Creating Games with Unity and Maya

Creating Games with Unity and Maya

by Adam Watkins
Released October 2012
Publisher(s): Routledge
ISBN: 9781136126291

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial

Book description

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.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Halftitle
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. Contents
  8. Introduction
  9. Chapter 1: Game Production Process
    1. The Team
    2. The Tools and Unity
    3. Teams of Teams and Pipelines
      1. Assets
      2. Art Assets
      3. Technology Assets (Scripts)
      4. Order of Operations
    4. Conclusion and Introduction to Incursion
    5. A Note on Research
    6. And on We Go
  10. Chapter 2: Asset Creation: Maya Scenography Modeling
    1. Scenography Modeling within the Game Design Pipeline
    2. Why Maya Tutorials?
    3. A Bit of 3D Theory
      1. Rendering
      2. Video Cards
      3. Limitations and Optimizations for Games
    4. Rules of 3D Game Modeling
      1. Polycount Matters
      2. Topology
      3. On to the Tools
    5. Tutorial 2.1: Game Level Modeling:The Entryway
      1. Columns Base Shape
      2. Dock Creation
      3. Dock Optimization
      4. Backface Culling
      5. Roof Creation
      6. Cleaning or Deleting History
      7. Handrails
      8. Archway and Booleans
      9. Beveling
    6. Wrapping Up
    7. Homework and Challenges
  11. Chapter 3: Asset Creation: Maya Scenography UV Mapping
    1. Scenography UV Layout within the Game Design Pipeline
      1. UVs
      2. Exploring the UV Texture Editor
    2. Tutorial 3.1: Game Level UV Layout, Tools, and Techniques
      1. Mapping Beginning with Automatic Mapping
      2. Sewing Shells
      3. Further Optimization
      4. Maya’s Unfold UV via Smooth UV Tool
      5. Manual Mapping
    3. Conclusion
    4. Homework and Challenges
  12. Chapter 4: Asset Creation: Maya Scenography Texturing
    1. Textures, Materials, and Shaders
      1. Nature of Effective Textures
      2. Maya and Unity
    2. Tutorials
    3. Tutorial 4.1: Seamless Tiled Textures
      1. Select and Prepare a Raw Texture Image
      2. Offset and Clone Stamp
      3. Unify the Color Balance
      4. Apply the Texture
      5. Conclusion
    4. Tutorial 4.2: Nontiled Textures and Their Dirt
      1. UV Snapshots
      2. Preparing the UV Snapshot for Painting in Photoshop
      3. Painting the Texture
      4. Layer Mixing
      5. Layer Masks
      6. Saving Multiple Files
      7. Application in Maya
      8. Conclusion
    5. Homework and Challenges
  13. Chapter 5: Asset Creation: Unity Scenography Importing
    1. Unity
      1. The Plan
      2. Unity Projects
    2. Tutorial 5.1: Creating a Unity Project
      1. About the New Project File
    3. Unity Interface
      1. Toolbar
      2. Scene
      3. Game
      4. Inspector Panel
      5. Hierarchy Panel
      6. Project Panel
      7. Using It All
    4. Tutorial 5.2: Exporting from Maya
    5. Optimizing in Maya
      1. Export Options
      2. The Import Process
    6. Unity Nomenclature
      1. GameObject
      2. Prefabs
      3. Scenes
    7. Tutorial 5.3: Importing, Tweaking, and Placing Scenography Assets into Unity
      1. Inspector Breakdown
    8. Conclusion
    9. Homework and Challenges
  14. Chapter 6: Asset Creation: Unity Scenography Creation Tools
    1. Asset Creation in Unity
    2. Tutorial 6.1: Adding and Manipulating Unity Water, Sky, and Fog
      1. Importing Packages
      2. Water
      3. Skyboxes
      4. Fog
      5. Wrapping Up
    3. Tutorial 6.2: Terrain Creation
      1. Restrictions of Terrains
      2. Terrain Editing Tools
      3. Conclusion
    4. Tutorial 6.3: Primitives and Particles
      1. Tweaking Terrain Settings
    5. Conclusion
  15. Chapter 7: Asset Creation: Advanced Shading, Lighting, and Baking
    1. Baking
      1. Baking in Unity (aka Unity Lightmapping)
      2. Limitations to Unity Lightmapping
    2. Plan of Attack
    3. Tutorial 7.1: Normal Maps
      1. Additional Tools
      2. Conclusion
    4. Tutorial 7.2: Lighting and Baking in Unity
      1. Unity’s Lighting Instruments
    5. Conclusion
    6. Homework and Challenges
  16. Chapter 8: Asset Creation: Maya Character Creation
    1. Aegis Chung
    2. Style Sheet
      1. Considerations of Style Sheets
    3. Chapter Overview
    4. Tutorial 8.1: Game Character Modeling: Aegis Chung
      1. Polycount
    5. Conclusion
  17. Chapter 9: Asset Creation: Maya Character UV Mapping and Texturing
    1. UV Mapping
    2. Tutorial 9.1: Character UV Mapping
      1. Mesh Inspection and Cleanup
      2. Finishing Up
      3. Conclusion
    3. Tutorial 9.2: Character Texture Painting
      1. Ambient Occlusion Pass
      2. Face and Head
    4. Conclusion
  18. Chapter 10: Asset Creation: Maya Rigging and Skinning and Unity Animated Character Importing and Implementation
    1. The Process
    2. Tutorial 10.1: Rigging
      1. Cleanup
      2. Joints and Rigging
      3. Conclusion
    3. Tutorial 10.2: Maya Skinning
      1. Binding Rigid Body Parts
      2. Painting Skin Weights
      3. Conclusion
    4. Tutorial 10.3: Maya Animation
      1. General Notes on Game Animation
      2. Conclusion
    5. Tutorial 10.4: Getting Animated Characters to Unity
      1. Using Aegis
    6. Tutorial 10.5: Animating in Unity
      1. Conclusion
    7. Wrapping Up
    8. Homework and Challenges
  19. Chapter 11: Unity Sound
    1. Get the Sounds
    2. Sound Listener and Sound Source Paradigm
    3. Tutorial 11.1: Placing Sound in Unity
      1. Audio Reverb Zones
      2. Footsteps
      3. Scripting Sound
    4. Conclusion
    5. Homework and Challenges
  20. Chapter 12: Introduction to Unity Scripting Basics and Graphical User Interface
    1. Unity’s Scripting Languages
      1. Boo Script
      2. C#
      3. JavaScript
    2. Using Scripts in Unity
      1. A Note about This Approach
      2. Tools for Scripts
      3. What Is a Script?
      4. Getting to It
    3. Tutorial 12.1: Graphical User Interfaces
      1. GUITexture
    4. Conclusion
    5. Homework and Challenges
  21. Chapter 13: Unity Triggers
    1. Designating Triggers
    2. Tutorial 13.1: Activating and Changing Screen Hints with Triggers
      1. GUIText
      2. Custom Fonts
      3. Creating Triggers
      4. Scripting the GUIText
      5. Scripting Triggers
      6. Triggers to Swap Levels
      7. Conclusion
    3. Tutorial 13.2:Triggers and Doors
      1. Divergent Methods
      2. Sound and Scripts
      3. Cleaning Up with Destroy and Booleans
    4. Conclusion
    5. Homework and Challenges
  22. Chapter 14: Unity Raycasting
    1. Frame Miss
    2. Raycasting
    3. But First...A Few Notes on Scripting and Help
      1. Comments via //
      2. Commenting Blocks of Script with /*
      3. Accessing the Documentation
      4. F1 in UniSciTE
    4. Decoding a Help Page
    5. Tutorial 14.1: Highlighting Actionable Objects with Raycasting
      1. Turning on the Lights
    6. Conclusion
    7. Homework and Challenges
  23. Chapter 15: Unity Prefabs and Instantiation
    1. Prefabs
      1. Prefabs versus Prefab Connections
    2. Tutorial 15.1: The Power of Prefabs
      1. Tags
      2. Adding Sound
      3. Conclusion
    3. Instantiation
    4. Tutorial 15.2: Setting Up the Armed Arms
      1. Conclusion
    5. Tutorial 15.3: Firing a Gun
      1. A Few Notes about Pistol Sparks
      2. Quick Note about Detonator and Explosion Framework
      3. Conclusion
    6. Tutorial 15.4: Sound Revisited
    7. Scope and Optimizing Script
    8. Tutorial 15.5:The EMP Mines
      1. Layers
      2. Make the EMP Effective
    9. Conclusion
  24. Chapter 16: Unity: Creating Inventory Systems
    1. State Engine and How Many Scripts?
    2. Tutorial 16.1: Setting Up Inventory GUI and Script
      1. Refresher on Interscript Communication
      2. Firing Animations in Script
      3. Hiding and Showing Weapons
      4. Bulking up the GUI System
      5. Create a GUIEIements Prefab
      6. Animate the Inventory to Show and Hide
      7. Conclusion
    3. Tutorial 16.2: Keys
      1. Accessing the State Engine
      2. Building upon the Raycasting Mechanism
      3. Fleshing Out PickUpKey
      4. Creating a Smart Trigger
    4. Conclusion
    5. Homework and Challenges
  25. Chapter 17: Health Systems, Winning, and Losing the Game
    1. Tutorial 17.1: Winning
      1. The Endgame Trigger
      2. Conclusion
    2. Tutorial 17.2: Health Systems
      1. Creating Health Display
      2. Back to Script
      3. ThingsThat Hurt
      4. Creating the Damage Triggers
      5. Broadcast Message
      6. Particles Doing Damage (Steam)
      7. Timers on Cameras
      8. Scene-ClosingFail
      9. Global Variables
      10. Final Test
    3. Conclusion
    4. Homework and Challenges
  26. Chapter 18: Unity Debugging, Optimization, and Builds
    1. Finding the Bugs
    2. Optimization
      1. Finding What Needs to Be Optimized
      2. Optimizing with Textures
      3. Optimizing with Scripts
    3. Making the Build
      1. Preparing Player Settings
      2. Outputting the Final Build
    4. Conclusion
  27. Index

Product information

  • Title: Creating Games with Unity and Maya
  • Author(s): Adam Watkins
  • Release date: October 2012
  • Publisher(s): Routledge
  • ISBN: 9781136126291