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Learn - official website section on its way

Discussion in 'Community Learning & Teaching' started by willgoldstone, Aug 29, 2012.

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  1. willgoldstone

    willgoldstone

    Unity Technologies

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  2. Archania

    Archania

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    This sounds like a great idea and path to learn unity from the people that are directly working for unity. Can't wait.
    Yes please include c# too
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2012
  3. Schlumpfsack

    Schlumpfsack

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    awesome, but please not only Unityscript...C# too :)
     
  4. Ramsar

    Ramsar

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    Great to hear that there will be extensive 'official' tutorials as well. Thanks in advance!

    I agree with the previous posters, please do not forget the C# users...

    One question: will all the tutorials be video tutorials or will there be written ones as well?
     
  5. willgoldstone

    willgoldstone

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    Hi Ramsar and others - yes we'll be primarily working in C# check out the newly added Code part of the blog post.

    Mostly this will be video content but it'll have supporting text with the key parts beneath. We also have a team at Unity working on the docs so they will be the focus of written content for the most part.
     
  6. Ramsar

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    That's great to hear! Really looking forward to the tutorials.

    Another question: I guess you'll be using Unity 4.x in the tutorials? Or will you stick with 3.x until 4.x is out of beta?
     
  7. willgoldstone

    willgoldstone

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    We'll cover things with whatever is released when its ready - and ensure that all tutorials are labelled with what they've been tested / created with.
     
  8. Oldham97

    Oldham97

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    I think you should do the videos in unity script to
     
  9. Ebkac

    Ebkac

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    Another vote for Java/UnityScript as the primary language here. My reasoning is you have to learn to walk before you can run. Learning Javascript is much easier IMHO than C#. Learn Javascript first and those who wish to run and learn C# can do so and will have an easier time of it.
     
  10. Yker36

    Yker36

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    I think the same.
     
  11. Schlumpfsack

    Schlumpfsack

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    great... thank you :)
     
  12. mgear

    mgear

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    Great!

    just one question, is it "unity soon" or "soon soon" ? :)
     
  13. willgoldstone

    willgoldstone

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    I used to teach the same way - starting with JS as it was 'simpler' but ultimately I don't feel it makes a lot of difference - someone learning coding should ultimately be able to transpose their understanding but I know whatever I choose people will want the opposite, and frankly it'll slow us down to record in both - I can try it out once we're into scripting module production but for now I foresee choosing C# and providing the code in both languages.

    @mgear - totally unity soon :p but seriously, we're hoping to have the CMS as well as a load of beginner content ready in the next couple of months, but as usual we can't be specific on deadlines as this relies on a number of departments and factors that must come together - but please rest assured we're crunching on this to get it ready but also to make it cool, high quality, inspiring and original - this takes time :D
     
  14. Yker36

    Yker36

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    Please an official 2D tutorial using just 2D sprites. Something like a whack-a-mole, 3-Match or something to learn from it. I´m sure this will help lots pf pleople, including me, amd please, using JS.

    I remember that I was able to master another engine learning from a whack-a-mole tutorial.

    Thanks!!!
     
  15. scr33ner

    scr33ner

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    Hi guys- I did pick up Will's book, it does cover c#.

    BTW: book tutorials are very helpful but I've got some questions for Will
     
  16. willgoldstone

    willgoldstone

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    Thanks Scr33ner - if you have questions for Will you should totally ask him ;)
     
  17. ProjectOne

    ProjectOne

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    Excellent, two thumps up for c#
     
  18. jin76

    jin76

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    wow nice job unity team this will really help everyone. I cant wait to dive into this.
     
  19. LearningThis

    LearningThis

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    A mixture of both C# and Javascript (UnityScript) for the site would be nice. Also, 2D game tutorials would also be a plus.
     
  20. helioxfilm

    helioxfilm

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    Why don't you take the best selling plugins like for example NGUI + 2dToolkit + Finger Gestures etc, and show how to integrate them into a projects?

    Also, I would be very happy to read about how Bad Piggies were made using Unity, in a tutorial format...
     
  21. helioxfilm

    helioxfilm

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    Also, as a suggestion: these kind of tips and trick are very useful: http://sicklebrick.com/?p=411

    It would be nice if the learning section would provide such trips and tricks as well.
     
  22. RyanSchurton

    RyanSchurton

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    hey will,

    Thanks for making new tutorials for unity. I have a couple of ideas i think you guys should make video tutorials on how to make certain types of games. show us how to do an Fps from noting an RTS, advanture, 2d and 3d platformmers, puzzle, rpgs and an mmo. then we can use what we learn to combine the types of games and create stuff of our own.
     
  23. MrBoolean

    MrBoolean

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    Hey will Learn Launch soon? amd would we be able to request tutorials? I'd recommend 2D game development in different genres like platfomer, casual, etc.
     
  24. ErebosGames

    ErebosGames

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    Any news on when this is coming?
     
  25. mgear

    mgear

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    And Unity 4 is here.. need tutorials..
     
  26. Nubz

    Nubz

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    Everything i have ever read or video I have ever watched that Will did was very easy to follow and nicely done
    Can't wait to see this
     
  27. kenshin

    kenshin

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    +1 :)
     
  28. willgoldstone

    willgoldstone

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    Hi all

    Thanks for your interest in this project, just wanted to check in and assure you we're working really hard on getting this project together for you - its taking time but we're hoping you'll see why once it's ready. I have a load of new stuff to share with you which I'll be blogging about next week, so keep an eye on the blog for that.

    In the meantime - I'm aware that we won't be launching that soon, and we've just got 4.0 out the door, so I made some time to remake my beta tutorial for Mecanim into a finished version for unity 4.0, please take a look -

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx21y9eJq1U

    Cheers all

    Will
     
  29. zipper

    zipper

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    Nice! Thank you.

    zipper
     
  30. BuildABurgerBurg

    BuildABurgerBurg

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    To be fair it's long overdue.

    I think from a business point of view it's very important for the success of unity to treat teaching as a priority and spend less on marketing hype.
    The reason to keep going on about mechanim is for marketing, you want more people to buy pro so let’s show what it can do. And what a surprise the tutorial you have ready is "mechanim" wooohooo Yes I think it's a great feature and I recommend upgrading.

    Unity has been lucky because of the community has been generous in helping each other and releasing tutorials. But then you knew this was a way to save time and money. But this has negative effects too.

    A lot of the tutorials online for unity are more monkey see monkey do. This is bad for unity and its new users. Why bad for unity? simple, for unity to be a huge success and to be viewed as a AAA engine, it needs to demonstrate AAA quality game released with this engine. And no sorry what we have seen so far is not really AAA, maybe nice graphics, but still not AAA games.

    So what I’m getting at is the quicker new users learn your engine the more chance they will have in releasing games. The more time they spend scratching their heads the less time they develop games. The more games they make, the better they will get and there's more chance they will release a hit. This is a win win, and you have a bigger and better portfolio to show unity can be used to produce AAA games.

    oh and monkey see monkey do learners are not going to be efficient in game design, it will take too long going this route.
    What unity needs are proper tutorials explaining in depth on how the system works. for example, explain in detail how classes or code ect interacts with each other, type casting is an issue which is causing a lot of confusion. This area needs video tutorials explaining why can and can't do certain things, or why if you want to do xyz you will have to use casting, also what are the negative effects of using casting ect.

    RyanSchurton makes a very good point. Please no more hack and slash tutorials, and platform games arhh nice start but where you go from there when you want to make an rts or tbs.

    I don’t want to offend unity team but come on, this “Unity engine is easy to make games” is only true if you have the proper learning material to go along with it. It’s like having a rocket then in the instructions manual, it says if you want to fly then you just fly it. Or this is how you clean it.

    And just to put it into perspective, by unity releasing these tutorials in the future its not some sort of gift to your users, it’s an requirement for the success of unity and respect to your clients who have paid money for your product.
    If cry engine or unreal engine start to release high quality video tutorials to support their engines then it’s downhill for unity. The business bubble will burst
     
  31. willgoldstone

    willgoldstone

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    @Mohoe - I thank you for your detailed and thoughtful response. I fully agree that Unity has been lacking this kind of content for a long time, my team and I are working hard on fixing this problem - and we are doing it to a high standard that has required a lot of planning and a lot of hard work to ensure nothing goes unnoticed.

    This also requires coordination and careful iteration as Unity is being developed whilst we create content and plan our work - its not easy, but nothing good ever is, I want to assure you and everyone here that I believe Unity is the best engine to start learning and keep making games with, and that's why I've dedicated my time to making sure we create a highly detailed new learning resource, and I hope that you trust me in this endeavor!

    Meanwhile we have an update on our progress for you..
     
  32. willgoldstone

    willgoldstone

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    UPDATE!

    Hi all, we have an update on what we're doing, and news on when we'll launch - sorry its taking its time but we're really doing our best to get the most detail into how everything works, and prepare our first drop of content for launch -

    http://blogs.unity3d.com/2012/12/13/learn-unity-update-2/
     
  33. willgoldstone

    willgoldstone

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    By the way, I want to refute this point. We are working hard on our main goal of preparing the entire learning area, and we took a break from this to get the tutorial for Mecanim ready, because out of everything in 4.0 this is the biggest change to workflow - this is why we prioritised this as a valid reason to break from our work towards releasing the Learn content. Meanwhile our web team needed to work on our entirely new website launch (you may have noticed a lot of new stuff on our site) which coincided with 4.0.

    In no way does this mean we're just making tutorials that focus on marketing goals - if you know Unity and how much everyone here cares about our community, hopefully you'd understand that is simply not the case. We are creating detailed content that we know will help lots of people get into game development, and we're trying to make it the best quality we can. We do treat teaching as a priority and we're constantly reassessing how Unity works to ensure this gets easier. I have a background in education, I lectured for 6 years on various interactive disciplines and spent the last two completing a Masters in education, focused on finding the best ways to help beginners learn game development. On my team I have a very competent coder who is highly focused on ensuring concepts are explained in a detailed but not overwhelming manner, and our lead artist is creating incredibly detailed content that we hope will inspire our users to do awesome things - whilst learning why they're doing them that way.

    Okay everyone, defensive rant over!

    :) < -- smiley makes it all ok!
     
  34. lockbox

    lockbox

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    I've been doing just fine with the tutorials put out by the Unity community. Some free, some pay, - some great and not so great, but in all cases, I've learned something very useful to advance my Unity game building skills.

    It's great that Unity is putting out tutorials, and I am looking forward to them - but also know that I will be more critical of these than those put out by the community. I'm hoping that before you push them out to the world, that you give some noobs the chance to read/watch the tutorials, replicate what's presented and then critique them. Even better yet, have the instructors look over students' shoulders and see first hand what the students are doing after going over the tutorials.

    I think Unity is an awesome game development tool that is only limited by a team's imagination and skill set. There is so much help available online, add-ons in the asset store, and great tutorials to watch online, that there really is no reason for anyone to complain. Ah, well, except for bugs in the Unity code itself. lol But we all know those will get fixed. :)

    Cheers
     
    Last edited: Dec 13, 2012
  35. outtoplay

    outtoplay

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    U 4.0 is pretty much a one tricky pony release. The rest, though useful, collectively is the equivalent of a 'dot' release. The learning stuff has been promised and touted as far back as when Tom Higgins proclaimed its imminent arrival in 2010 prior to that years United.

    The Mechanim weighted learning stuff presupposes needing 3d characters. Though the VAST array of actual games produced barely require it at all. Certainly not many of the most successful Unity titles from Zombieville USA to Ski Safari to Temple Run ( I think did fine with the old animation system).

    Having Will take over the Learning Unity initiative is awesome. But the 'These things take a long time because of the love and attention to detail' schtick, is tired. Just put out useful meat and potatoes stuff for a change. We don't need Penelope... The stuff on Will's site is smarter, more targeted and useful that the often bloated ' though thoughtfully prepared,' behemoths that Unity grinds out after a year of mashination and way too much attention to detail.

    Just saying.
     
  36. mgear

    mgear

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    How about beta access to the Learn Site?
    (for limited amount of people first..atleast it would give some hope for everyone : )
     
  37. outtoplay

    outtoplay

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    Wish I could spend such a long time 'preparing' stuff. must be nice
     
  38. mgear

    mgear

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  39. kanga

    kanga

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    Yeah it kind of exhausting trying to hunt down components to get a thing to work atm.

    It would be great to see some smaller examples and get some answers on basic questions about the mecanim system. I understand why you don't do it because if you give the character kids some candy the coder kids will throw a fit :).

    It is convenient to make a project like Lerpz that touches on all aspects that Unity is capable of. The only disadvantage to this approach is it is like a string. Every upgrade or fix you make to the software breaks the string and you constantly have to go back and fix the material. If you have a modular approach then it is easier for users to get the specific element they need at the time. Making a resource like the max reference is out of reach if we want to keep the same pricing model you have now. A bit more in a modular direction would be great and mean I wouldn't have to follow a thing from start to finish to get the elements I need more quickly.

    I also taught 3DCG for 5 years. I know how much work it is.
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2013
  40. marcaurelio74

    marcaurelio74

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  41. kanga

    kanga

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    Unity Lab.
    What a cute scene, and kick ass material :)

    Well done
     
  42. rudlark

    rudlark

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    You can get a whole lot of stuff to learn from here..Great place to be here!
     
  43. Al Shoura

    Al Shoura

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    Not sure why, but from the pics of this project, I'm smelling Unreal engine :p
     
  44. mgear

    mgear

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  45. haar

    haar

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  46. willgoldstone

    willgoldstone

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    haar! you beat me to it! good work ;)
     
  47. haar

    haar

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    :) yes. did not mean to steal your thunder, sorry :)
     
  48. haar

    haar

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    am i missing something here?
    if you follow the Bouncing ball -Assignment. you will not get a very bouncy ball. since there is no collider on the floor(in robot lab), the ball will just keep falling.
    This is not a big deal, but since this is an entry level tutorial, new users will likely find it confusing.
    - Other than that, nice job! already looking forward to the next update.
     
  49. Viking1972

    Viking1972

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    Hi

    I was pleasantly surprised to find the updated learn section and have already watched quiete a few of the videos.

    The basic videos are great and the pace is not too fast, however, I did miss a video (in the basic/beginner section) which shows how to import content from the Asset Store.

    I also watched some of the scripting tutorials and I must that a few of them are really good, but some of them simply aren't thorough enough and the pace is a little too fast eventhough they only deal with the very basic.

    Maybe Will Goldstone should take this part under his wings then I can almost guarrantee that no one will get dissapointed or left in the dark
     
  50. Redrum

    Redrum

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    I noticed it too.
    I guess that the empty scene should to be updated in the asset store, because it also affects all the tutorials that use it as a starting point, like the Brick Shooter.

    If I may enter a suggestion, I think it may be useful to have comments on the individual lessons, so issues like this one would be easily identified without having to search for a forum entry.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2013
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