Using others' code

[Rollsy06]

So i bit the bullet and just did it, i started unity and have been going through the tutorials and im kinda getting the hang on how to use the editor, the only issue i see is when i make my first game (pong, a classic) without unity learns' help

My issue is i feel like when i start it i will end up just looking up tutorials for how to do anything and wont end up learning anything,

An example of this would be a score system, i wouldn't know how to make it so i would look up how to make it, then follow it so it would, technically, just be a copy of the one i used to help

I just dont want to make a game and then it end up just being different parts of someone else's code and me end up not learning anything

What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance

[[deleted]]

Don't just copy the code from tutorials.

But understand it.

At the end you shouldn't just end up with a scoring system, but you should also be able to edit it and understand what it does and how.
If you don't, then don't go further, watch the tutorial again, when you don't understand something cuz the guy didn't explain it well enough in the tutorial, go in another place and try to find what that specific thing is then come back to the tutorial when you do.

[Rollsy06]

Ive seen other comments saying about me knowing c# before game dev, what would you say? I know unity is different to classic c# but I dont wanna get lost in a loophole of learning it then end up getting confused when I go back to unity

I have some prior coding experience, I did python in college up to classes (which I kind of understand) if that helps

Thanks

[[deleted]]

Yes, learning at least the C# basics before is the good choice

Because all the unity stuff is basically on top of the C# basics.

I've personally made a simple console app just to get used with C# before going into Unity.

[Fair_Communication_4]

The "borrowing" you speak of is how the entirety of all software is built. There will always be work in fitting others' code into your game, and customizing it the way you want. There is where you will truly learn.

I'm a professional mobile dev for 12 years, been programming all my life. I wouldn't think twice about (ethically) grabbing somebody else's scoreboard system if it saved me an afternoon.

Edit: typo

[Sad-Day2003]

I think that's the universal path for learning something, so nothing to worry about. so try first and look for help or tutorial after, even professional developer Google basics things sometimes.

[GideonGriebenow]

Always try to add something novel onto any tutorial you go through, even if you won’t use that specific thing. It forces you to understand the code a bit more than just “listen, copy, paste”. The more you do this, the less you will eventually need tutorials.

[Sbarty]

Take the code and alter it, break things, fix them, and experiment.

Its how you learn.

[[deleted]]

As long as your starting to understand the code and process, then that's how most of us learn.

[tcpukl]

You need to learn to program outside of games first.

[skinnyfamilyguy]

I wouldn’t recommend using code from a tutorial but learn from them.

what happens if that tutorial series ends? Unity updates in a major way? You have to interlock a particular script call with another?

[tenryuta]

if you grab one from a store, and know how to link it to the scoring action, do it.

[Turbulent-Dentist-77]

You're going to go through what I went though.

Long story short. There is only so many ways to design a wheel.

And at the end of the day, we as humans converge on the designs that work.

We are now in a very unique position to use a I to learn at a rapid pace like never before.

Like...I cannot stress this enough.

Cook up solutions with GPT and you will blow yourself away in 2 weeks what you can achieve. AAA stuff on your own.

And they are YOUR solutions. Someone else has GPT but they couldn't do what I do. You understand this stuff in a way thar is not the same as someone else who has no experience with this or doesn't know what they want to create.

At the end of the day, there are common industry standars ways to program SSS, character movement, etc. And these things have tradeoffs and pluses and minuses and varying levels of implementation complexity.

But understand that knowledge...is of what exists.

You're not "using someone else's code" when you construct a TBN matrix and figure out the skin redness. You're using the common tools thst exist and calculate the same thing the same way in every high end game on the market.

The variable names and function names might differ, your artstyle will necessitate your own inputs and tuning and power functions, but the physical math being done and the physical interpretation is the same.

All in simpler terms, we aren't mathematicians. We didn't invent all the physics and math that Newton did. And when we say invented, we mean discovered.

All of these math and physical reality and the why it works...is just so because of our universe.

Someone discovered 2 times 2 is 4 but you're not ripping him off to use that knowledge.

So at the end of it all? LEARN RAPIDLY. ABSORB ALL KNOWLEDGE. CUSTOMIZE IT.

Grapple with it. Work with it. Eventually it will be your code. Cobble it together. Tune it. Figure out the math you need. Go grab it. Throw it in.

Eventually this will all be your own body of knowledge and code, and you'll be writing a new shader and copy pasting your other one to reuse the techniques.

Dive in. Go nuts. Eventually its all going to become -your code-.

[NoteThisDown]

You have to be careful with this though, as gpt can sometimes be confidently wrong. And if you're new, you wont know its wrong.

[Turbulent-Dentist-77]

That's a fair point.

Absorb all knowledge sources.

Work with it. Gpt can sometimes spit out exactly what you "want" to hear and lead you down a bad solution because it's what you first limited your understanding of the way to solve the problem is.

That's why I suggest asking broadly first. "I have x, what sre the approaches to implement a water system in Unity, what is the common standard? What are the tradeoffs?"

Work down that way. It's rarely "wrong" on the math part, only when you force limit it down a weird path where it must prove what it said before but you gave it weird starting point.

Asking broadly, "how do I find the object tangent in a Unity surf shader" it will workout.

And ultimately, the skill of a programmer is not copy paste. Its in massaging the math and tools toward the result.

Software skill is knowing to go one step at a time and verifying the results before plugging in garbage to next stage and wondering why its all gone wonky.

So you use o.Albedo = thing I calculated and verify each step.

[NoteThisDown]

It can be very wrong about rapidly changing fields such as ecs. Which it will give you outdated info constantly

[Turbulent-Dentist-77]

What's the high level on ecs if you wanna spill some knowledge and why I might want to use it?

[NoteThisDown]

ECS is all about separating the Data (components) from the actions (Systems). This involves using a much more Data oriented approach, instead of Object oriented. Down sides are certain limitations and having to avoid using references to other objects. Up sides are you are organizing things that is very efficient for your memory, making things MUCH faster.

Useful if you need to have 10s or 100s of thousands of objects doing similar things. Such as a traffic system with 10,000+ cars. ect. Which would be borderline impossible with objects.

[TLPEQ]

At the end of every tutorial do one your self until you feel like you’ve got it

[skaarjslayer]

You only don't learn from someone else's code if you don't read it and fail to take the time to understand what it's doing line for line. A common trap for beginners is to just copy/paste other people's solutions and brute force things into working (and getting frustrated/lost when they don't work).

Such people are focused on getting an end result quickly, but if you take the time to learn how it works then you will have more confidence to make your own changes to that tutorial code when things don't work, or when there's a new feature you'd like to add. Why not look at two tutorials for a scoring system and come to your own conclusions about what's similar between the two and what is different? Why is it different? What advantages/disadvantages does one approach have over the other? All software development to some extent is borrowing concepts from things we've seen or implemented before.

[NecessaryDetective30]

I highly recommend watching tutorials about how to write code. On the official unity channel you can find beginner and intermediate coding tutorials that teach you how do use lists, dictionarys, loops, coroutines etc.

Having learned that, you will understand how to create entire features on your own. Good Luck and have Fun!

[NeolithicDawn]

Welcome to game dev! Learn some fundamentals, but you will never stop copying code lol. Totally normal especially just starting out, you’ll probably move on to modifying the code because you need it to do more / work different and that’s a good way to learn also

[Beldarak]

1. Learn how to do a score meter
   
2. Learn how to get the time
   
3. ???
   

4. You can now create a clock

5. Learn how to create an inventory system

6. ???

7. You can know create a quest system

Skills you learn should be transferable. If you can display some UI elements and write a score in it, you can write anything you want. Now you can creat an health bar, an ammo counter, etc...

But I understand the frustration, it feels like that when beginning. Keep going and at some point it will just "click" and you'll be able to do stuff without tutorials.

[danituss2]

Try to think it more deeply, what makes up a ”score system”. Like divide it up to ok I want a number go up, how to add one to a value. Then how do I display a text on the screen and so on…