Learning Unity with learning disability?

I've only just started to try and understand unity, but it's starting to go the way of many things that I try to learn. There's so much information to look at that I don't really know where to get started, and I struggle with tutorials and trying to understand what is going on, and be able to apply it to what I want to do. It all just gets me overloaded and then I can't seem to do anything. It's the same problems that were affecting me in my attempt at university classes, except even worse because there's even less structure to try and piece together.

I wish I knew someone who already knew all of this so I could learn what I want to do and ask questions.

I tried searching similar stuff, but even sifting through that to find what is current and what is not and how to know what to follow into or not was already confusing me, and I'm already having trouble with getting this post to be clear with what I need.

I have a lot of trouble with all of this, and don't know how to keep going.

 

You should start from the simple stuff and then slowly move up to the harder things.
I recommend starting here: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/newbie-guide-to-unity-javascript-long.34015/
It should tell you all of the basic syntax that everyone needs. Then when you get the hang of it, you can move up to here: https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/scripting, it's a large compilation of tutorial videos from Unity staff which has helped me and many others with learning to code in Unity. There are also many youtube videos that can teach you how to make games in Unity. Good luck and I hope you learn a lot!
Also don't give up! I almost did but kept on going and have learned very much.

 

I tried starting the first link, and reading through it. The problem I keep having is I can't retain the knowledge. I can't put what I learn to practical use and I end up forgetting it very soon I have trouble focusing and disgesting the information that I take in.

 

I'm not sure what kind of learning disability you have, but it sounds like retaining dense, abstract information is difficult for you. My recommendation is that you start by learning how to create 3D spaces. The mindset of making 3D spaces is different than programming, and I think you'll find the "kinesthetic" quality of 3D space creation easier. To do that in Unity, you'll want to look at something like ProBuilder. If you can't afford that, then try the tools that Unity has, like terrains or even just using boxes and planes and spheres. No matter what, don't worry about doing it right. Just give yourself the time and space to explore the space, and you'll find yourself learning.

Hopefully creating 3D content will make you feel comfortable working in Unity, and you'll learn the basic concepts just by interacting with the software. Once you get that comfortable, you can look at one of the visual programming frameworks like Playmaker (for gameplay) or Shader Forge (for shaders). If you get comfortable there, maybe then move on to formal scripting/programming.

No matter what, don't give up. Remember that this is really complicated, detailed, intimidating stuff for *everyone*. In life in general, doing things is easy, it's learning how to do them that's hard. Maybe doubly hard for you. But give yourself the time and space to explore, and you'll find you way soon enough.

 

Check out my signature for a link to the fundamentals of programming as well as my own interactive tutorial series. Its helped many.

Best,

Jon

 

I'm trying to stay away from doing 3D, because I can't do 3D modeling and all that, and it's another thing that is hard for me to learn. Even though the cost of some of the things isn't very high, I'm just wary because I have had the problem in the past of buying things to try and get into doing something, and then failing, and having this stuff that I don't use. An example is I got a Makerbot Replicator 2, and aside from making a few things downloaded from publicly available projects, I haven't really used it, because I can't model anything well, and I lack ideas that are attainable with my skill level, on top of being incredibly hard to calibrate so that it makes things right

It's really nice how supportive people are. I wish I was able to do something about these problems I have and really be able to work towards my goals, and show people that I can be useful. But right now I feel like I'm just always relying on others, and it doesn't feel good.

 

Baby steps! Don't try to learn it all at once. You will likely just get frustrated and give up. Start by trying to learn the most basic concepts. Don't worry too much about what your 3D modeling experience is. It hardly matters when you are starting out and there are plenty of free models you can pick up from the assets store. Also, don't feel bad about relying on others for help. Even Albert Einstein had to rely on other people some of the time.

In my opinion, the best place you can start is the Roll-A-Ball tutorial in the learning center projects. Pause the video often to give yourself time to catch up. If things don't work immediately try not to get frustrated. Take your time to look for your mistake and once you locate what is not right, consider why the program didn't like what was done. If you can not find out what went wrong on your own, then look to the community, everyone here is very supportive and will do their best to help you out.

If you can get the ball to collide with the plain(aka the ground), and get it to move with your button commands(WASD), then you are on the path to learning Unity3D. Even though it might appear overly simplistic, the concepts you pick up from that will be instrumental in your future learning. Oh and make sure you take pride in yourself for every little success along the way. Most people who play games would have absolutly no idea what it takes to get a virtual object to move on command.So its a big deal if you can make it happen, celebrate it as such.

Once you manage to get through Roll-A-Ball, give the Space Shooter project a go.

I should also mention that I have no coding background and am learning Unity through tutorials and help from the community. Code is like greek to me(I don't speak greek). Slowly but surely I'm begining to understand how the program works. You will too, in time.

 

Actually I find learning disabilities interesting, because for some time I struggled myself in learning new things. The reason for that was, that I was taught (thanks to the strict school teachers...) a wrong way of learning. Learning hundreds of different things within the shortest time and then reproduce it in weekly exams. It was learning to memorize, but not learning to understand or logical thinking. The brain deleted old data and cleaned up room for new data. Learning for forgetting. Needless to say, that university wasn't of much help as they just threw topics to your feet based on the philosophy "sink or swim". The result was also not knowing where to start at, not being able to focus, not knowing how to digest the information.

It cost quite some time to get the brain functional again and "learning how to learn". Basically it requires to learn everything from ground up, and always ask yourself the question: at what point do I not understand something? And what is it that I don't understand? Start with the simplest of simple. With a "Hello World" like program. The most important thing is you need to know where to input data and where to output data. In this case where to write your lines of code, how to compile it and where to connect it. This is explained in the original 2 beginner tutorials of Unity. The PDF links from the forum newbie guide are not working anymore, so I made a quick search to find some working ones. These are the best tutorials ever for getting started with Unity from scratch:

http://www.ntua.gr/best/ac12/Unity_GUI_Tutorial.pdf
http://www.ntua.gr/best/ac12/Unity_Scripting_Tutorial.pdf

 

I had the same problem as you, but today I have just found the solution for that problem, simply, do NOT dive into S*** all at once.

I simply was trying to learn scripting on one day, making my game in one week, but I was not really prepared for that, I am a beginner, now, I plan to take 1-3 videos everyday, and simply chill out at the end of my day because it is a time at which I get tired and bored, so, I need some fun !

My advice to you is to keep it full of fun all the time and do not stress your self, take it easy and slowly

 

I would say, take it easy. Watch 1 video everyday and digest it. The videos are mostly very good. If you get the chance then follow the live sessions because then you can ask your questions and actually get an answer to it.

Tutorials...do those. I think they help you see what more you could do than what you imagine. Not just the ones here but also from other places.

If there's something you want to do and don't understand then there's the forum and answers. It helped me a lot understand those.

About the videos, if you want to make games, then take the gaming ones. You basically don't need any knowledge to do what Adam or Mike are doing. I mean there's still a lot of stuff in unity I don't get but that doesn't mean I'm not using that specific stuff to do what I want. You don't need to understand all of it. It will come to you the more you work with it. Just like....math, language or making food.

 

It would help if you told us what learning disability you have. There are a lot of them, with different solutions for each. Also, knowing your age can be helpful as well. If you are uncomfortable sharing, or even if not, finding a programmer with similar disabilities on Google by searching your specific disability + programming OR game Dev, might help. There would be a high likelihood they could and would help a lot.

I do not know as much about learning disabilities as others in my field (Psychology) so my advise is limited. I also would never give advise unless I knew the subject better. Obviously saying do this or that may very well be unhelpful. Do you know about your specific disability and the effective strategies to assist with learning?

 

I've finally finished the roll a ball tutorial, and although I've learned a bit, it's hard to know how to translate it into doing things that I am wanting to do. I sort of want to make a resource management type of game, so I'm going to try and look up tutorials on things that are similar...

 

I'm starting to hit bottom. Even though I followed the tutorial for roll a ball, I still can't do anything productive. I've been trying to look at things to see if I can learn it, but nothing is working

 

I spent basically all of college (including many many nights and weekends in the computer lab and two summer internships) learning how to make games. Even then I wasn't really super competent until I'd been working in industry for a few years. Give yourself time. A lot of time.

In terms of things you want to do for yourself, you need to break things down into really small chunks, like as small as possible, then smaller. If you can't break it down, then the idea itself is too complex, so try to pick a simpler idea. And by simple I mean Pong simple. Even Pong has to be broken down into lots of small parts to be achievable. Once you have things broken down, pick a piece and do research (i.e. lots of Google searches) on that topic and work at it until you get it. If you get stuck, post a question here on the specific issue you're having.

 

I agree with MakeCodeNow, you can't expect to be awesome at programming games just like that. It doesn't work like that. If you think it does then you need to rethink this...

Try these: http://walkerboystudio.com/html/unity_training___free__.html

I used these to make commander keen spinoff (yep with commander keen and 2 levels in 2D) when I had my gameprogramming course some years ago. You learn to make 3 games. You will learn a lot by the end of those tutorials and they also explain the stuff very well. Sadly it's not in c# but that won't stop you from learning a lot!

 

What you're going through is completely normal dude. It takes time. After several hours (about 50 for me) of tutorials, information will start to piece together and you will start gaining freedom with regards to coding.