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Unity Books

Discussion in 'Community Learning & Teaching' started by Dimitri, Mar 20, 2012.

  1. Dimitri

    Dimitri

    Joined:
    Mar 9, 2012
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    4
    I am looking to get some books covering all aspects of unity development. If anybody has any recommendations please post them on here. Thanks!
     
  2. Mars91

    Mars91

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    Mar 6, 2012
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    Unity 3.x Game Development Essentials, the best one!!
     
  3. OmniverseProduct

    OmniverseProduct

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    Feb 26, 2012
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    1,568
    I agree
     
  4. Govi2010

    Govi2010

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    Oct 24, 2012
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    1
    I am totally new to unity 3d .....
    I am c#.net developer...can you give me names of good book to learn unity 3d ?
     
  5. alterus

    alterus

    Joined:
    Sep 9, 2012
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    the best book in my opinion is
    Holistic game Development with Unity
    by Penny de Byl
     
  6. artzfx

    artzfx

    Joined:
    Apr 28, 2008
    Posts:
    572
    Note. That book is all UnityScript though. Good book though.

    Unity 3.x Game Development Essentials is a good all round book for Unity features and includes both UnityScript and C# through out.

    There is a new C# book coming around February I believe...
    http://www.amazon.com/Game-Development-Using-Unity-C/dp/0123751039/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1
     
  7. fafase

    fafase

    Joined:
    Jul 3, 2012
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    161
    After reading about 5 of them here is my review:

    Recommended:

    Start with:
    Unity Game Development Essentials- Will Goldstone- The best to start with. You will go through most of the basic components. But it is only a starter book. Still one of the best for those that have no clue about Unity. Hopefully, Will Goldstone will come up with the follow-up of his first book.

    Continue with:

    Holistic game Development with Unity -Penny de Byl: Probably the best, it does not get you to do a game from 0 to end like the others, more about little workshops. Requires a little knowledge of programming to fully get it. On the other hand, it relies every now and then on some libraries so you don't get to understand what is going on but just see it happen..also the last chapter is half useless as it is about facebook and the content are already outdated and I did not like the double page on Json report from twitter with nothing to say about it...
    Still, you get to see some Vector3 and quaternions, animations, AI and many other nice topics.

    After those two, you should already be able to develop something nice.

    Games with Unity and Maya- Adam Watkins - Good one also for starter, my issue was that 2/3 of the book deals with Maya. Still, a good one to get a little understanding on textures and vertex. Maybe after the two previous ones.


    Not recommended:

    Beginning unity development -Sue Blackman- A lot of pictures, a lot of blank spaces, 900 pages and in the end you are ready to begin. On top of that, some mistakes on the spelling. The more advanced of all (apart from the previous) but you will find yourself skipping pages of black and white pictures...10 lines about Rigidbody only, no AI, 20 pages to apply a custom mouse pointer, you are supposed to develop an adventure game but you only pick up things. Also, 5 pages to explain how the game will go such as: you get to the room-you cannot open- you need the key- you get back to the entrance- you get the key- you go back to the room- you give the key- the door opens.....not.

    iPhone 3D all in one- Jeremy Alessi - all in another one. I took it since I recognized some assets from Unity Island demo on the cover so I thought it would be some Unity book. This is the best demonstration of the advantages of Divide-and-Conquer. When you should make everything small and focused on one particular goal. The book tries to get you going through all the assets of your games. It is almost if they don't teach you music. So you go from Photoshop to Unity and back to Blender or was it Maya and in the end you barely learnt anything. I did not like it. In my opinion, a book should focus on one topic and get to the bottom of it.

    That is what I have so far. If you need more information on a particular one. Go ahead.
    Note that I do not try to convince amyone, just give how I felt when reading those and share my view.
    Some might think the last two books are really good. I simply do not.
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2012
  8. alterus

    alterus

    Joined:
    Sep 9, 2012
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    I have all these 3 books and I definitely agree
     
  9. Nubz

    Nubz

    Joined:
    Sep 22, 2012
    Posts:
    553
    I have to agree with this also

    Everything I have checked out that Will has done has been very easy to follow and well done