you're damn right I bent down and tried to shoved my head into an open cupboard just to see if the collision detection stopped at the outer box of the model, or whether my head would be allowed to enter the space. Then repeatedly leaned/shoved my head against VR walls at various angles to see if I could get the camera to clip or bounce/reposition jarringly. Poor, poor developers who have to try and nail all that logic perfectly. It must be so rewarding to see final results when everything works out well, though. :P
- gabythenerd 7y agoDoes anyone know of a similar course but for learning to use Unreal Engine?
- PudgePacket 7y agoGet them while you can. The only up to date/interesting courses are in learn premium. All the free ones are _years_ old and most just do not work in current versions of Unity.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tekknik 7y agoWait unity charges for their learning material? This and then charging for the dark theme is why this engine doesn’t exist to me.