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New to Unity new to programming

Discussion in 'Getting Started' started by Thecruzer, Aug 20, 2017.

  1. Thecruzer

    Thecruzer

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    I've been trying to do the simplest of tasks like build walls a building with stuff in it. But always something goes wrong. For instance I figured out how to take a bunch of cubes and make walls then I put a table inside the walls and made a prefab. I put the building prefab into my town opening of door facing south. I was able to turn it 90 degrees and everything was good but when I tried to turn it 180 so the opening of the door is facing north all I get is the walls nothing inside. There is a couple of other issues too. I've been watching training videos but the issues I seem to come up with doesn't seem to be in the tutorials. What do I do.
     
  2. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

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    That's a hard question to answer. I can't imagine exactly what "all I get is the walls nothing inside" means. For that matter, I'm not sure what you meant by taking a bunch of cubes and making walls. If you want help with these specific problems, you'll need to post more focused, well-described questions, probably with some screen shots to make it clear.

    However, I think you're asking a more general question — how to get over these initial learning hurdles and get productive in Unity. In that case the core problem is this:

    Watching training videos is almost worthless, except when you're already very experienced with other very similar development environments. As a newbie, you're not getting much of anything from just watching them.

    What you must do is do the video tutorials. That means you fire up Unity, arrange it next to the selected video (perhaps playing that on another device, or a second monitor), and frequently pause the video and reproduce what you just saw, in your own Unity project. Step by step you must do what the videos are trying to teach you. This way, you'll actually learn quite rapidly. Just watching, you'll learn almost nothing.

    Of course everybody is different... but after years of watching and helping Unity newcomers, that's my best advice.

    Good luck!
     
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  3. Thecruzer

    Thecruzer

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    Okay I made walls on the south side there was an opening so the dimensions was 8 by 4 in side I used cylinders to make legs of a table and made a top too. I put it into a prefab. So I moved the prefab into the playing area. I turned the prefab 90 degrees and the table was still there. but when I turned it 180 degrees I didn't see the table only the walls.
     
  4. eXonius

    eXonius

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    I don't know why you didn't see the table but one thing to note is that simple planes are one sided and are invisible from the wrong side, but if you used cubes it's something else.

    I would recommend you to learn some basic 3D modeling in a program such as Blender. Alternatively go on the asset store and find some objects you can use. What you are doing now, creating a room and furniture in Unity by placing primitive shapes by hand, isn't really how Unity is supposed to be used. You typically want to use 3D objects already made with some modeling program.
     
  5. Thecruzer

    Thecruzer

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    Tutorials don't seem to help me I'm so computer illiterate it seems I guess I need some one on one tutoring.
     
  6. SteveJ

    SteveJ

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    Out of curiosity, if you're largely computer illiterate, why are you choosing to take up game development?
     
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  7. Bill_Martini

    Bill_Martini

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    That's because you are not doing the tutorials, your watching them. This is where you need to decide just how badly you want to make games. If your serious, go start with Roller-Ball and actually make the game, by hand as you follow the tutorial. After three or so tutorials you should have the basics to start playing around on your own.

    Don't underestimate the value of the tutorials. Many tutorials show you how to do the things you want to do in your projects. The basics of the tutorials can be repurposed and used in your projects, not being able to see value in the tutorials just implies you need more work with the tutorials.

    There is no easy path, no shortcuts, if you want to make games, put on you big boy panties and start working for it. Show how much you want it. It does get easier fairly quickly but Unity is so comprehensive, it would be very hard if not impossible to master it all. To that point we're all learning too, some are farther down the path than others. You can walk away or you can jump in and learn this. You are capable of either, what do you choose?
     
    JoeStrout likes this.
  8. Thecruzer

    Thecruzer

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    Bill your right I haven't actually built the game roller ball but I used the concepts in roller ball to do what I was doing went through it very slowly. That was how I was able to make town walls and building walls. Last night I was going through to try to put an animated person in the scene I was going through just fine until I saw a box that had stuff in it that was in the tutorial but I didn't have it on my screen. Then he was able to make something come up in the animation control so he could put the player in it so he could do the c# script. Didn't say what he was doing just did a bunch of clicks but I could not follow I think it was around minute 9 on this tutorial ( Unity 5 Tutorial - Animation Control )
     
  9. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    If you're able to get online, browse to the Unity website, figure out how to download Unity, install it, and start using it while simultaneously playing a video tutorial... you're not computer illiterate. Trust me I've seen computer illiterate people as I've had to repair the computers they inevitably bought because everyone else had one.

    Some people may think the tech support problems (eg someone not hooking up the cables for their PC) floating around the Internet are just jokes, but let me tell you... they're not only true stories. They're actually somewhat common occurrences.
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2017
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  10. Bill_Martini

    Bill_Martini

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    I strongly encourage completing several tutorials before wandering off on your own. The hours spent there will save you many more hours when working on your own stuff. It takes a while, and may seem like forever, but at some point things just click.

    I had the same issues when I was starting. Some tuts are not all that clear as to what is checked/unchecked or what was dragged to which gameobject. Many times it was because I missed something previously in the video. You may have an issue with Unity versions. Some tutorials are a bit old and may have differences from your version. Unity struggles to keep them up-to-date as Unity itself is constantly changing.

    Keep at it. Cherry-picking bits an pieces from the tuts to make your project is not a great way to learn. The tutorials build upon previous ones and are designed to provided the basics that are crucial to continuing on your own. Building 3D environments from Unitys primitives, in most cases is not the proper way to do that. There are a large number of tutorials on animation and Mechanim, any one tut is not enough to teach you what you should know.
     
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  11. Thecruzer

    Thecruzer

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    Okay Bill
     
  12. Deleted User

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    if you do not have a foundational understanding of computer programming basics you need to pick up a C# book, since I'm apparently the only person on the Unity Community board who knows to tell people that.

    Tutorials are awful, they're fragments. If you serious and you want video resources CGCookie is my personal positive review, but Udemy also seems to have a legitimate course; just make sure it's C#-specific before you pay.

    The problem is they assume you know what a type is, what public and private access levels are, and what scope means. So on and so forth. Or worse, they themselves don't know and are just repeating what they saw other YouTubers do without real understanding. You can do a lot that way but it'll become limiting when you start trying to just freehand things.
     
  13. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    No, there are others who have been known to tell people. It's just that people have been asking the same question every single time and we would hope at least some of them would check threads others have made whether through Google or simply looking at the available threads to see if any of them match their situation.

    Basically some people getting sick and tired of having to give the same response over and over.

    Since it hasn't been linked lately to my knowledge... here's is the website for the very good and free C# Yellow Book.

    http://www.csharpcourse.com/
     
  14. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    Where there is will there is a way.

    If somebody else has done it, so can you.

    Keep looking for solutions. You have the entire internet at your disposal. And when it comes to instruction, like anything else, you get what you pay for. There is a lot out there for free, but more comprehensive instruction might require a little bit of money.
     
  15. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    There are plenty that advocate learning C# and programming as a skill independent of Unity and games. There are other that advocate jumping straight in to Unity and learning C# in the Unity context.

    There is advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. I tend to recommend learning programming inside the Unity context. But if this doesn't work for you there is no reason you can't try learning programming outside Unity.
     
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  16. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    For me, programming in Unity was a constant battle until I got just a few basic C# primers under my belt.
     
  17. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    I had the opposite problem. I'd tried to learn programming directly several times. But without a concrete context, I just didn't care enough about the programming concepts. You can go a long way learning C# without ever putting a pixel on the screen.

    One of my many slow boil projects is a C# primer in the Unity context. Which is basically the approach that worked for me.
     
    FrankenCreations likes this.