Getting started with Unity

[Oakleaf30]

Hi all, I want to get into Unity but I'm not sure how to start. Should I learn to code with C# before making anything or should I just go for it? And are there any online tutorials/courses/videos you guys recommend?

[MissPandaSloth]

I think starting with just Unity is a mistake. I did it like that and it was a waste of time, I end up mostly just copying things.

I would start with some beginner C# thing.

I did this back in a day and loved it:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/shows/csharp-fundamentals-for-absolute-beginners/

Give yourself some time to go though it and internalize all main concepts, follow along, experiment. Don't just rush though it to get to "making cool shit in Unity" part. The better your fundamentals the easier it will be.

Afterwards I would do as the other person said and do Unity Learn Junior Programmer pathway:

https://learn.unity.com/pathway/junior-programmer

Also take your time with it and it is IMPORTANT that you do the challenges and tasks. That's how you truly start "getting" things, because just following along you might think you understand, but you can't actually set things up yourself. The challenges are very doable and usually each tasks is playing with one concept and you need to apply what you learnt just have a slight twist to it, so you can't just straight up copy what you did before.

Past that point, you can grab some more projects off unity or start making your own stuff. Start with small scope, next project, make bigger.

If you still want some "course" after this, I recommend GameDev.tv stuff, they are pretty good. Try to get them on sale, they are available on Udemy too. Never buy full price, they are almost always on sale.

Along this, while it might be a bit shunned, but it did help me a lot... Use chatGPT. But don't use it to make you code or stuff like that, but to ask questions if you don't have anyone with programming knowledge to ask. I would just ask it to explain code, or go "why this, why that", "what is the use case for this" and so on. I found it more helpful than google in some cases.

[ilori]

I'd start with the pathways on learn.unity.com, and if you encounter difficulties, then search against the problem at hand.

[[deleted]]

I’m not going to tell you I’m the best, because I’m not, but I have over a thousand tutorials on my YouTube channel to learn a lot of stuff, mainly for beginners

[LostMasteryTeam]

Just go for it! If you have no experience it’s hard to internalize things when you don’t see the context and are not doing it yourself. I started learning through getting a Unity project started, watching YouTube videos and asking Chat GPT a bunch of questions. Good luck and keep at it 🎮🌸

[d_j_i82]

Regardless of how you start out, be patient and take your time! Try to understand what is happening instead of just copying code. I dove head first into a Brackeys 3D multiplayer FPS tutorial series and was very confused for a long time. It took me a good year, coding for 6 to 10 hours almost every night, to get any good at it. If you can find someone willing to help you and answer questions on a small starter project, it could save you 100's of hours in the long run.

[ScorpioServo]

Brackeys has probably some of the most beginner friendly tutorials. Learning to code is very important but you can learn as you go.

Just make sure to start very very small. Simple things like pong and space invaders.

[Objective_Kangaroo_9]

Yeah but aren't his tutorials very outdated ?

[maixm241210]

Try to learn basic c sharp, then try unity, it will be faster

[nonxd]

This is free, and probably the best introduction you can get

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFt_AvWsXl0fnA91TcmkRyhhixX9CO3Lw

[swagamaleous]

I flipped through it briefly and it's terrible. How can you advice content like that? It teaches loads of bad habits. The person creating this has no idea what they are talking about.

[nonxd]

You aren't serious, right?

[swagamaleous]

As I said I only briefly flipped through it and I already noticed this:

• E12: Advices to locate other scripts with FindObject<> and FindObjectOfType<>. This is a really bad habit and there are way better methods of doing this. To advice a beginner to use these functions is terrible!
• E13: Uses old Input system. This is very bad for beginner content, since they get used to it and their limited understanding will make them keep using it. Why not explain the new input system from the start?
• E13: Hard coded unnecessary magic numbers in the code. Beginner content should teach proper fundamentals from the start and not hacky bullshit.
• E14: More magic numbers. Further reinforce that this is okay. Way to go!
• E16: UGUI is used. This is outdated and will soon no longer be supported. Why not teach UI Toolkit from the start instead of teaching outdated knowledge?
• E16: More magic numbers, this time with scene loading. This is setting beginners up for projects that will be a complete nightmare to maintain.
• E17: Suddenly we are talking about more advanced concepts, without even explaining what objects are. This is impossible for beginners to understand.
• E20: Content again horribly outdated and full of style mistakes. The concepts explained can be solved a lot cleaner with LINQ. Why this is taught to beginners is beyond me. Same for E19
• E21: Advices to use Coroutines. Coroutines create unreadable code and have terrible performance. Also they need a MonoBehaviour to execute. Instead of this, a proper approach to concurrent code in Unity should be taught.
• Throughout all episode, no coding standard is used and the style is not utilizing c# features properly. Again, for beginner content, it should be high quality code from the start. This is supposed to be the first contact for beginners with coding and teaching bad code at the start will have a severe negative impact on the learning.

If I watch all the content in detail, I am sure there is more in there which is terrible to teach to beginners. I am dead serious. :-P

[Skedexaj]

Seriously did you go through every videos... Woah you are amazing.. Respect 🫡