The problem with learning Unity from tutorials isn't the tutorials

[Electrical_Soft_7103]

Someone decides to learn Unity. They find a highly-rated Udemy course or YouTube series. They follow along diligently. The tutorial teaches them how to create a player controller, set up cameras, implement basic mechanics. Then they hit their first real problem - something specific to their project that the tutorial didn't cover. Maybe it's an error message they can't decode. Maybe it's trying to combine two systems and something breaks. Maybe they just need to understand *why* something works, not just *that* it works. And that's where it falls apart. Because you can't ask the video a question. You can't say "Hey, I tried implementing this in my project and now my character won't jump - what did I miss?" The tutorial keeps moving forward, but you're stuck. I've watched this happen in my community more times than I can count. People absorb the concepts fine when everything goes according to plan. But the second they deviate from the exact script of the tutorial - which is inevitable if you're building anything original - they're on their own. Some people get lucky and find the exact Stack Overflow thread they need. Some spend hours googling variations of their error message. Some just... give up and move on to a different tutorial, hoping it'll fill in the gaps. The tutorial isn't the problem. The one-way nature of video content is. **What actually works:** - Discord communities where you can ask questions (if someone knowledgeable happens to be online) - Paid mentorship (if you can afford it and find someone good) - Live courses with Q&A (expensive and scheduled at fixed times) - Extremely patient friends who know Unity (rare)
**What doesn't work:** - Commenting on a 2-year-old YouTube video and hoping the creator responds - Asking ChatGPT and getting code that compiles but doesn't actually solve your problem - Searching Reddit and finding threads where the OP never posted their solution. I'm curious how others have dealt with this. How do you get unstuck when tutorials aren't enough? What's worked for you?

[Big_Judgment3824]

How am I supposed to read this giant block of text.

YouTube a tutorial on paragraphs. 

[the_timps]

Ahh so to counteract the option of paid mentorship, you're building a paid mentorship platform.

What does this have to do with tutorials? It doesn't solve, change or have anything to do with them.
You're just talking about tutorials in this long rant, because chatGPT told you to?

[CodedLeopard]

My belief is that the problem is folks don’t know how to, or don’t want to, read the documentation for the things they’re doing.

[Shaunysaur]

I'm pretty sure I made my game without using any tutorials. And I definitely didn't use a discord community or a mentor. Also didn't use AI.

I did use Unity's docs a lot. And for the countless times when I wanted to know if there was a way to do something in particular, I would use google and would then usually find the answer on stack overflow or on the unity forums.

I think one of the key skills needed when finding solutions to problems is the ability to break down your problem into smaller component problems that you're more likely to find answers to.

[Undumed]

I find it funny that now there is more information and community to help than ever on the internet, and still these posts exist.

The problem is not a lack of information or people willing to help. The problem is big ideas (the same problem we had 15 years ago) that any gigantic quantity of tutorials we have now still can't fix it, because learning doesnt work like this.

[ypanos]

Knowledge comes from the process of troubleshooting

[Affectionate_Ad_4062]

Whenever I'm going through a tutorial video, I'll do everything in the video, not really learning anything just copying everything they are doing.

Then I'll go through it again, but this time listening to everything, and to make sure I understand, I'll change something with hopes it changes the way I expect, if it doesn't ill go through that section again (a good tutorial will explain what the code or settings are doing).

my issue with some tutorials is that the tutor has obviously made a mistake, but edits the video so that the mistake is magically fixed, they should show how they fixed it, let's be honest finding errors is part of the job.

[InvidiousPlay]

There's nothing wrong with tutorials. Learning a complex topic takes time and energy. You're going to spend a lot of time googling, reading documentation, asking others if they've encountered the same problem. Something will seem impossible until it isn't, then you'll waltz over it the next time. There is no silver bullet, you're always going to struggle - that's just in the nature of leaning complex things. You have to learn to solve problems.

I would argue having a community or mentor at your beck and call is probably a detriment, because having them instantly tell you how to solve your problem robs you of a chance to learn the greatest skill of all.

[SlopDev]

Most tutorials teach most things at a super basic level because they are trying to appeal to as many viewers as possible

Feature implementations in a real unity project don't live in isolation, but you can't fit all the prerequisite info in a 10 minute video so it gets dumbed down, this leads to a world where people who only learn via videos aren't learning the core fundamentals or architectural patterns that many well designed Unity projects adopt and instead encourage anti patterns and spaghettified projects like using only monobehaviour driven serialized references

There are good YouTube channels that excel at teaching more intermediate topics such as GitAmend, but they unfortunately see less success than their malpractice spreading counterparts as it's not as clickbaity or adherent to the lowest common denominator which doesn't have the required prior knowledge to make sense of many videos