Introduction to Unity Development without Coding, Divided into 4 Parts

Eng | Rus

Description

This is a short course designed to introduce students to the Unity editor and the development of VR games without writing code.

The course was successfully conducted over 4 days, with each session lasting 3 hours, aimed at 16-year-old high school students. By the end, each participant was able to develop their own game resembling Beat Saber.

Supporting assets and a brief plan were developed for the course. After completion, the plan and resources were refined based on the children's needs.

Course Plan

The course consists of several sessions:

1. Introduction to the Unity engine and basics of VR game development:

   • Introduction, explanation of what Unity is, projects developed with Unity, introduction to VR, etc.
   • Creating a new project.
   • Basics of the Unity interface (layout of main tools, panels, and windows).
   • Creating the first game object and placing it in the scene.

   --- Break ---

   • Importing necessary VR packages such as OpenXR.
   • Setting up the development environment for VR.
   • Adding a placeholder for the player XR\Device-based\XR Origin (XR Rig).
   • Continuing work with the Unity editor.
   • Testing and bug fixing.

2. Beginning development of the game level and gameplay mechanics:

   • Creating a new project, importing supporting assets with templates (located in releases), setting up the project for VR.
   • Opening the scene Project Files\Scenes\Gameplay.
   • Learning to use the Unity Asset Store, importing and using assets in the project.
   • Creating and refining the game environment.
   • Adding a placeholder for the player XR\Device-based\XR Origin (XR Rig).

   --- Break ---

   • Creating an empty object and adding a Game manager component to it.
   • Creating variations of flying cube prefabs, configuring them, and placing them in the scene.
   • Creating variations of sword prefabs, configuring them, and placing them in the hands.
   • Disabling Raycasts for player hands.
   • Opening build settings, adding the scene, and creating the first build.
   • Testing and bug fixing.

3. Developing the main menu, game interface, and creating the Beat Saber gameplay:

   • Opening the scene Project Files\Scenes\MainMenu.
   • Creating a floor, adding the player XR\Device-based\XR Origin (XR Rig).
   • Creating the main game menu, which should contain the game title (Text), exit (Button), and start (Button).
   • Adding the MainMenuUI component to the main menu object and linking buttons to references.
   • Opening build settings (Build Settings..), adding the scene as the very first one, and creating a build.
   • Testing and bug fixing.

   --- Break ---

   • Opening the scene Project Files\Scenes\Gameplay.
   • Creating an object behind the player for cubes to collide with and adding a Destroyer component to it to track missed objects.
   • Searching for music online and downloading it.
   • Transferring the music to the project and adding it to the game.
   • Deleting all previously created cubes.
   • Creating an empty object and adding a CubesSpawnerRandom component to it.
   • Creating child empty objects from which cubes will fly out.
   • Moving the spawner to the desired distance from the player and attaching cube prefabs to the spawner.
   • Testing and bug fixing.
   • Refining game scenes.

4. Improving gameplay and creating the final game build:

   • Opening the scene Project Files\Scenes\Gameplay.
   • Creating a scoreboard interface, which should contain two static texts for life and score parameters (Text), and two texts to display the actual life and score counts (Text).
   • Adding the StatisticsUI component to the canvas and linking text components to be replaced with the score counts.
   • Testing and bug fixing.

   --- Break ---

   • Refining the project as desired.

Note

Adjusting game parameters:

• Life count - Game manager - Health On Start.
• Cube movement speed - Game manager - Game Data - Cub Speed.
• Cube spawn frequency - Cubes Spawner Random - Beat.
• Sword type - Saber - Side Type.
• Cube type - Cube - Side Type.

Screenshots

Example of the Final Project

Some Student Projects

Project 1

Project 2

Project 3