Unity Courses

Unity is a development engine for 2D and 3D games and experiences. It supports Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for user interactions. While the top three uses of Unity continue to be games and interactive experiences, pre-visualization for films, and architecture visualization, Unity is steadily growing in many other industries. Imagine new customer experiences and training videos that include user participation. The ability to interactively engage users increases the power of a presentation. Unity has become the go-to tool for distance teaching videos and interactive tutorials. Unlike other game engines, Unity does not create games. The company’s focus remains to build the best game engine for anyone in the world with an idea.

Coding is not a requirement. Unity includes a visual scripting tool called Bolt, which doesn't require coding and provides two graph types for users to implement their ideas. Flow Graphs allow the user to implement game flow for low-level logic and complex tasks. State Graphs implement finite state machines (FSM) for high-level logic and state management. Bolt allows users to edit and create graphs in Play Mode, enabling users to build and prototype games while playing them. Bolt is available for download from the Unity Asset Store. PlayMaker is a fee-based visual coding tool also available for use with Unity. Developers prototype gameplay and artificial intelligence (AI) behaviors associated with objects. INSIDE and Hearthstone are Unity games developed with PlayMaker. Adventure Creator is another paid visual scripting tool available for use with Unity. Developers create professional-looking 2D and 3D games using Adventure Creator without writing a single line of code.

Unity operates like a generic scene player. It is a game runner with a collection of assets. When the game starts, Unity initializes the settings for the interfaces it needs to run, including graphics, audio, and input devices. After the splash scene, the first scene of the game loads. The scene contains a hierarchy of the game objects and the assets. Unity loads all instances of the scripts with reference to them. After initialization, Unity runs in a loop or cycle, executing each game scene. The scene order is based on the hierarchy loaded during initialization. The cycle starts with rendering the scene for the game camera, executing physics simulations and scripted events. Then Unity executes the Update and LateUpdate scene scripts and internal operations. Repeating this cycle steps the user through the scene states rendering the full game experience.