A recipe-based guide to give you practical information on Unity 5.x animation techniques and tools About This Book A straightforward and easy-to-follow format. A selection of the most important tasks and problems. Carefully organized instructions to solve problems efficiently. Clear explanations of what you did. Solutions that can be applied to solve real-world problems. Who This Book Is For This book is for Unity developers who have some exposure to Unity game development who want to learn the nuances of animation in Unity. Previous knowledge of animation techniques and mecanim is not necessary. What You Will Learn Importing animations to Unity Work with different animation assets and components Create, visualize, and edit animated creatures Animating game cut scenes Design character actions and expressions Create gameplay by animating characters and environments Use animations to drive in-game logic In Detail This recipe-based practical guide will show you how to unleash the power of animation in Unity 5.x and make your games visually impeccable. Our primary focus is on showing you tools and techniques to animate not only humanoid biped characters, but also other elements. This includes non-humanoid character animation, game world creation, UI element animation, and other key features such as opening doors, changing lights, transitioning to different scenes, using physics, setting up ragdolls, creating destructible objects and more. While discussing these topics, the book will focus on mecanim, the Unity 3D animation tool, and how you can use it to perform all these tasks efficiently and quickly. It contains a downloadable Unity project with interactive examples for all the recipes. By the end of this book, you will be confident and self-sufficient in animating your Unity 3D games efficiently. Style and approach This practical no-nonsense guide is recipe-based with real-world examples of almost all the techniques mentioned.

Over 100 recipes exploring the new and exciting features of Unity 5 to spice up your Unity skillset About This Book Built on the solid foundation of the popular Unity 4.x Cookbook, the recipes in this edition have been completely updated for Unity 5 Features recipes for both 2D and 3D games Provides you with techniques for the new features of Unity 5, including the new UI system, 2D game development, new Standard Shaders, and the new Audio Mixer Who This Book Is For From beginners to advanced users, from artists to coders, this book is for you and everyone in your team! Programmers can explore multimedia features, and multimedia developers can try their hand at scripting. Basic knowledge and understanding of the Unity platform, game design principles, and programming knowledge in C# is essential. What You Will Learn Immerse players with great audio, utilizing Unity 5's audio features including the new Audio Mixer, ambient sound with Reverb Zones, dynamic soundtracks with Snapshots, and balanced audio via Ducking Create better materials with Unity's new, physically-based, Standard Shader Measure and control time, including pausing the game, displaying clocks and countdown timers, and even implementing “bullet time” effects Improve ambiance through the use of lights and effects such as reflection and light probes Create stylish user interfaces with the new UI system, including power-bars, clock displays, and an extensible inventory system Save and load text and media assets from local or remote sources, publish your game via Unity Cloud, and communicate with websites and their databases to create online scoreboards Discover advanced techniques, including the publisher-subscriber and state patterns, performance bottleneck identification, and methods to maximize game performance and frame rates Control 2D and 3D character movement, and use NavMeshAgents to write NPC and enemy behaviors such as seek, flee, flock, and waypoint path following In Detail Unity 5 is a flexible and intuitive multiplatform game engine that is becoming the industry's de facto standard. Learn to craft your own 2D and 3D computer games by working through core concepts such as animation, audio, shaders, GUI, lights, cameras, and scripting to create your own games with Unity 5. Completely re-written to cover the new features of Unity 5, this book is a great resource for all Unity game developers, from those who have recently started using Unity right up to Unity professionals. The first half of the book focuses on core concepts of 2D game design while the second half focuses on developing 3D game development skills. In the first half, you will discover the new GUI system, the new Audio Mixer, external files, and animating 2D characters in 2D game development. As you progress further, you will familiarize yourself with the new Standard Shaders, the Mecanim system, Cameras, and the new Lighting features to hone your skills towards building 3D games to perfection. Finally, you will learn non-player character control and explore Unity 5's extra features to enhance your 3D game development skills. Style and approach Each chapter first introduces the topic area and explains how the techniques covered can enhance your games. Every recipe provides step-by-step instructions, followed by an explanation of how it all works, and useful additional refinements or alternative approaches. Every required resource and C# script (fully commented) is available to download, enabling you to follow each recipe yourself.

Unity is a feature-rich, fully-integrated development engine that provides out-of-the-box functionality for the creation of interactive 3D content. It is an exciting engine that has a rich and sophisticated animation system called Mecanim. Unity Animation Essentials offers a comprehensive introduction to powerful animation tools and principles in Unity, which can be used to make great games. This book starts by exploring core animation concepts and then dives deeper to demonstrate their practical application in real-time games. This book shares extensive and useful insights to create animations using a professional grade workflow, and to create responses and interactive scenes. Each chapter focuses on a specific range of topics, from timing and events to character animation and particle systems. By the end of the book, you should be able to fully utilize the powers of Mecanim and Unity.

Over 60 recipes to help you create professional and exquisite UIs to make your games more immersive About This Book Design and develop interactive and professional user interfaces (UIs) for games in Unity Discover how to implement and deal with various in-game UI elements that will impress your players This practical recipe guide will help you to efficiently create powerful and remarkable UIs using C# code Who This Book Is For If you are a game developer with some experience in Unity and C# and want to create the best interactive experience fast and intuitively, then this book is for you. If you are an intermediate game developer or an expert, these recipes will help you bring out the power of the new UI Unity system. What You Will Learn Implement different kinds of counters and healthbars Deal with timers and find out how to format them Animate and vivify UI elements Handle runtime customizations Add complex Head-up displays (HUDs) Design and implement 3D UIs Integrate minimaps in the UI In Detail With the increasing interest in game development, it's essential to design and implement a UI that reflects the game settings and shows the right information to the player. The Unity system is used to create complex and aesthetically pleasing user interfaces in order to give a professional look and feel to a game. Although the new Unity UI system is powerful and quite easy to use, by integrating it with C# scripts, it's possible to realize the potential of this system and bring an impressive UI to games. This guide is an invaluable collection of recipes if you are planning to use Unity to develop a game. Starting with the basic concepts of the UI components, we'll take you all the way through to creating complex interfaces by including animations and dynamics elements. Based on real-world problems, these recipes will start by showing you how to make common UI elements such as counters and healthbars. You will then get a walkthrough of how to manage time using timers, and will learn how to format them. You will move on to decorating and animating the UI elements to vivify them and give them a professional touch. Furthermore, you will be guided into the 3D UI world and into HUD scripting. Finally, you will discover how to implement complex minimaps in the interface. Style and approach Interactive, easy-to-follow recipes will help you create and implement UIs that make gaming an exhilarating experience.

A detailed guide to the complex new animation tools in Unity, packed with clear instructions and illustrated with original content in the context of a next generation zombie apocalypse adventure game About This Book Create and export models and animation sequences to Unity from 3ds max and Maya Prepare character models and animation for games using Mecanim's rigging tools Retarget, adjust, and mix and match motion capture and other animation data Write and edit scripts compatible with Mecanim Animation Controllers Who This Book Is For If you are a Unity developer looking to get to grips with the character animation specific tools, a 3D software user who is new to Unity, or a beginner game developer who is interested in character animation and interaction, this book is ideal for you. Some experience with either the Unity interface or basic 3D coordinates is recommended, but not required. What You Will Learn Learn how to prepare a rigged character model to receive animation within Unity Acquire efficient techniques to refine and optimize motion capture data Retarget animation sequences between different character rigs Discover how to rig a humanoid character and export for use in Unity Script character interaction for a First Person character model Create dynamic animation sequences from scratch using keyframe techniques, in a variety of 3D software packages Learn Project Management in Unity Understand how to set up a complex facial rig for speech Set up Animation Controllers with masked states and blend trees to create seamless and additive animation transitions Construct a ragdoll game object and instantiate it in a game Devise Mecanim animation integration for the player and AI driven animation for enemy characters In Detail Game animation for independent developers has taken a giant leap forward with Unity 5's Mecanim toolset, which streamlines the import/export, retargeting, and many other aspects of the character animation workflow. Unity Character Animation with Mecanim is a great primer for getting to know the nuts and bolts of Mecanim and other character animation related tools in Unity 5. It offers you step-by-step instructions for preparing and exporting rigged models and animation sequences from commonly used 3D packages, such as Maya, 3ds Max and Blender. This book explores the new set of animation tools introduced with Mecanim in Unity 5. Approaching its subject matter through a typical genre–a zombie action game, character animation techniques are explored using real examples of player input and interaction, enemy behavior, and other aspects of game dynamics. As the book progresses, the reader will understand how these elements fit together in a small game development workflow. We will begin with a demonstration of the process of getting a rigged character into Unity 5 and setting it up to use provided animation sequences. We will also consider a few industry standard 3D packages and how these can be used to rig a humanoid character for use in Unity 5. We will demonstrate the retargeting capabilities of Mecanim's Humanoid Animation type by adjusting motion sequences to fit disparate character types in our game. After this, we will look at Ragdoll physics and the implementation of this commonly used technique in a Mecanim workflow. The book culminates with a thorough dissection of the enemy character AI script incorporating the Mecanim elements detailed in the previous chapters. Unity Character Animation with Mecanim will provide you with a detailed exploration of the interaction between game development and character animation, and will broaden your understanding of the rich animation toolset within Unity 5. Style and approach A comprehensive guide, featuring step- by- step practical tutorials using sample assets, showing you how to build fully controllable characters and non-player characters/enemies.

Master the art of Shader programming to bring life to your Unity projects About This Book This book will help you master the technique of physically based shading in Unity 5 to add realism to your game quickly through precise recipes From an eminent author, this book offers you the fine technicalities of professional post-processing effects for stunning results This book will help you master Shader programming through easy-to-follow examples to create stunning visual effects that can be used in 3D games and high quality graphics. Who This Book Is For Unity Effects and Shader Cookbook is written for developers who want to create their first Shaders in Unity 5 or wish to take their game to a whole new level by adding professional post-processing effects. A solid understanding of Unity is required. What You Will Learn Understand physically based rendering to fit the aesthetic of your game Enter the world of post-processing effects to make your game look visually stunning Add life to your materials, complementing Shader programming with interactive scripts Design efficient Shaders for mobile platforms without sacrificing their realism Use state-of-the-art techniques such as volumetric explosions and fur shading Build your knowledge by understanding how Shader models have evolved and how you can create your own Discover what goes into the structure of Shaders and why lighting works the way it does Master the math and algorithms behind the most used lighting models In Detail Since their introduction to Unity, Shaders have been notoriously difficult to understand and implement in games: complex mathematics have always stood in the way of creating your own Shaders and attaining that level of realism you crave. With Shaders, you can transform your game into a highly polished, refined product with Unity's post-processing effects. Unity Shaders and Effects Cookbook is the first of its kind to bring you the secrets of creating Shaders for Unity3D—guiding you through the process of understanding vectors, how lighting is constructed with them, and also how textures are used to create complex effects without the heavy math. We'll start with essential lighting and finishing up by creating stunning screen Effects just like those in high quality 3D and mobile games. You'll discover techniques including normal mapping, image-based lighting, and how to animate your models inside a Shader. We'll explore the secrets behind some of the most powerful techniques, such as physically based rendering! With Unity Shaders and Effects Cookbook, what seems like a dark art today will be second nature by tomorrow. Style and approach The recipes in this book contain step-by-step instructions, complemented by screenshots and code, and real-world examples.

Create 'AAA' quality game audio with new features and tools built for Unity About This Book Explore the basics of audio development in Unity to create spatial sound, mixing, effects, composition, adaptive audio and more. Leverage the Audio Mixer of Unity 5.x to create blockbuster sound and music for your game. Learn about developing professional audio for games with FMOD Studio and composing original music with Reaper. Build amazing audio synchronized graphic visualizations with Unity. Understand how real-time character lip syncing can be implemented. Who This Book Is For The ideal target audience for this book will be game developers, both Indie as well as semi pro. No prior knowledge of Unity and audio development is assumed, What You Will Learn Develop game audio and other audio effects with Unity Getting familiar with the new Audio Mixer introduced in Unity 5 Implement dynamic and adaptive audio using various tools and strategies Explore interesting ways to incorporate audio into a game with sound visualization Use 3rd party professional audio development tools like FMOD Compose original music and record vocals Understand and troubleshoot audio performance issues In Detail Game Audio is one of the key components in making a game successful and it is quite popular in the gaming industry. So if you are a game developer with an eye on capturing the gamer market then this book is the right solution for you. In this book, we will take you through a step by step journey which will teach you to implement original and engaging soundtracks and SFX with Unity 5.x. You will be firstly introduced to the basics of game audio and sound development in Unity. After going through the core topics of audio development: audio sources, spatial sound, mixing, effects, and more; you will then have the option of delving deeper into more advanced topics like dynamic and adaptive audio. You will also learn to develop dynamic and adaptive audio using the Unity Audio Mixer. Further, you will learn how professional third party tools like FMOD are used for audio development in Unity. You will then go through the creation of sound visualization techniques and creating your own original music using the simple yet powerful audio workstation Reaper. Lastly, you will go through tips, techniques and strategies to help you optimize game audio performance or troubleshoot issues. At the end of the book, you'll have gained the skills to implement professional sound and music. Along with a good base knowledge audio and music principles you can apply across a range of other game development tools. Style and approach This book will have a step by step practical approach where downloadable free games will be given with the book and readers will be free to work with them.

Unity is a top industry choice, perfected for video game development, simulation creation, and environmental design. Its accessibility, flexible tuning, and fair licensing have made it the number one option for independent developers throughout the world. From the basics to a playable demo, this book will help you build levels in Unity with hands-on practices. Full of practical examples, it will start by getting you comfortable with the engine as it will enable you to freely navigate and complete tutorials with ease. The book will walk you through the technical requirements of importing your own assets, created with popular 2D and 3D applications, and how to optimize and enhance them with Unity. By the end of the book, you will get accustomed to Unity editor and will be able to develop a fully-featured game world in Unity.

Summary Manning's bestselling and highly recommended Unity book has been fully revised! Unity in Action, Second Edition teaches you to write and deploy games with the Unity game development platform. You'll master the Unity toolset from the ground up, adding the skills you need to go from application coder to game developer. Foreword by Jesse Schell, author of The Art of Game Design Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the Technology Build your next game without sweating the low-level details. The Unity game development platform handles the heavy lifting, so you can focus on game play, graphics, and user experience. With support for C# programming, a huge ecosystem of production-quality prebuilt assets, and a strong dev community, Unity can get your next great game idea off the drawing board and onto the screen! About the Book Unity in Action, Second Edition teaches you to write and deploy games with Unity. As you explore the many interesting examples, you'll get hands-on practice with Unity's intuitive workflow tools and state-of-the-art rendering engine. This practical guide exposes every aspect of the game dev process, from the initial groundwork to creating custom AI scripts and building easy-to-read UIs. And because you asked for it, this totally revised Second Edition includes a new chapter on building 2D platformers with Unity's expanded 2D toolkit. What's Inside Revised for new best practices, updates, and more! 2D and 3D games Characters that run, jump, and bump into things Connect your games to the internet About the Reader You need to know C# or a similar language. No game development knowledge is assumed. About the Author Joe Hocking is a software engineer and Unity expert specializing in interactive media development. Table of Contents PART 1 - First steps Getting to know Unity Building a demo that puts you in 3D space Adding enemies and projectiles to the 3D game Developing graphics for your game PART 2 - Getting comfortable Building a Memory game using Unity's 2D functionality Creating a basic 2D Platformer Putting a GUI onto a game Creating a third-person 3D game: player movement and animation Adding interactive devices and items within the game PART 3 - Strong finish Connecting your game to the internet Playing audio: sound effects and music Putting the parts together into a complete game Deploying your game to players' devices

Explore the world of Virtual Reality by building immersive and fun VR projects using Unity 3D About This Book Learn the basic principles of virtual reality applications and get to know how they differ from games and desktop apps Build various types of VR experiences, including diorama, first-person characters, riding on rails, 360 degree projections, and social VR A project-based guide that teaches you to use Unity to develop VR applications, which can be experienced with devices such as the Oculus Rift or Google Cardboard Who This Book Is For If you're a non-programmer unfamiliar with 3D computer graphics, or experienced in both but new to virtual reality, and are interested in building your own VR games or applications then this book is for you. Any experience in Unity is an advantage. What You Will Learn Create 3D scenes with Unity and Blender while learning about world space and scale Build and run VR applications for consumer headsets including Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard Build interactive environments with physics, gravity, animations, and lighting using the Unity engine Experiment with various user interface (UI) techniques that you can use in your VR applications Implement the first-person and third-person experiences that use only head motion gestures for input Create animated walkthroughs, use 360-degree media, and build multi-user social VR experiences Learn about the technology and psychology of VR including rendering, performance and VR motion sickness Gain introductory and advanced experience in Unity programming with the C# language In Detail What is consumer “virtual reality”? Wearing a head-mounted display you view stereoscopic 3D scenes. You can look around by moving your head, and walk around using hand controls or motion sensors. You are engaged in a fully immersive experience. On the other hand, Unity is a powerful game development engine that provides a rich set of features such as visual lighting, materials, physics, audio, special effects, and animation for creating 2D and 3D games. Unity 5 has become the leading platform for building virtual reality games, applications and experiences for this new generation of consumer VR devices. Using a practical and project-based approach, this book will educate you about the specifics of virtual reality development in Unity. You will learn how to use Unity to develop VR applications which can be experienced with devices such as the Oculus Rift or Google Cardboard. We will then learn how to engage with virtual worlds from a third person and first person character point of view. Furthermore, you will explore the technical considerations especially important and possibly unique to VR. The projects in the book will demonstrate how to build a variety of VR experiences. You will be diving into the Unity 3D game engine via the interactive Unity Editor as well as C-Sharp programming. By the end of the book, you will be equipped to develop rich, interactive virtual reality experiences using Unity. So, let's get to it! Style and approach This book takes a practical, project-based approach to teach specifics of virtual reality development in Unity. Using a reader-friendly approach, this book will not only provide detailed step-by-step instructions but also discuss the broader context and applications covered within.