Creating Games with Unity and Maya ─ How to Develop Fun and Marketable 3D Games

Unity brings you ever closer to the "author once, deploy anywhere" dream. With its multiplatform capabilities, you can target desktop, web, mobile devices, and consoles using a single development engine. Little wonder that Unity has quickly become the #1 game engine out there.
Mastering Unity is absolutely essential in an increasingly competitive games market where agility is expected, yet until now practical tutorials were nearly impossible to find.
Creating Games with Unity and Maya gives you with an end-to-end solution for Unity game development with Maya. Written by a twelve-year veteran of the 3D animation and games industry and professor of 3D animation, this book takes you step-by-step through the process of developing an entire game from scratch-including coding, art, production, and deployment.
This accessible guide provides a "non-programmer" entry point to the world of game creation. Aspiring developers with little or no coding experience will learn character development in Maya, scripts, GUI interface, and first- and third-person interactions.

Adam Watkins is Associate Professor, 3D Animation, School of Interactive Media & Design at the University of the Incarnate Word. He is currently on a research sabbatical at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where he is part of the VISIBLE effort creating virtual simulation games for use in non-proliferation exercises. Watkins has headed the 3D Animation program for over ten years and is the author of several books and over 100 articles on 3D Animation. His students are the winners of multiple national and international animation awards and festivals.

Preface



Introduction



Why this book?


Who's it for, and how to use it?



Hobbyist strategies


Game Developer usage


Teacher


Student


Structure



Maya, then Unity



Reasoning


Book Paradigm



Assumptions


What we won't be covering


Artist Approach vs Programmer/Engineer Approach



This book is based upon artist approach


Chapter 1 - Game Production Process



Game Production Team Members (or roles)



All roles can be done by one person


Game Production Pipeline in Unity



Conceptualization



Audience


Theme


Conceptualization Artwork


Art Assets Creation



Models


Textures


Animation


Lighting


Game Mechanics



Scripting Team



Game Play


Physics


Varia


What needs to be done when


Flexibility of Unity's approach



What parts aren't so flexible.


How this book mimics the Game Production Process


Introduction to The Game we will be producing in the book.


Chapter 2 - Asset Creation: Maya Scenography Modeling



Scenography Mdeling within the Game Desing Pipeling


So Why Maya Tutorials?


A Bit of 3D Theory



Rendering


Video Cards


Limitation and Optimization for Games


Rules of 3D Game Modeling



Polycount Matters


Topology is Critical


On to the Tools


Tutorial 2.1 Game Level Modeling : The Entryway


Homework and Challenges


Chapter 3 - Asset Creation: Maya Scenography UV Mapping



Scenography UV Mapping within the Game Design Pipeline


UVs



Exploring the UV Texture Editor


Tutorial 3.1 Game Level UV Layout: Tools and Techniques


Homework and Challenges


Chapter 4 - Asset Creation: Maya Sceongraphy Texturing



Scenography Texturing within the Game Design Pipleline


Textures, Materials & Shaders


Nature of Effective Textures



Be Square


Power of Two


Seamless Textures


Maya and Unity


Tutorials



Tutorial 4.1 Seamless Tiled Textures


Tutorial 4.2 Non-Tiled Textures and Their Dirt



Chapter 5 - Asset Creation: Unity Scenography Importing



Introduction to Unity Space



Tutorial 5.1 Creating a Unity Project


Tutorial 5.2 Exporting from Maya


Tutorial 5.3 Importing, Tweaking and Placing Scenography Assets into Unity


Chapter 6 - Asset Creation: Unity Scenography Creation Tools



Introduction to Non-Imported Assets in Unity



Tutorial 6.1 Adding, Manipulating and Understanding Water


Tutorial 6.2 Terrain Creation


Tutorial 6.3 Tree Building


Tutorial 6.4 Particle Creation


Chapter 7 - Lighting & Baking



What's the big deal with lighting?


To light in Maya or Unity?



Tutorial 7.1 Lighting Game Level in Unity


Baking, textures and AO



Tutorial 7.2 Baking in Unity


Light maps in Unity



Tutorial 7.3 Using Light maps in Unity


Chapter 8 - Asset Creation: Maya Character Creations



Low Poly character techniques


Topology mastery



Tutorial 3.1 Game Character Modeling


Character UV



Tutorial 3.2 Game Character UV Mapping


Character Textures



Tutorial 3.3 Game Character Texturing


Chapter 9 - Asset Creation: Character Rigging and Animation and Import



Brief discussion of rigging, skinning, and animation in Maya



Tutorial 4.1 Rigging Game Character


Tutorial 4.2 Skinning Game Character


Game Animation Methodology



Tutorial 4.3 Character Idle


Unity & Animation



Tutorial 4.4 Importing Animated Character and Testing



Chapter 10 - Unity Physics



Physics engines. PhysX



Newtonian physics


Unity's use


"Frame miss"


Elements needed for physics calculations


Limitations and overhead


Tutorial 7.1 Booby Traps and Physics in Unity


Ragdoll



Tutorial 7.2 Ragdoll Implementation


Chapter 11 - Unity Script: Syntax



Power and frustration of scripting


Scripting Overview


Syntax Discussion



MonoBehaviour


Commands


Functions


Variables


Inputs


Time


Components


Vectors


Coroutines


Yields


Scripting Cheat Sheets


Tutorial 8.1 Constructing Basic Scripts from Scratch


Chapter 12 - Unity Script: Triggers



What are triggers? Why are they useful?


Relationship to Physics



What a trigger needs to work


How to script a trigger and why


Tutorial 9.1 Opening Doors and Tripping Traps


Chapter 13 - Unity Script: Inputs, Raycasting and Manipulating



Communicating with the game


Types of Inputs



GUI (for discussion later)


Triggers (discussed earlier)


Mouse Input


Keyboard Input


Raycasting


When to use which type of input


How to call up or "listen for" inputs


Tutorial 10.1 Keyboard Driven Mini-Game


Tutorial 10.2 Mouse Driven Mini-Game


Tutorial 10.3 Raycasting



Chapter 14 - Unity Script: Prefabs and Instantiation



Power of prefabs



Tutorial 11.1 Creating Custom Prefabs


Instantiation



What are they?


What are they for?


Why mess with them?


Tutorial 11.2 Projectile Instantiation


Chapter 15 - Unity Sound



Listener/Source Paradigm


Attaching sounds


Triggering Sounds


Listening and tweaking sound qualities


Chapter 16 - Unity GUI: OnGUI, GUITextures, GUIText



Graphical User Interfaces



Theory of design


Unity types



GUIText


GUITextures


OnGUI


Tutorial 12.1 GUIText and GUITextures for instant feedback


Tutorial 12.2 Constructing OnGUI GUI Structure for Game Setup


Chapter 17 - Unity GUI and Scripting: Inter-script communication



Power of linking scripts


Logic engines


Health, damage, inventory, death



Tutorial 13.1 Creating and Manipulating Health Bar


Chapter 18 - Unity Distribution: Builds



Getting the game out the door


Optimization strategies



Profiler


Debugger


Optimizing game


Making Builds



PC


Mac


Web


Mobile Devices (overview)



iOS


Android


Tutorial 14.1 Building the Game


Appendix A: Setting Projects with Maya


Appendix C: Unity Asset Server