Theory, Tutorials, and GameDev

This is just a test post.

Two weeks into classes this fall and there is just too much to do, so everything is staying on hold in regards to this site until late 2009. Please check back then!

I’ve had some emails lately about where to get various Unity resources, so hopefully this will be of some help. For the Unity Platformer tutorial, click:

http://unity3d.com/support/resources/tutorials/3d-platform-game

For the scripts I mention in my 3ds Max to Unity tutorial, you will want to download the zip from the above link, and the two scripts you will need are ThirdPersonPlayerAnimation.js, and ThirdPersonController.js.

For the general Unity3D support page, check the link below. This will get you to the Community page, where you can find the Unity Forums (and do searches) or Unify Script & Tips Wiki for resources created by the community.

http://unity3d.com/support/

I’ve finally found the time to do something I’ve been meaning to do for several months. When I wrote Creating Game Art for 3D Engines, I really focused more on Biped-based characters. Since then I’ve had people who bought the book (as well as subscribers to my Youtube channel), ask for tutorials on how to create Bones-based characters in 3ds Max.

This tutorial is longer and higher resolution than my usual tutorials, at 950×700 and over 90 minutes long. I am planning to leave this bonus tutorial up on the website through the end of this year, but after that it could come down, so if you could use a little help with rigging and animating a Bones-based character in Max, check it out soon.

Click the link below to see more about the book, as well as to access the Spider Rigging and Animation tutorial:

3dcognition Products & Bonus Page.

Also I have created two short excerpts from the bonus tutorial that give a pretty good idea of the first 18 minutes or so. You can see them here.

Once you have created your own Bones-based character, if you feel inclined to take it into either the Unity engine or the Torque engine, the steps are already laid out for you. For Unity, just check out our Biped into Unity tutorial (this is a free tutorial, and uses the exact same method for import you would use for bones-based characters), and for Torque, the steps are in the book (same steps as with Biped-based characters).

Consider this a Thank-You to those who have already purchased Creating Game Art for 3D Engines.

The first time I tried to take a 3D character from 3ds Max to Unity I had some issues - it’s amazing how easy these things can be if someone just shows you how! So I figured it out, and I put up a 15-minute video tutorial on 3dcognition.com, on the Tutorials page. I have put out a shorter, low-res video to YouTube and some places like that, but if you want the full-length, hi-res video, look on my tutorials page under Unity tutorials. You can see the end result of the tutorial here, I made a quick and dirty web-based game (just a button click to do this in Unity3D) - use the arrow keys to move the biped character around. Requires the Unity player (just around 9 megabytes).

In this example, I take a Biped based character from 3ds Max version 9, and I use Autodesk’s FBX exporter (version 9). This means I didn’t have to rotate the biped before exporting, as you have to do in some earlier versions of the FBX exporter. That is an important distinction. There’s a bit more to know about the process, but it’s all in the video, check it out. I also go into how to setup your animation cycles and the controllers you need to get the character to move around in the game.

To those who have purchased Creating Game Art for 3D Engines, this method should allow you to take the game art in the book (or any of your original game art) and bring it into the revolutionary Unity 3d game engine quite easily, and have your characters running around in the game in no time at all.

Bone-based characters should work exactly the same, by the way.

I’m trying to stay objective about the pros and cons of these two engines. I spent about a year with Torque before coming across Unity3D, and I have to be honest, the simplicity of the Unity editor rocks. It’s also nice to have completely automatic compiling and to publish a game to play in a browser in one button click.

But, Torque did have some nice environmental effects like windstorms and cloud movement, as well as some nice FPS tools like footprints.

Here are how the versions fall out at the moment. One thing that strikes me right off is that you can publish to the web with Unity Independent, but you cannot do that with Torque unless you buy the Pro version.  Another major difference is that Unity has no stipulations against using either version to create a “non-game” (simulation or educational game) whereas with Torque you can only create a non-game using the Studio version ($3000).

Unity Independent ($199)

Unity Pro ($1499)

Torque 3D Basic ($250)

Torque 3D Professional ($1000)

Torque 3D Studio ($3000)

Both engines have strong development communities and a plethora of resources. I haven’t taken the time as of yet to create a comparison matrix, but since I do make “non-games”, and I prefer that my games can play in a browser, I am currently leaning towards Unity.