Unity basics

Unity is a game engine. You can think of a game engine as all of the core systems in a machine. Let's picture a space ship. Say you want to build your own space ship. You can start by scratch and build the zero-gravity engines, the life support systems or even the door controls. That would take a lot of work and time. Now imagine if there were someone that gave you all of those "standard ship systems" already built so you don't have to worry about "re-inventing the wheel", and just focus on the things that make your ship different and interesting. A game engine is a group of pre-built virtual systems that are necessary for every kind of game to function.

The Unity Editor is the software front end of the Unity game engine. This Unity Editor is the program you use to make games in the Unity game engine. You might read only the word "Editor" many times in forums or in the official Unity documentation. Now you know that "Editor" refers to the software interface you use. You can think of the Editor as "a Photoshop for making games".

Interface

The Unity Editor, for the most part, uses a modular user interface. Many of the windows, or panels, you see as soon as you open the program will have a little tab with its name, at the top-left of it.

At the top of the Editor, right below the menu bar, you'll see some buttons. These buttons are not movable, which makes them unique, since almost every other part of the interface is customizable.

These are the "transformation tools". These tools allow you to modify the 3D properties of objects in a scene.

Hand (Q)
- Disables the ability to select objects with left click
- Allows you to pan the view in the Scene window
Move (W)
- Moves selected objects in 3D space
Rotate (E)
- Rotates objects
Scale (R)
- Scales
Rect (T)
- Used to modify 2D objects, mostly used for UI work. You won't need to use this one.
Move, rotate or scale (Y)
- A tool that lets you move, rotate and scale at the same time
- I've never used this one
Pivot/Center
- Switches between the two modes of transformation
- Every 3D object has a "pivot" or "point of origin"
  - Normally placed at the feet
- If you rotate a model, normally it will be around its pivot, unless this button is switched to Center
Local/Global
- Objects in 3D have 3 dimensions along 3 axes, which are called X, Y and Z
- The "world" the objects exist also has 3 dimensions
  - You can think of "the world's X" as "west/east", and "its Z" as "north/south"
  - No matter were you are looking, the north will always point in the same direction
- When a 3D object rotates, there will be a difference between "the north (or forward)" of that model, and the "north" of the world
- This button switches between the world orientation and the selected model orientation, so you can, for example, move and object in the direction it's facing, regardless of the direction of the world

These buttons are for testing a game. You won't need to use them.

Play
- Starts running the game inside the Unity Editor
Pause
- Pauses the game
Next frame
- Advances one frame forward, while also pausing the game

I will only explain the last two buttons, as the first three are completely irrelevant for us.

Layers
- All objects in a scene have a layer assigned to them
- Layers mostly serve for organizing objects when the game is running
  - For example, have a camera not render objects that are in x layer, or have objects in y layer not check for collisions
- This dropdown lets you hide or show objects of the layers of your choosing
Layout
- Layouts are stored configurations of the panels
  - You can arrange, close or open new panels (even make your own), and you can save the way you organized them with this dropdown

Below this top bar of buttons, you have the main real state of the Editor interface. This is the area where all the windows are docked. I'll explain the default windows.

This is the Hierarchy window. By default, it will be docked to the left side of the Editor.

This panel will list all of the GameObjects residing in the current scene. This default scene contains a camera, and a light. As you create more GameObjects, you'll see them here.

This is the Scene window, with tabs for the Game and Asset Store windows to the right. The Scene window is a viewport that shows the current scene. A scene in Unity is a 3D world that you populate with your characters, world and code. You can think of it as a level in a game.

Right click
- Activates FPS camera navigation
Middle click
- Panning
Alt + left click
- Orbit
Alt + right click
- Continuous zoom
F (while an object is selected)
- Focus

The Inspector window shows information about the selected object.

You will see a list of Components, with all of their editable properties shown. A Component adds functionality to a GameObject. This GameObject called "Directional Light" has a Light component, which will give it the light functionality Unity comes with.

This GameObject also has a Transform component, which determines all its 3D properties.

The "Add Component" button is one of the ways to add more components to a GameObject.

The Project window, is like a tiny Windows Explorer. On the left has a tree view of all the folders and files of your Unity project, while on the right, a view that shows the contents of the folders.

Lastly, the Console window will show any errors Unity encounters. Mostly used for debugging.

Items with a white globe are messages
A green triangle is for a warning
Red sign are errors
- Errors will prevent you from working further until you solve them

You can open any window using the Window menu.

Workflow

When working with the Unity Editor, you normally don't need to save changes to the project files. For example, creating files, renaming files, moving files. These tasks don't need saving. The sort of things that have to be saved are the changes you make to a scene. Changes to a scene are creating GameObjects, adding or modifying components, nesting GameObjects, etc. To save a scene, just go to the File menu and click on Save, or Save as. You will then be asked to choose a folder. It is important to mention that you should only save your scenes inside the Assets folder of your Unity project.

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