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Unity in Action
Unity in Action teaches you how to write and deploy games. You'll master the Unity toolset from the ground up, adding the skills you need to go from application coder to game developer. Based on Unity version 5.
About the Book
This book helps readers build successful games with the Unity game development platform. You will use the powerful C# language, Unity's intuitive workflow tools, and a state-of-the-art rendering engine to build and deploy mobile, desktop, and console games. Unity's single codebase approach minimizes inefficient switching among development tools and concentrates your attention on making great interactive experiences.
Unity in Action teaches you how to write and deploy games. You'll master the Unity toolset from the ground up, adding the skills you need to go from application coder to game developer. Each sample project illuminates specific Unity features and game development strategies. As you read and practice, you'll build up a well-rounded skill set for creating graphically driven 2D and 3D game applications.
You'll need to know how to program, in C# or a similar OO language. No previous Unity experience or game development knowledge is assumed.
About the Book
This book helps readers build successful games with the Unity game development platform. You will use the powerful C# language, Unity's intuitive workflow tools, and a state-of-the-art rendering engine to build and deploy mobile, desktop, and console games. Unity's single codebase approach minimizes inefficient switching among development tools and concentrates your attention on making great interactive experiences.
Unity in Action teaches you how to write and deploy games. You'll master the Unity toolset from the ground up, adding the skills you need to go from application coder to game developer. Each sample project illuminates specific Unity features and game development strategies. As you read and practice, you'll build up a well-rounded skill set for creating graphically driven 2D and 3D game applications.
You'll need to know how to program, in C# or a similar OO language. No previous Unity experience or game development knowledge is assumed.
352 pages, Paperback
Published June 19, 2015
21 people are currently reading
214 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 4, 2017
At first, I was like...I already know Unity...but after reading this book...woaw! Yes...I knew Unity...but there were a lot of things I didn't had a clue about...this book was such an eye opener...totally and complete blown me away...
Needlessly to say...If I had to take 5 programming books with me to a dessert island...this would be one of those...completely essential book...
The book is pretty well explained...with lots of examples...and not only a big huge project to build...but separate projects that link together...and that was as a well...an awesome experience -:D
Needlessly to say...If I had to take 5 programming books with me to a dessert island...this would be one of those...completely essential book...
The book is pretty well explained...with lots of examples...and not only a big huge project to build...but separate projects that link together...and that was as a well...an awesome experience -:D
December 20, 2016
Mainly concentrates on coding, and few advanced concepts. Good source for learning player movement, mouse look, relative positioning for camera scripts. things like saving and loading a game and game audio are also given good treatment. Totally worth a read!
October 14, 2021
This is a decent book at teaching the fundamentals of Unity to complete beginners. Not only that, but it goes to great length to make the code understandable to readers who may only know the very basics of programming. And in that lies my disappointment as well - the beginning of the book says
> Unity in Action, Second Edition is a book about programming games in Unity. Think of it
as an intro to Unity for experienced programmers.
And that sounded like exactly what I was after. I wanted something which focused entirely on Unity, and didn't shy away from more advanced programming concepts and didn't spend time explaining rudimentary programming concepts. Unfortunately, this set up expectations that the book later kept contradicting. The author will explain a variable being empty as "null, in coder-speak", refer to an explanation of basic memory management as reading "like Greek", explain fundamental concepts like what a List or Dictionary is, etc. I imagine a lot of readers will appreciate concepts not being skipped over, but I did feel like the book was setting itself up to be one way, but then went a different way when it actually came down to reading it.
Outside of that, the second edition (latest as of reviewing, though third edition is on its way) is showing its age only a little bit. It arguably lingers a little too much on the "legacy" approach to UI in places, and relies on importing external scripts in order to add a Message/Event broadcasting framework into projects, which I thought was replicable much more nicely using in-built C# event delegates (I don't think they existed in .NET at the time the book was written). Asides from that, the knowledge generally seemed up-to-date.
This being a book, the code is understandably not fantastic, as the author has to try and fit everything on the book's pages and, if following better programming patterns and practices, it may be harder to explain to a reader.
All those points aside, I'm happy I read the book - I certainly learned a nice amount that I didn't know going into it. Just don't come into this expecting the book to discuss particularly advanced concepts - it mostly focuses on the basics.
> Unity in Action, Second Edition is a book about programming games in Unity. Think of it
as an intro to Unity for experienced programmers.
And that sounded like exactly what I was after. I wanted something which focused entirely on Unity, and didn't shy away from more advanced programming concepts and didn't spend time explaining rudimentary programming concepts. Unfortunately, this set up expectations that the book later kept contradicting. The author will explain a variable being empty as "null, in coder-speak", refer to an explanation of basic memory management as reading "like Greek", explain fundamental concepts like what a List or Dictionary is, etc. I imagine a lot of readers will appreciate concepts not being skipped over, but I did feel like the book was setting itself up to be one way, but then went a different way when it actually came down to reading it.
Outside of that, the second edition (latest as of reviewing, though third edition is on its way) is showing its age only a little bit. It arguably lingers a little too much on the "legacy" approach to UI in places, and relies on importing external scripts in order to add a Message/Event broadcasting framework into projects, which I thought was replicable much more nicely using in-built C# event delegates (I don't think they existed in .NET at the time the book was written). Asides from that, the knowledge generally seemed up-to-date.
This being a book, the code is understandably not fantastic, as the author has to try and fit everything on the book's pages and, if following better programming patterns and practices, it may be harder to explain to a reader.
All those points aside, I'm happy I read the book - I certainly learned a nice amount that I didn't know going into it. Just don't come into this expecting the book to discuss particularly advanced concepts - it mostly focuses on the basics.
August 14, 2018
I found this a very interesting and useful book to learn some introductory Unity coding. The examples were all fairly well done and easy enough to follow along, and yet the results were very satisfying. If you are looking to learn how to use Unity, this is a great starting book.
March 29, 2020
This introductory video game design book assumes that you have a good grasp of C# and thus focuses on how to use the Unity tool-set. It does a good job of covering the basics for common 3D and 2D games.
September 13, 2017
Great Unity learning book. Step by step instructions. Beginners will easily pick up Unity and C# through this book. Very heevily focussed on the proogramming direction of unity.
January 4, 2019
while covering all topics at the basic level, it allows for further learning.
May 12, 2019
Simple and easy understand. Lots of practical staff in this book. Recommend.
December 27, 2020
I like hands-on books. This was very hands-on. I enjoyed working in the Unity app and writing code as I read along.
February 1, 2022
Focus on the programming side of Unity, hence it is for game programmers, grab it if you are one.
October 12, 2022
if you're looking for advanced knowledge, you're not gonna find it here. Cool for beginners tho
May 6, 2017
Everything I need to get from zero experience to cranking out solid prototypes. Everything is based on practical examples with a lot of code included. Exactly what I was looking for.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews