Practical Game Development with Unity and Blender

✍ Scribed by Alan Thorn

• Publisher: Cengage Learning
• Year: 2014
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 353
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Today's game developers, particularly those working in smaller, independent studios, need to be expert generalists that is, skilled in a wide range of tasks, from coding and level design to 3D modeling, animation, and more. Beyond knowing how to make great games, they also need the perspective and the experience to develop products quickly-all while working with limited resources, time, and budgets. They must take a holistic approach to the art and science of game development, with an emphasis on optimizing workflow. In PRACTICAL GAME DEVELOPMENT WITH UNITY AND BLENDER, author and developer Alan Thorn presents a unique 10-stage workflow for development success, offering advice and ideas (and plenty of practical examples) for developing games quickly and efficiently using some of today's most popular (and free!) software tools. You'll work with Unity (game engine), Blender (3D modeling and animation), and GIMP (image editor), fusing them into a single, productive workflow. Far beyond simply teaching you to operate a specific piece of software, this book guides you through the full process of game creation, with concrete instruction and tangible examples (including project and asset files, available on the book's companion website). PRACTICAL GAME DEVELOPMENT WITH UNITY AND BLENDER will help you become a more powerful developer-the kind of broadly skilled generalist who can thrive at any game studio, large or small.

✦ Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 The 10-Stage Workflow
Introducing the 10-Stage Workflow
Stage 1: Brainstorming
Stage 2: Initial Design
Stage 3: Prototyping
Stage 4: Refining Design
Project Management
Stage 5: Asset Creation
Stage 6: Importing Assets
Stage 7: Level Design
Stage 8: Scripting
Stage 9: Testing
Stage 10: Building
Recommendations for Working Practice
Summary

Chapter 2 Blender-to-Unity Workflow
Configuring the Blender GUI
The Close-Without-Saving “Bug”
Exporting Blender Models to Unity
Exploring FBX Files
Tutorial: Importing FBX Files into Unity
Summary

Chapter 3 Modular Environments and Static Meshes
Advantages of the Modular Method
Getting Started with Modular Environments in Blender
Extending from the Base Tile
Modular Environment Blender Workflow
UV Mapping and Texture Creation
Importing and Configuring Environments in Unity
Using Prefabs
Static Batching
Summary

Chapter 4 Terrain
Creating Terrain in Unity
Evaluating Unity Terrains
Blender Terrain Modeling
Terrain Resolution
Texture-Painting Terrain
Working with Roads and Paths
Summary

Chapter 5 Animation Workflows
Animation Units: The Keyframe
Preparing for Animation in Blender
Keyframe Animations from Blender to Unity
Follow-Path Animations and Animation Baking
Blend Shapes and Shape Keys
Bones and Rigging
Summary

Chapter 6 Objects, Dependencies, and Event-Driven Programming
Hard-Coded Dependencies
Solving DI: Component-Based Design and Messages
Taking Messages Further: BroadcastMessage and Hierarchies
Sending Messages to Selected Objects
Sending Messages to Parents
Notification System
NotificationsManager In-Depth
Singletons
Messages and Active Objects
Traversing Game Object Hierarchies
Summary

Chapter 7 Retopologizing
High-Poly Meshes and Subdivision Surfaces
High-Poly Meshes and Real-Time Games
Retopologizing in Practice
Using Decimate
Summary

Chapter 8 Saved Games and Persistent Data
Persistent Data
Player Preferences
Player Preferences: Going Further
Customizing Persistent Data
XML Files—or JSON or Binary?
Class Serialization
Getting Started with XML Serialization
Saving Data to an XML File
Read Data from an XML File
Working with the SaveState Class
Summary

Chapter 9 Baking
What Is Baking?
Preparing for Lightmapping in Unity
Lightmapping: Lightmap Resolution
Lightmapping Mode
Indirect Illumination and Ambient Occlusion
Baking Lightmaps
Baking Maps in Blender
Compositing Render Passes in GIMP
Baking Real-Time Lighting with Unity Light Probes
Baking Navigation
Summary

Chapter 10 Unity, Blender, and Other Software
Other Software
MakeHuman
GIMP
Inkscape
MyPaint and Krita
Synfig Studio
Tiled
MonoDevelop
BMFONT
TexturePacker
LibreOffice
Anime Studio Pro
Audacity
SFXR
Summary

Appendix A Game Development Resources

Index

✦ Subjects

Programming; Game Development; Unity; Unity3d; Blender