Installing Unity and Getting Started with Game Development
Hello and welcome to my article on installing Unity and getting started with game development. Unity is a powerful game development tool that is used by hobbyists, small independent developers, as well as large AAA development studios. With Unity you can develop games for handheld devices, Gaming PC’s, as well as game consoles. You can also create nongame applications for use in education, science, health and wellness, and marketing. The team at Unity is constantly developing new features for this powerful development tool that allows us to push the envelop of todays hardware architectures. Today is an exciting time to get involved in game development. So let’s go to Unity.com and download this fantastic software development package.
First, we type “Unity.com” and hit “Enter”. The home page you see in the future may not be the same as the one above; Unity is constantly improving how they serve the Game Developer Community.
Next, click the blue “Get started” button to “Break the barriers of reality and bring new ideas to life with Unity”.
After clicking “Get started”, a “Plans and pricing” window appears for “Teams”. We need to click on the “Individual” tab.
Under the “Personal” heading, click on the blue “Get started” button.
Click the blue “Start here” button.
Now we are presented with the “Terms of Service”. If you meet the criteria and are ok with Unity’s “Privacy Policy” then click the “Agree and download” button.
Now we need to select where we want to save the “Unity Hub Setup” program. Unity Hub is a standalone application that streamlines the way you find, download, and manage your Unity Projects and installations.
After the download has completed, we need to start the installation. You can double click on “UnityHubSetup.exe”, or click the downward pointing arrow and select “Open”. Follow the prompts during the installation. Once we have Unity Hub installed we need to sign in with our Unity account.
If you do not have a Unity account, you will need to create one. This is done by clicking the blue “create one”. You can also create an account by going to “Unity.com”, then click on the blue circle with the icon of a person in it in the upper right corner on the web page (see below).
Enter your “Email”, “Username”, “Password”, and “Full Name”. Check the three boxes, click “I’m not a robot”, and then click the green “Create a Unity ID” button. Your Unity ID is very important. This is how Unity allows you to keep track of your progress in the free training section, as well as your assets you purchased ( including the free ones) from the Unity Asset Store.
Click on “Installs”, then the “Add” button.
Next, we will select a version of Unity. Lets select the “Recommended Release” of “Unity 2020.3.1f1 (LTS)” and select “NEXT” in the lower right corner. “LTS” stands for long term support. This means this version will be maintained by Unity for at least two years. We can also add an older version of Unity to follow along with a training course that was made with a earlier version of Unity.
Next, we will be prompted to add modules to our download. Please note that these modules can be added later as well. Click “NEXT”.
Read and agree with the “Terms and Conditions”, check the box, then click “DONE”.
Your Windows “User Account Control (UAC)” may prompt you for your permission to continue. Click the “YES” button.
We can monitor the download progress in the Unity Hub “Installs” window.
After the download / install has completed, click on the “Projects” tab. Then click on the blue “NEW” button in the upper right corner.
In the “Create a new project with Unity…” window, we can assign a name and storage location for our project. The “3D” template will be suitable for most projects. Click on the blue “Create” button to continue.
By clicking on the blue down arrow, located to the right of the “NEW” button, we can choose the version of Unity we want to use for our project. This may be helpful if you are following an older Unity tutorial, or using a plugin that hasn’t been updated for the newer versions yet. Choose your version, then select a project name and location and click on the blue “Create” button.
Unity will install the selected modules and support files for your project.
Your project is now ready for development. Do not feel intimidated by what you see before you. Every child learns to crawl, walk, then run. So lets crawl to the Unity Hub and select “Learn”.
Here is a great place to begin your learning. There is more at learn.unity.com and if you are interested in training for a career in games development, check out gamedevhq.com.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Lao Tzu
The rest is up to you…Go change the world, one program at a time.
