How to Create a Game in Unity

Creating a New Project

To create a game, you must first create a unity project. This is where the game is saved and developed. To create a new project, you have to:

1. Run ‘Unity.exe’
2. Click the ‘New Project’ button
3. Name your project and select the save location
4. Choose ‘3D’
5. Click the ‘Asset packages…’ button
6. Select the following assets:
   1. Cameras
   1. Characters
   1. Environment
7. After you have selected the above assets, click the ‘Create Project’ button

Creating the Environment – Texture

First of all, we need to create an environment for our game. To start off:

1. Click ‘GameObject’ à ‘3D Object’ à ‘Terrain’

//this will create a terrain area for you to work on

• Select the terrain, click go-to the ‘Inspector’ window and make sure the x, y and z positions are all set to 0

• Select the paint-brush  tool and click ‘Edit Textures…’ à ‘New Texture’

//this will pop-up a window giving you an option to select a texture

• Click the ‘Select’ button under the ‘Albedo (RGB)’ text
• Then scroll down until you find ‘GrassHillAlbedo’ texture
• Double click the texture, then click ‘Add’

Secondly we have to create a border for this map so the player won’t fall of the map. To do this, you have to:

1. Select the terrain, go-to the inspector window and click on the terrain elevation button
2. Select the 4^th Brush Mode and create hills around the edges of the map

What I like to do is make another inner-border to make sure that the player cannot escape, and furthermore to make it look less square, I round of the edges. Once you are done, we can move on to the next stem which is making a pathways. To make a pathway, we have to:

1. Select the paint-brush  tool again, and add new texture – this time select the ‘SandAlbedo’, ‘CliffAlbedo’, ‘GrassRockyAlbedo’ and ‘MudRockyAlbedo’ textures
2. Select the ‘GrassRockyAlbedo’ texture and paint a small patch in the centre

//this is where the player will start

• Then select the ‘SandAlbedo’ texture and create pathways extending from the middle, make use of the 3^rd brush to create a smaller pathway
• Afterwards, select the ‘MudRockyAlbedo’ texture and create around 5 small patches around the paths

//this adds towards the feeling of reality in the game

• Finally, select the ‘CliffAlbedo’ texture and paint over any mountains

After you are done, your environment should look something similar to this:

Creating the Environment – Vegetation

Now that we have added textures to the environment, we can now start with the vegetation. To create place grass, follow these steps:

1. Select the terrain and go-to the inspector window

• Then you have to click on the details button  and click on ‘Edit Details…’ à ‘Add Grass Texture’

• Click on the small circle with dot  and add ‘GrassFrond01AlbedoAlpha’ and ‘GrassFrond02AlbedoAlpha’ grass textures
• Before you place any grass, please make sure the brush size is set to 5, the opacity is 1 and the target strength to 0.0625
• A clever cover-up idea between the pathway and grass texture is to place vegetation along the borders of the path, for this tutorial we will be using grass
• To place grass now, simple select the 4^th brush mode and start placing ‘GrassFrond01AlbedoAlpha’ texture across the borders of the pathway we made

//make sure that you are zoomed in because it does not always show the grass to prevent the computer from slowing down and overheating

• Then we can also do the same to the center area and mud patches, but use the ‘GrassFrond02AlbedoAlpha’ texture

Now that you have finished creating the grass, you can now move on to the trees. To add trees, it is a similar way. So to start off:

1. Select the terrain and go-to the inspector window

• Then you have to click on the trees button  and click on ‘Edit Trees…’ à ‘Add Tree’

• Click on the small circle with dot  and add ‘Broadleaf_Desktop’, ‘Broadleaf_Mobile’, ‘Conifer_Desktop’ and ‘Palm_Desktop’ tree prefabrications (prefabs)
• To mass place trees, click ‘Mass Place Trees’ and change the number of trees to 1,500
• Now for the boring part, you have to select and delete all the trees that are in the pathway, mud or middle area or the easy way around this is to hold ‘shift’ and go over any pathway, mud and middle area

//holding ‘shift’ removes any tree in the marked area

 Once you have completed the above, your game should look similar to this:

Adding the Character/Player

To add the character/player (Ethan), you first have to:

1. Go-to the projects window à assets folder à standard assets folder à characters folder à third person character folder à prefabs folder
2. Then drag and drop the ‘ThirdPersonController.prefab’ into the center area
3. Move the ‘Main Camera’ close to the character and position it as it is done to the right
4. Now to add a bit of color, go back to the third person character folder and double-click on ‘Materials’ folder
5. Drag and drop ‘EthanGrey’ onto the character

You are now done adding the character, have fun testing out the game, all animations are included with this character prefab.

How to Add a Pause Menu

To add a pause menu, you have to first download the asset package from the download’s page on the following page: https://www.tech4kstudios.com/

After downloading the asset package, double-click to import it into unity (Unity MUST be running). Then you have to:

1. Go-To Assets à Pause Menu then drag and drop onto the player
2. After doing that, you have to click on player, go-to inspector and then change the font of the pause menu

//there are several fonts included in the package and you may choose to import your own fonts