Start your journey into becoming an expert game developer by learning one of the world’s most popular Unity game engine – all for free in the complete Unity engine tutorial above! You can also download the project files used for the course below.

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In this Unity tutorial created by Daniel Buckley, you’ll dive into the basics of the Unity game engine which allows you to develop 2D, 3D, VR, and AR games, mobile content, training apps, and more. You’ll first discover the Unity Engine platform, how to create a Unity project, navigate Unity’s Editor, edit game objects, apply materials to objects, and adjust lights and physics in various ways. After, you’ll dive into the C# Scripting system and learn a few core scripting techniques to build your first interactive project!

Whether you want to build games, training apps, or something similar, these foundations will form the core knowledge you’ll need to build any sort of Unity Engine game or project in the future!

New to Unity Engine? Enroll in UNITY 101 – GAME DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATIONS on our website and find quick access to additional resources!

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Whether you’re a newcomer to Unity or an experienced developer, advancing your career with game development can be a fantastic path to take. However, there is a lot of competition – so what can you do to highlight your own self? The answer is Unity Certification, which can prove your credentials and is industry-recognized!

In this article, we’re going to focus specifically on the Unity Associate Game Developer Certification, get you excited about it, and then get you learning the materials you’ll need to obtain it!

Let’s get started!

What is the Unity Associate Game Developer Certification?

Unity’s Associate Game Developer Certification is designed for aspiring developers with intermediate skills who can take a game from an initial idea to completion. The certification will showcase a receiver’s mastery of Unity, proving their worthiness for a professional game development role.

Those that take the Associate Game Developer Certification will have a background in computer programming or be self-taught hobbyists with detailed knowledge of Unity and C#, including audio, animation, and game physics. Rather than focusing on more minor details, this exam focuses on the broader picture of game development and design.

To qualify for the Unity Associate Game Developer Certification, you’ll need to:

• Build complex games using C# in Unity
• Understand end-to-end game production
• Have previously built a game for publication
• Be confident using prototypes, debugging, and solving programming issues

When taking the exam, you’ll cover a range of topics, including:

• Animation
• Audio
• Asset management
• Employment preparedness
• Game art and design principles
• Industry awareness
• Lighting
• Materials and effects
• Physics & Programming
• Project management & services

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The Benefits of the Associate Game Developer Certification

Unity is an influential game engine, powering half the world’s games. Unity-made applications are used by 2 billion people every month, with 1.5 million creators using Unity to create new and innovative games and applications.

Learning how to use Unity will improve your chances of breaking into the gaming industry, and receiving an Associate Game Developer Certification proves to employers that you’re skilled in game design and development.

Here are the main benefits of taking the Unity Associate Game Developer Certification.

Become a Unity game developer

Receiving a Unity Certification allows you to stand out against your competitors as it’s a recognized qualification in the game development world. Even better, many Unity-based jobs will list a Unity Certification as a preferred requirement, helping you better your chances of becoming a game developer.

Showcase your skills

To take the Unity Associate Game Developer course, you’ll need advanced skills in both Unity and C#. You should be able to make intricate games from conception to reality. Having a Certification will prove your skillset to potential employers, allowing you to stand out in a busy crowd.

What courses are best to prepare for the Associate Game Developer Certification?

Taking the Unity Associate Game Developer Certification requires significant skill, and you’ll need advanced knowledge of Unity and C# to qualify.

It’s essential to build your knowledge practically by making fully-fledged games suitable for your professional portfolio. Luckily, there are plenty of advanced online courses you can take to improve your knowledge of Unity and C# practically by building games.

Here are the best advanced online courses you can take that are suitable to prepare for Unity’s Associate Game Developer Certification.

Unity Game Development Mini-Degree

As mentioned above, preparing for this exam isn’t just about learning Unity, it’s also about having proven game development projects under your belt. What if you could do both at the same time though?

In Zenva’s Unity Game Development Mini-Degree, you’ll go through a comprehensive set of courses that cover just about everything you might want to know about Unity. It covers everything from various tools offered by the engine, and up to covering specific genre mechanics. All the courses are project-based, so you’ll also get plenty of items to add to your portfolio. This includes things such as RPGs, FPS games, racing games, idle clickers, and much more!

Plus, Zenva’s courses also offer a ton of supplemental learning material. Like to read other people’s code? There are downloadable course files of the complete projects! Aren’t a video person? There are text-based summaries that can be used to learn independently of the video!

With Zenva’s Unity Game Development Mini-Degree, you’ll learn:

• C# coding basics
• UI systems
• Audio effects
• Cinematic cutscenes
• Special effects
• Procedural terrain
• Animation

Skill level: Beginner. You don’t need prior experience in Unity or C#.

Duration: 36h 23m

How to access: Access the curriculum here.

Unity Advanced Tutorials

When it comes to game development, there are a surprising lot of details in terms of how mechanics are rendered. Likewise, there are a ton of Unity tools that aren’t so clear or have nuances that can make or break how your game feels.

The Unity Advanced Tutorials series by Brackeys seeks to demystify this. From specific nuances of game mechanics to just taking better advantage of Unity as a tool, this series has a little bit of everything. Nevertheless, it will vastly improve your skillset that you can use for game development.

As part of this course, you’ll cover key topics, including:

• Gravity simulation
• Dialogue systems
• Altering the Unity windows
• Making a level editor
• Reversing game time
• Making a loading bar
• Procedural generation
• Putting Unity projects on GitHub
• Using Unity Analytics
• Volumetric lighting
• Scriptable objects
• Object pooling
• Different combat styles

Skill level: Intermediate. You’ll need to know how to use Unity and program in C#.

Duration: 4h 31m

How to access: Access the series here.

Survival Game Development Academy

To reinforce a point above, the game developer certification is about showing you can take a game from idea to completion. So, understandably, having experience in making a larger, more complex game can be a big boost.

This is where we come to Zenva’s Survival Game Development Academy. Unlike many entries on this list where you’re learning bits and pieces of Unity and doing a different project every course, this curriculum is about making one singular project: a survival game. You’ll learn core mechanics such as player needs, crafting, base building, and combat – and with the breakdown into several courses, wind up with a fairly complex game project!

Plus, this curriculum is perfect for any skill level. If you haven’t ever used Unity before, the curriculum will guide you through the fundamental courses first before throwing you into the project.

All in all, though, the skills here feed directly into learning what being a game developer is all about and teaches you a ton of material that will be helpful for taking the exam.

As part of this course, you’ll cover key topics, including:

• Hunger, thirst, health, and sleep needs
• Day-night cycles
• Item and inventory systems
• Crafting mechanics
• Base building
• Combat and Enemy AI
• Game Saving

Skill level: Beginner. No prior knowledge of Unity or C# is needed.

Duration: 18h 45m

How to access: Access the curriculum here.

Learn to Program with C# – Unity Advanced Tutorials

While programming isn’t the focus of this specific certification, you can’t really ignore it. After all, you’re going to need to know C# pretty well in order to show the advanced level at which you can create games.

Thus, we include Learn to Program with C# – Unity Advanced Tutorials by GameDevHQ. This series of tutorials focuses on a few very specific aspects of C# that are not typically covered in a beginner’s level journey. However, as you advance in game development, you will find they are integral and well-used – so learning them will boost your skills immensely (even if you decide not to get certified).

As part of this course, you’ll cover key topics, including:

• Lists
• Enumus
• Structs vs Classes
• Nullable types
• Interfaces
• Delegate and events

Skill level: Intermediate.

Duration: 1h 46m

How to access: Access the series here.

EdTech Mini-Degree

Unity is for more than just making entertainment industry games. EdTech is revolutionizing how Unity is used with educational games and job training applications. The industry is already worth $6 trillion and is set to grow further.

For the purposes of certification, though, EdTech is also a fantastic way to explore unique Unity features and other advanced skills that otherwise never get covered.

The EdTech Mini-Degree by Zenva is designed to teach you everything you need to develop educational and training-based apps. You’ll cover topics including developing in 2D and 3D, using virtual reality, data analytics, and much more.

Each subsequent project featured in the curriculum gives you a chance to explore new applications for Unity – while also teaching you important facets involved in the software development cycle. Plus, as these skills are a bit more unique, it adds some extra material to your portfolio to stand out from the competition.

As part of this course, you’ll cover key topics, including:

• Coding basics with C# and Unity
• Quizzes featuring text, images, audio, and video
• Virtual reality applications
• Data-driven development with Unity Analytics
• Retrieving data with external APIs
• Voice and language recognition
• Text-recognition and text-to-audio

Skill level: Beginner. No prior coding experience is needed.

Duration: 21h 40m

How to access: Access the curriculum here.

Learn Unity Engine and C# by creating a real top-down RPG

Similar to an earlier entry, a good portion of this exam is about showcasing you can make games as a whole. So, making games as a whole is sure to help you actually prove that.

Learn Unity Engine and C# by creating a real top-down RPG by Epitome, as the title suggests, is all about teaching you various skills while building a fully scoped top-down RPG. Where this tutorial is slightly unique is that it focuses specifically on 2D – which is just as important to learn as 3D. Nevertheless, this course will put you through the gambit and make sure you have tons of key systems down pat!

As part of this course, you’ll cover key topics, including:

• Setting up
• Moving and Manual Collision Detection
• Tilemap and Designing Dungeon
• Interactive Objects and Inheritance
• Saving Game’s State
• Floating Text System
• Top Down Combat System
• Animator and Weapon Swing Animation
• Character Menu and the new UI System
• Polishing and Adding Content

Skill level: Novice. Some basic knowledge of Unity and C# is needed.

Duration: 7h 45m

How to access: Access the course here.

Game Design Academy

Game design is integral to developing a game. Game designers will conceptualize levels and characters, create engaging stories, and make the game feel cohesive through stylistic and narrative choices. While not “technical” in the same way coding is, it still requires purposeful choices and skills that show you can plan a game. So, though often overlooked, it is a huge step in the entire game development process.

Game Design Academy by Zenva is the perfect way to jump into this aspect of the game development process. You’ll explore the main principles of design using real-world examples, and discover how these fundamental concepts affect the overall feel of the game

More importantly, though, you’ll learn skills that will let you enhance your game projects, which in turn improves your overall Unity skills with new reasons to learn specific skills and tools.

As part of this course, you’ll cover key topics, including:

• Core game loop setup
• How to guide players
• Game feel
• Level design foundations
• Storytelling techniques

Skill level: Beginner. You don’t need any prior knowledge of Unity or C#.

Duration: 3h 5m

How to access: Access the curriculum here.

Unity’s Associate Game Developer Certification

Well, that’s all, folks – the best courses for the Associate Game Developer Certification. This certification will be a lot tougher than the previous User level. However, preparing for it with enrich your ability to make games as a whole.

This said, be assured there are a lot more courses out there, even on platforms like Zenva. The more you can learn about Unity and game development, the better off you’ll be. Plus, everyone’s learning style is different, so your “best” course may be different from what’s on the list.

Regardless, we hope these resources help, and best of luck on your certification exam!

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This said, standing out from the competition can be difficult, as the industry is also highly competitive. With the popular Unity engine, though, the Unity Certification program – which is industry recognized – allows you to gain credentials to boost your resume and portfolio.

In this article, we’re going to help you prepare to take the exam for the Unity Associate Programmer Certification with the best courses available. We’ve also designed this list to work for both beginners and experienced developers – so all skill levels are welcome!

Let’s jump in and start learning Unity!

What is the Unity Associate Programmer Certification?

Unity’s Associate Programmer Certification is a credential offered by Unity Technologies, the company behind the Unity game engine. The program showcases a coder’s skills and knowledge in Unity, including C# programming and game development.

Unlike the User Programmer Certification, the Associate level exam focuses primarily on C# coding, and you’ll need a detailed understanding of Unity’s API to script behaviors and objects, including UI elements, to receive this qualification. This Certification proves that you understand best practices for data structures and that you’re competent at debugging.

After passing the exam, individuals will receive the Unity Associate Programmer Certification, which they can use to demonstrate their skills and knowledge in Unity programming and game development to employers. The certification is valid for two years. After this time, individuals must renew their certificates by taking the exam again.

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The Benefits of the Associate Programmer Certification

The Unity Associate Programmer Certification is an advanced exam designed to showcase your skills as a game developer. Some of the benefits of this certification include the following:

Stand out in the job market

Having a certification from Unity helps individuals stand out in the job market since it proves significant skill and dedication to programming. In fact, many employers, including Unity, will list certification as a preferred requirement.

Build your programming skills

Unity’s Associate Programmer Certification is an advanced exam and involves rigorous training on many concepts within game development. As you train for the exam, you’ll develop your skills and knowledge in core aspects, including programming, scripting, game physics, and optimization.

Networking

By getting Unity Certification, you’ll have access to a growing community of professional game developers, including holders of the certification. Having a network can provide individuals with valuable opportunities for their future careers, including learning and collaboration.

What courses are best to prepare for the Associate Programmer Certification?

To prepare for Unity’s Associate Programmer Certification, you’ll need a strong understanding of the Unity game engine and C#, as well as core programming concepts. Luckily, there are many online courses suitable for learning game development that will prepare you for taking the certification. Along the way, you’ll be able to develop complete games that will form the basis of your professional portfolio.

Here are the best advanced online courses you can take that will help you qualify for Unity’s Associate Programmer Certification.

Unity Game Development Mini-Degree

While the Associate Certifications are the second level of certifications available, that doesn’t mean that aren’t achievable by beginners looking to establish goals for themselves.

Our first stop is therefore Zenva’s Unity Game Development Mini-Degree. This comprehensive curriculum offers a little bit of everything in regards to Unity. You’ll learn the fundamentals of the engine and C#, genre game mechanics, asset handling, animations, procedural generation, and much more.

This curriculum also takes a very practical project-based approach, so you’ll get the opportunity to build things such as FPS games and action RPGs for your portfolio. There are also supplemental materials such as downloadable course files and text-based lesson summaries. This means that it doesn’t matter how you learn – this curriculum can match what you need!

Plus, as mentioned, this curriculum was designed for people with zero knowledge. So, any skill level can practice with these courses!

You’ll learn:

• C# coding basics
• UI systems
• Audio effects
• Cinematic cutscenes
• Special effects
• Procedural terrain
• Animation

Skill level: Beginner. You don’t need prior experience in Unity or C#.

Duration: 36h 23m

How to access: Access the curriculum here.

C# Programming (Advanced)

As the title of the certification suggests, knowing how to program with C# is a super important aspect of this exam. However, remember that C# is a general-purpose language and was actually primarily created to make software. Thus, it doesn’t hurt to learn the language divorced from Unity.

The C# Programming (Advanced) series by Code Master does just that and focuses on C# from a software development perspective. However, the principles covered are near universal to all C# applications – so they can easily be applied back to Unity. This said, do be prepared – this series is intended for those with C# experience, and is heavily comprehensive in just about everything you can do with the C# language and programming in general!

With this course, you’ll learn the following and more:

• Delegates, lambdas, and events
• Generics
• IEnumerables
• LINQ
• Functional programming
• Dictionaries
• Lookups
• Joining data
• Programming patterns
• Anonymous types
• Conversions
• Structs and classes
• Indexers
• States
• Different architectures
• Component systems
• Zone systems
• Game mechanics such as inventories and dialogue trees

And much more!

Skill level: Intermediate. You’ll need some coding experience.

Duration: 17h 45m

How to access: Access the series here.

Survival Game Development Academy

In the complete opposite from the above, it’s also just as important to understand programming in the practical Unity setting. The best way to achieve this is simply by building games – and unsurprisingly, the more complex the systems the more you’ll learn about coding.

Zenva’s Survival Game Development Academy is a curriculum focused specifically on building one single survival game. However, in so doing, you can focus on a lot of game mechanics, such as crafting systems, inventory management, and enemy AI.

Due to the complexity of the project featured, you’ll get the opportunity to explore a ton of aspects of Unity’s API and C# in general, however, which is integral for taking the exam. Plus, you’ll get a nifty project for your professional portfolio as well.

As part of this course, you’ll cover survival game topics, including:

• Hunger, thirst, health, and sleep needs
• Day-night cycles
• Item and inventory systems
• Crafting mechanics
• Base building
• Combat and Enemy AI
• Game Saving

Skill level: Beginner. No prior knowledge of Unity or C# is needed.

Duration: 18h 45m

How to access: Access the curriculum here.

Learn to Program: C# Advanced Unity Tutorials

We’ve included a lot of comprehensive courses on this list, but what if you’re more interested in something a bit more simple and focused on just a few C# programming skills.

GameDevHQ’s Learn to Program: C# Advanced Unity Tutorials series is just for you then! Instead of learning everything you could ever imagine about C#, this series focuses on just a few advanced concepts that are both important and regularly used for game development. Thus, you can be assured there is no fluff here – just the exact material you’ll want to learn to code your game projects more efficiently.

As part of this course, you’ll cover key topics, including:

• Lists
• Enumus
• Structs vs Classes
• Nullable types
• Interfaces
• Delegate and events

Skill level: Intermediate.

Duration: 1h 46m

How to access: Access the series here.

2D RPG Academy

As part of preparing for the exam, we highly encourage exploring lots of different game mechanics. This forces you to learn and re-learn C# structures and systems, as well as focus on improving your coding efficiency.

The 2D RPG Academy by Zenva is a perfect choice when it comes to this. In this collection of courses, you’ll focus on creating a variety of 2D RPGs, including turn-based RPGs, farming sims, action RPGs, and rogue-like games.

As each project featured involves different systems, you’ll quickly expand what you can do with C# and 2D in general. Likewise, you’ll also reinforce programming certain features like character movement that are integral to any kind of game that needs to be created.

With this course, you’ll learn the following:

• Tile-based maps
• Melee & ranged attacks
• Items & inventories
• Randomized dungeons
• Mini-maps
• Enemy AIs

Skill level: Beginner. No prior coding experience is needed.

Duration: 19h 2m

How to access: Access the curriculum here.

Learn Unity Multiplayer

If you really want to advance your skills with C#, one of the best game types to practice with is multiplayer. Multiplayer involves a ton of more advanced concepts to consider when it comes to programming since networks are a subject unto themselves. Plus, with Unity’s new multiplayer system, it’s become fairly integrated with understanding the API.

Learn Unity Multiplayer by Code Monkey is the ultimate solution here. You’ll master a ton of things like synchronizing data, deciding the authoritative structure, using RPCs and network variables, balancing server-side and client-side data, and more.

There is little chance this won’t improve your C# skills in some way!

With this course, you’ll learn the following:

• Singleplayer Overview
• Install Netcode and Basic Setup
• Sync Player Movement, Client Vs Server Auth
• Sync Player Animations
• Sync Delivery Manager
• Fix Selected Counter Visual
• Sync Pick up Objects
• Sync Kitchen Object Parent
• Sync Trash Counter, Cutting Counter, Stove Counter
• Sync Plate Add Ingredients
• Player collisions
• Sync Game State & Sync Pause
• Handle Disconnects & Late Joins
• Connection Scene Flow
• Character Select Scene
• Lobby & Relay
• Game Server Hosting (Multiplay), Matchmaker, Vivox
• Multiplayer Debug Tools
• Singleplayer Option
• Gamepad Test

Skill level: Intermediate. You’ll need some coding knowledge to understand this course.

Duration: 6h 20m

How to access: Access the course here.

Strategy Game Development Academy

Strategy games aren’t just popular – they feature a ton of complicated systems. Thus, learning just how strategy games work and are programmed can be a big boost to your skills.

The Strategy Game Development Academy by Zenva allows you to explore a variety of different strategy game mechanics. You’ll learn everything from making city-builders with an emphasis on resource management to turn-based strategy games featuring multiplayer mechanics. You’ll even get to explore universal systems such as unlockable, tech research trees!

The breadth of variety here is astounding – but allows you to practice a ton of C# programming and cement it into your skill set. You can also practice expanding these games as well to further your skills and make certain you’re prepared for the exam to come.

With this course, you’ll learn the following:

• Strategy game mechanics
• Resource management
• Turn-based and real-time formats
• Enemy AI and state machines
• Multiplayer games with Photon networking

Skill level: Beginner. No prior knowledge of Unity or C# is needed.

Duration: 28h 33m

How to access: Access the curriculum here.

Unity Associate Programmer Certification Wrap Up

That brings us to the end of this list, and you should hopefully soon be ready to tackle the Associate Programmer Certification. Regardless of whether you pursue certification or not, though, these courses are sure to help you upskill.

All this said, we hope you continue to explore other courses available on platforms like Zenva and elsewhere. There is a lot to learn about Unity, and there are even higher-level certifications after this. More education on working with Unity can never hurt!

Good luck with your preparations, and we look forward to seeing new Unity experts out there in the future!

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The game industry is currently booming, projected to reach $372.00bn by 2023 and grow to $545.98 bn by 2028. For those interested in game art, now is a fantastic time to break into the industry with jobs galore available. However, even with a portfolio, game art is a super competitive field without some extra edge to bring you above the competition.

This is why having Unity’s User Artist Certification can give you a boost. It proves your skills, and proves your knowledge of the game engine itself (both highly valued skills for jobs). That said, how can you prepare for the exam?

In this article, we’re going to explore some fantastic courses available to help you master the art of game art and learn Unity – even if you have zero experience with the engine.

Let’s get started!

What is the Unity User Artist Certification?

Unity’s User Artist Certification showcases your core Unity skills to help you achieve a professional role as a Unity 2D and 3D artist. It will demonstrate that you can manage aspects of art assets, scene design, and use complex tools in Unity to make character creations.

To be eligible for this exam, you’ll need at least 150 hours of Unity experience and some basic knowledge of character creation, lighting, materials, and cameras. You’ll also need to undertake two to three semesters of Unity classwork or independent study and have a portfolio containing a range of completed Unity projects before applying.

Many holders of the Unity User Artist Certification will go on to become junior developers, junior artists, lighting and technical artists, content designers, or quality assurance testers.

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The Benefits of Unity’s User Artist Certification

Unity is the most popular game engine to date, powering half of all games worldwide. Making games using Unity will improve your chances of starting a game artist career.

Unity’s User Artist Certification is designed to showcase the professional knowledge of aspiring game artists to help them stand out against their competitors. Here are the benefits of receiving Unity’s User Artist Certification.

Boost your career chances

Having a Unity Certification will allow you to stand out in an incredibly competitive industry against hundreds of other applicants. It’s a rare credential in the game artistry industry and is used as proof that an individual has the skills needed to start a professional career. Alongside this, a Unity Certification proves dedication to being a game artist since it costs significant money and time to finish the exam.

Many Unity-based jobs list certification as a requirement, putting you in a great position to start your career in the gaming industry.

Improve your talents as an artist

You’ll need plenty of experience using Unity and C# to create game art before taking the Unity User Artist Certification, allowing you to improve your talents as a game artist. By spending at least 150 hours using Unity to create complicated characters and worlds, you’ll be more than ready to enter a professional career.

Showcase your technical skills

To obtain the Unity User Artist Certification, you need to have strong technical skills for games, apps, models, and simulations. You’ll be able to showcase your technical skills and proficiency in using Unity, one of the most popular game development programs.

What courses are best to prepare for Unity’s User Artist Certification?

To take Unity’s User Artist Certification, you need foundational knowledge of using Unity and C# for the purposes of game design. It is essential to study game artistry before applying to take the exam. Luckily, there are many online courses designed to help you improve your skills as a game designer so that you can take the Unity User Artist Certification.

Here are the best online courses you can take to prepare for Unity’s User Artist Certification.

Unity Game Development Mini-Degree

Passing the artist certification is as much about knowing Unity as it is about art. Zenva’s Unity Game Development Mini-Degree is a comprehensive curriculum designed around teaching you Unity from the ground up. You’ll work on everything from the foundations of Unity to building real-world projects that are perfectly suitable for bulking up any portfolio you might want to create.

Along the way, you’ll learn a ton of aspects relevant to the User Artist Certification – such as how the cameras work, how audio assets work, and even how to manage animations for your game projects (whether 2D or 3D).

Plus, all of Zenva’s courses offer tons of extra material to help with your learning process. This includes downloadable project files and text-based summaries so you can learn in whatever way suits you best!

With the Unity Game Development Mini-Degree, you’ll learn the following topics:

• C# coding basics
• UI systems
• Audio effects
• Cinematic cutscenes
• Special effects
• Procedural terrain
• Animation

Skill level: Beginner. You don’t need prior experience in Unity or C#.

Duration: 36h 23m

How to access: Access the curriculum here.

Intro to Game Development with Unity

If you want to start off a bit smaller with your Unity journey, Intro to Game Development with Unity by Zenva is the perfect starter.

This short course is focused specifically on people who have never used Unity in their life. As such, rather than throwing to you the deep end of the pool, it takes a light, hand-holding approach. You’ll discover how to set up Unity, what windows in the engine mean, how to work in 3D space with objects, and more. Of course, you’ll also discover some fundamentals around C# as well – so when you’re ready to start building games, you’ll have the key skills you’ll need.

By the end, the course will also get you building your first interactive project!

If you’re unsure, Zenva does offer a free sample of this course via Unity 101 – Game Development Foundations.

As part of this course, you’ll cover key topics, including:

• Installing and setting up Unity projects
• manipulating object size, position, and rotation
• How to change aesthetics with materials
• Coding variables and operators with C#
• Using various skills to create interactive games
• Building and deploying your games

Skill level: Beginner. No prior knowledge is needed.

Duration: 2h 7m

How to access: Access the course here.

Unity Pixel Art Game Tutorial – Complete Starting Setup

2D games are still thriving, so learning how those sorts of assets work in Unity is a good skill to have as well – especially for certification.

Through Unity Pixel Art Game Tutorial – Complete Starting Setup by Restful Coder, you’ll explore how to take 2D pixel art assets and bring them into Unity for game projects. This includes how to paint tilemaps in the engine, how to import your assets properly, and even some idiosyncrasies when it comes to setting up cameras and collisions.  You’ll also learn a bit about the different ways in which creating pixel art levels through parts works.

You’ll cover key topics, including:

• Unity overview
• Player character and sprite
• Player movement
• Tilemaps and background
• Obstacles and collisions
• Prevent character spinning
• Add a camera (Cinemachine) and follow player
• Make the camera pixel perfect
• Confine the camera to the background
• Fix background collision bug
• Tweak camera settings

Skill level: Novice. Some basic knowledge of Unity and C# is needed.

Duration: 51m

How to access: Access the course here.

Create your First 3D Game in Unity

One of the best ways to learn to work with game assets is to just build a game. Of course, you don’t want to start off too complicated, which is why Zenva’s Create Your First 3D Game in Unity is a great course.

Focusing specifically on 3D games, you’ll master a variety of platformer mechanics including how to work with character controllers, set up “enemies”, create coin collectibles, add UI systems, and more. Each element has its own asset requirements, of course, so you’ll learn a lot about how to manipulate art aesthetics using the tools Unity offers. Plus, by the end of the course, you’ll have a nifty entry for your portfolio and good skills to begin expanding into other relevant areas (such as lighting).

With this course, you’ll learn how to:

• Create player and enemy objects
• Construct a level with 3D models
• Script the camera to follow the player
• Set up the game-winning conditions
• Add collectible coins
• Build UI elements and menus

Skill level: Novice. You’ll need minimal knowledge of Unity and C#.

Duration: 2h 16m

How to access: Access the course here.

How to Make a Game – Unity Beginner Tutorial

In How to Make a Game – Unity Beginner Tutorial by Jason Weimann, viewers are taught the entire process of building a physics-based game using Unity. As mentioned many times before this is key to learning Unity in general, as it forces you to work with game assets in various ways.

What makes this course stand out is the fact it begins with a focus specifically on bringing and preparing your assets to actually be used in your game. So right up front, you know you’re learning about this aspect and how the basics work!

You’ll cover the following key topics:

• Sprites
• Importing Art
• Animation
• Background art
• Physics
• Coding
• Dragging
• Launching
• Obstacles
• Indicator
• Camera Controller
• Enemy
• Particles
• Prefabs
• Levels

Skill level: Beginner. No prior knowledge is needed.

Duration: 3h 4m

How to access: Access the course here.

Create your First 2D Game in Unity

The Create Your First 2D Game in Unity course by Zenva is similar to another entry on this list. Rather than 3D assets, however, this one focuses on 2D.

Throughout the course, you’ll work through building a 2D platformer featuring collectibles, enemies, character movement, UI systems, and more. You’ll even learn how you can manage your levels so you can easily make a multiple-level game.

Along the way, of course, you’ll master a ton of tips and tricks specifically for working with basic 2D assets, which come with their own sets of rules in comparison. Nevertheless, these are essential for preparing for certification, since these differences will be important professionally as well.

This course will teach you key coding techniques, including:

• Implementing player and enemy objects
• Scripting platformer-style movements
• Building levels with 2D tiles
• Setting up collectibles and scoring
• Controlling gameplay flow with goals
• Creating UIs for scores and menus

Skill level: Intermediate. Some basic knowledge of Unity and C# is required.

Duration: 1h 55m

How to access: Access the course here.

How to do Character Customization!

If you’re interested in something a little more advanced at this point, look no further than How to do Character Customization! by Code Monkey! This free course shows you how to build the ever-popular feature of allowing users to have a custom character for their gameplay experience.

As you can imagine, this will cover a lot about how assets are managed, changed, and rendered – all core skills you’re going to want to master in your practice to pass the User Artist Certification!

Key topics:

• Character Customization Unity Tutorial
• Sponsor
• 4 Methods to do Character Customization
• Characters with 3 different setups
• Change Material, Texture
• Change Mesh, Avatar, Keep Animations
• Add parts with SkinnedMeshRenderer
• Issues with SkinnedMeshRenderer
• Character Customization Unity Tutorial

Skill level: Novice. Some basic knowledge of Unity and C# is required.

Duration: 17m

How to access: Access the course here.

Unity User Artist Certification Wrap Up

This brings us to the end of our list of best courses for the User Artist Certification. We’ve covered a lot of ground here, and we just know these skills will open up new doors for you professionally and personally.

But… we’ve only been able to scratch the surface. There are thousands of courses out there, and what’s “best” may mean something different for you than it does for us. So, don’t be afraid to explore more Unity courses through platforms like Zenva – the more you learn, the better positioned you’ll be to pass the exam!

We wish you all the best of luck with the exam, and we hope we’ve made prepping for it just a little bit easier!

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Long story short – now is a fantastic time to learn game development – even if you intend to stay a solo indie creator. This said, for those looking to bolster their resume more professionally, you’ll need some extra “oomph” to stand out from the crowd, as plenty of other people have the same skills. Enter Unity’s User Programmer Certification, which is a quick and easy way to show you know the popular Unity engine and the programming skills needed for game creation.

As passing the exam is no walk in the park, though, in this article, we’re going to showcase our favorite Unity courses. These courses will be geared towards helping you pass that exam, and ensure you get the skills you need to be at for your career!

Let’s get started!

What is the Unity User Programmer Certification?

Unity’s User Programmer Certification is designed for aspiring game or app developers to teach them Unity’s primary capabilities and functions as a development platform. With this certification, learners are evaluated on how much they know about the fundamentals of Unity, including making projects and Prefabs and navigating the editor. Students will also be tested on C# knowledge.

The overall aim is to prove students can read, write, and understand basic code used all the time in Unity. Many receivers of the Unity User Programmer Certification go on to start postsecondary programs in game development, animation, or STEM – or alternatively, create their own successful games.

To take the exam, students must build their knowledge base of Unity and C#. Test subjects could include:

• Building projects in Unity, using C#
• Navigating the Unity interface and interpreting API basics
• Creating prototypes, debugging, and solving programming difficulties
• Programming a function state machine

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The Benefits of a Unity User Programmer Certification

The Unity game engine is used to power half of all games globally. Learning how to use and code with Unity is, therefore, not only beneficial for creating high-powered games, but breaking into the competitive game development and design industry.

The Unity User Programmer Certification is designed to help aspiring developers stand out in a busy crowd, as to receive this certification, you’ll need professional knowledge of not only Unity but programming with C#.

Here are the main benefits of receiving Unity’s User Programmer Certification.

Stand out in the job market

The game development job sector is incredibly difficult to break into. You’ll be up against hundreds (if not thousands) of applicants, all gunning for the same position. To have any chance of winning a developer position, you’ll need to stand out from the crowd and position yourself as a proven professional.

The Unity User Programmer Certification is a rare credential in the developer world and is recognized as proof that you have skills and dedication to game development – since there is significant cost and time involved in taking the exam.

In fact, many Unity-based job postings will list Unity Certifications as a (preferred) requirement, putting you in a much better hiring position.

Showcase your skill level

To qualify for the Unity User Programmer Certification, you must build a solid knowledge base of both the game engine and C#. It will allow you to not only improve your skill levels as you study to take the exam, but once you’ve obtained the certification, you can prove just how knowledgeable you are to potential employers.

Go from hobbyist to professional

Many Unity developers are self-taught gaming lovers, having fun creating their own animations and worlds. For some, the main goal is to be entertained and learn the ins and outs of Unity simultaneously.

However, teaching yourself a complicated tool can be difficult, especially without a guided learning path. While there are plenty of courses available online, it can be hard to know what to do after you’ve finished.

Unity’s User Programmer Certification allows hobbyists to follow a structured path, with certifications ranging from beginner to professional. Taking the exams in order will allow them to progress naturally, picking up the skills needed to move on to the next certification.

What courses are best to prepare for Unity’s User Programmer Certification?

Unity’s User Programmer Certification is designed to showcase an individual’s skills in Unity and C#, and it’s essential to build knowledge before taking the exam. There are many professional courses online that will teach you everything you need to know about making games with Unity.

Here are the best courses for preparing to take the User Programmer Certification.

Unity Game Development Mini-Degree

The Unity Game Development Mini-Degree, created by Zenva, is a comprehensive curriculum focused around Unity. With no experience necessary to jump in, users get the opportunity to learn a wide variety of tools. This includes basic engine functionality like object manipulation, to rarer tools such as ProBuilder and Cinemachine.

While mastering the fundamentals of Unity, students will also get the chance to build real-world projects for a professional portfolio. This includes games in popular genres like RPGs, idle clicks, and FPS games (to name a few). Plus, everything is made with expandable systems that you can practice with further to improve your skills.

Of course, for the sake of the certification exam, this curriculum has just about all the basics you’ll need in both Unity and C# to upskill yourself in preparation!

With the Unity Game Development Mini-Degree, you’ll learn topics including:

• C# coding basics
• UI systems
• Audio effects
• Cinematic cutscenes
• Special effects
• Procedural terrain
• Animation
• Genre mechanics

Skill level: Beginner and comprehensive. No prior experience is necessary.

Duration: 36h 23m

How to access: Access the curriculum here.

Intro to Game Development with Unity

If you’re looking just for a single course to start, then Zenva’s Intro to Game Development with Unity course is a great choice. This course is intended for ultra-beginners – i.e. people who have literally never touched Unity before in any capacity.

The course focuses on three major areas: the basic tools of the engine and interacting with objects, C# fundamentals for Unity, and combining everything to make a balloon popper game. Together, these cores will set you up for success in beginning your Unity education journey, as the skills will serve you as you move into more complicated projects.

Likewise, it is worth noting this course is suitable for younger users – as young as Grade 8. Thus, you don’t have to wait at all to start learning.

Lastly, if you’re a bit hesitant, you can try a free course sample by taking Unity 101 – Game Development Foundations, which covers the basics of setting up and using key tools of Unity.

Intro to Game Development by Zenva Academy covers key topics, including:

• How to install and set up Unity projects
• How to manipulate object size, position, and rotation
• Ways to change aesthetics with materials
• Code variables and operators with C#
• Combining various skills in order to create interactive games
• How to build and deploy your games

Skill level: Beginner

Duration: 2h 7m

How to access: Access the course here.

How to Program in C#

With the name being User Programmer Certification, you might imagine there’s going to be quite a lot of C# knowledge expected. So, learning to program with C# is kind of a bit point.

In the How to Program in C# series by Brackeys, you’ll focus more specifically on C# itself and learn all the principles you’ll need to apply in Unity. These videos are also designed to keep games in mind – so you don’t have to worry about it not being too divorced from Unity either.

The series includes the following topics:

• Input and output
• Variables
• Conditions
• Loops
• Array
• Functions
• Classes

Skill level: Beginner

Duration: 2h 4m

How to access: Access the series here.

Unity Mini-Projects – C# Fundamentals

Unity Mini-Projects – C# Fundamentals by Zenva is a beginner-oriented course aimed at helping users expand their Unity and C# knowledge by applying them to real-world projects. These mini-projects are designed both to build out learners’ portfolios while also teaching them a number of C# techniques.

The projects featured for the course are a balloon popper with a scoring system, an efficient object spawner, and bowling and skiing mini-games. Through these, users get the chance to play with physics and more as well, rounding out their Unity education.

This is also a great stop if you don’t feel ready to jump into full games yet, since this lets you experiment with basic interactivity first.

Broader skills will also be covered, including:

• Implementing multiple scripts in one project
• Building user interfaces
• Dealing with user inputs
• Detecting collisions between game objects
• Accessing object data through C# scripting
• Applying physics to objects.

Skill level: Novice, but some basic Unity and C# skills are required.

Duration: 1h 40m

How to access: Access the course here.

How to Make a 2D Game

Sometimes, the best way to learn Unity is just to build games and experiment with various features. As Unity is able to do both 2D and 3D games, though, it can be beneficial to learn both.

In the case of this entry, the How to Make a 2D Game series by Brackeys will cover 2D specifically. From the fundamentals of just making a game in the first place to working with Unity tools like lighting, this series has a little bit of everything. All are in line with what you’ll need for the certification exam, however, so it’s a good jack-of-all-trades series to start preparing.

With this course, you’ll learn the following key topics:

• 2D Movement
• Animation
• 2D Camera
• 2D Shooting
• Organic Levels
• Lights
• Top Down Shooting
• Melee Combat
• Making a Boss

Skill level: Beginner

Duration: 2h 9m

How to access: Access the series here.

Create Your First 3D Game in Unity

As a companion to the entry above, you don’t want to neglect 3D game development either. That’s why the Create Your First 3D Game in Unity by Zenva is an excellent next step in your journey

This course covers creating a 3D platformer project that is designed to teach you some of the most common game mechanics you’ll want to know. This includes how to craft levels through the scene editor, how to add collectibles, how to add enemies that can trigger game-overs, and how to set up a simple UI. Of course, you’ll also learn 3D player movement – which is essential knowledge to have no matter what direction you go!

With this course, you’ll learn techniques such as:

• Creating player and enemy objects
• Constructing a level with 3D models
• Scripting the camera to follow the player
• Setting up the game-winning conditions
• Adding collectible coins
• Building UI elements and menus

Skill level: Novice. You’ll need basic knowledge of Unity and C#.

Duration: 2h 16m

How to access: Access the course here.

Learn Unity Beginner/Intermediate 2023

Designed to teach users how to write high-quality code by making a complex project, the Learn Unity Beginner/Intermediate 2023 course by Code Monkey is an all around master course for covering every Unity basic. With this course, you’ll make a fun arcade game while learning the complexities of both Unity and C#. This includes everything from more intermediate C# coding to working with things like sounds.

This said, it is still relatively beginner-friendly – so perfectly suited to passing the User Programmer Certification.

With this course, you’ll learn topics such as:

• Unity Layout
• Visual Studio
• Code Style, Naming Rules
• Importing Assets
• Post Processing
• Character Controller, Visual, Rotation
• Animations & Cinemachine
• Collision Detection
• Interact Action, C# Events
• Selected Counter Visual, Singleton Pattern
• Player Pick up, Drop Objects
• Cutting, World Canvas
• Music & Sound Effects
• Main Menu, Loading

Skill level: Novice. You’ll need some basic knowledge of Unity and C#.

Duration: 10h 49m

How to access: Access the course here.

Unity User Programmer Certification Wrap Up

With these Unity courses, you should be more than prepared to take on the User Programmer Certification. While the exam sounds intimidating, do keep in mind the exam was also made to be suitable for high school students to be able to take and pass as well. Thus, as the entry-level certification, you don’t yet have to be a Unity expert!

This said, we do encourage you to explore more courses. Zenva, for instance, offers far more Unity courses than we could mention here. And the more you know about Unity, the better your opportunities will be. Plus, there are even higher-level certifications to look for after this, so more preparation won’t hurt for that either.

No matter where your path takes you, we wish you the best of luck with your game development adventures!

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If you’re looking to break into the gaming industry, having VR coding skills is a surefire way to get a foothold in the door. Of course, plenty of people already had this idea – so how do you stand out from the crowd? The answer here is Unity’s User VR Developer Certification, one of the few certifications available to showcase that you have the skills you’re boasting. However, preparing and passing the exam is a challenge in and of itself – but thankfully there are resources available to save the day.

In this article, we’re going to discuss some of our favorite resources that will help you learn the VR skills you need to not only to succeed in making VR projects in general, but in passing your User VR Developer Certification exam.

Let’s dive in!

What is the Unity User VR Developer Certification?

Unity’s User VR Developer Certification is an exam-based certification designed to show employers and postsecondary programs that you have a solid understanding of VR experiences in Unity. The focus here is on showing that you understand how to consider adaptations to games for VR.

To take this certification exam, you’ll need some foundational skills in both Unity and C# programming since this is an advanced qualification. Additionally, you’ll also need to pass Unity’s Certified User Programmer Certification first.

All Unity’s certification exams were developed through careful research and collaboration with testing specialists and game development experts. Currently, the tests are administered by Pearson VUE, a renowned educational company, meaning the certifications are regarded highly by industry professionals.

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The Benefits of a Unity User VR Developer Certification

The Unity User VR Developer Certification is designed to help professionals break into the growing VR industry. Here are the main benefits of taking this exam.

Stand out in the job market

Unity’s User VR Certification shows employers that you have the knowledge and skill levels needed to succeed in a VR developer position, giving you a competitive edge over other professionals. Since certifications are rare in the gaming industry, having a Unity Certification will help you stand out against other professionals. You’ll also have a better chance of getting a Unity-based job, which will often list a Unity Certification as a requirement.

The certification is industry-recognized and can be included on your resume and professional portfolio.

Improve your skill level

This certification showcases your abilities to create VR experiences and programs using Unity. You’ll need to put in 200 hours of Unity training before obtaining the certification, improving your skill levels over time. Naturally, preparing for the exam also improves your skills by association.

What courses are best to prepare for Unity’s User VR Developer Certification?

To be eligible for Unity’s User VR Developer Certification, you must have some base knowledge of virtual reality. Luckily, there are many courses online that will teach you the basics of VR coding, development, and design.

Here are the best online courses you can take to boost your skills, all from the comfort of your home.

Virtual Reality Mini-Degree

Zenva’s Virtual Reality Mini-Degree is a comprehensive collection of courses designed to teach you everything that you need to know about VR. You’ll start from the ground up in this curriculum – first learning the Unity engine itself and then mastering a variety of VR principles and mechanics. These include working with controllers, different styles of movement, and so on.

Throughout the courses, you’ll also get hands-on experience with projects – such as a kitchen simulator – which can also be used to build out courses.

Many courses in this set also come with supplemental material to cement your knowledge, including live coding exercises, quizzes, course files, and downloadable text summaries to help you refresh your knowledge!

Overall, this is a truly comprehensive choice whether you’re new to Unity entirely or are just ready to learn the features of VR.

You’ll also learn the following key topics:

• Coding basics with C# and Unity
• Movement options
• VR-optimized UI design
• Hand-tracked controllers
• Industry best-practices
• Simulations and games

Skill level: Comprehensive

Duration: 17h 46m

How to access: Access the curriculum here.

How to make a VR game in Unity in 2022

Valem Tutorials’ How to make a VR game in Unity in 2022 series is designed to give you the basic knowledge needed to get into VR development. With the focus specifically on VR (so assuming you know some Unity already), these videos cover a wide array of topics. This includes movements and controllers – even covering how to grab with two hands!

The series also includes some other important considerations as well, such as dealing with motion sickness – which is a very common issue for VR projects.

Various topics include:

• Introduction: how to make a VR game in Unity
• Input and Hand Presence
• Continuous Movement
• Teleportation
• Hover, grab, and user interactable
• Offset and distance grab
• User interface
• Two hand grab

Skill level: Beginner

Duration: 3h 10m

How to access: Access the playlist here.

Intro to Game Development with Unity

If you’ve literally never touched Unity before, Zenva’s Intro to Game Development with Unity course is perfect. While there’s nothing pertaining to VR in it, as it is an ultra-level beginner’s course, you will learn all about Unity as a tool itself.

This includes how to do basic things like navigate the various windows, manipulate game objects, and so forth. You’ll also dive into C# programming and learn some basic coding principles.

So, while this course isn’t about VR itself, it’s an important step on the path. You have to learn Unity itself first before you can learn VR!

If you’re on a budget – or just aren’t sure about the course – there is a free course sample available via Unity 101 – Game Development Foundations. This will give you an idea of what to expect and help you get your feet wet without investing too much here yet.

Intro to Game Development with Unity covers topics such as:

• Install and set up Unity projects
• Manipulate object size, position, and rotation
• Change aesthetics with materials
• Code variables, operators, and more with C#
• Combine various skills to create interactive games
• Build and deploy your games

Skill level: Beginner level. No prior experience is needed.

Duration: 2h 7m

How to access: Access the course here.

How to Make VR Games in 2022

How to Make VR Games in 2022 by Justin P Barnett teaches you how to set up your first VR project on the fairly recent version of Unity, including basics on how to use the “grab interactable” tool to pick up objects in VR and the locomotion system. This fairly short but straightforward course is designed to give you the very basics you need to work with VR. While there is a lot more to explore, the foundations established here will set you on the right path forward!

Key topics covered in this course include:

• How to set up a new Unity project for VR
• How to import the Unity XR Interaction Toolkit package
• How to set up an introductory VR scene
• How to set up basic VR movement
• How to pick up objects in VR
• How to test your app on PC, Mac, or Linux
• How to add our VR template to Unity

Skill level: Beginner

Duration: 26m

How to access: Access the course here.

Build a Micro-VR Game

In the Build a Micro-VR Game course, created by Zenva, you’ll explore some basic VR coding techniques while creating a small outdoor grilling VR experience. The course covers some of the most fundamental concepts – including how to grab things with controllers and how to use teleportation-style movement.

You’ll also learn how to adjust your game to be deployed on various VR devices, including Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, Oculus Go, SteamVR, and more. All of this is to help prepare you to develop any VR rig.

Worth noting as well is that this course does not focus on Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit. As this technology has become the predominantly covered aspect for VR, this course gives you the chance to explore other ways to create VR experiences that can be useful for the future!

Key topics covered:

• Understand the difference between virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality
• Create an environment for grilling and change the color of assets
• Set up Unity for a variety of VR devices
• Implement hand controllers that can pick up and place objects down
• Develop a teleportation system so players can move around the map

Skill level: Beginner

Duration: 1h 56m

How to access: Access the course here.

Learn Unity – Beginner’s Game Development Tutorial

Learn Unity -Beginner’s Game Development Tutorial by freeCodeCamp.org is another entry on this list that isn’t really focused much on VR. Still, as stated in a previous item, learning the fundamentals of Unity first is not only recommended, but required if you want to learn VR.

For complete beginners, this course is a good place to start as you’ll learn the foundations of using Unity. You’ll explore a ton of C# programming fundamentals not covered elsewhere as well, so if you want a full gambit for C# this is also an excellent resource.

Key topics covered:

• Downloading Unity And Unity Hub
• Camera Follow Player
• Enemy Animations, Script, Spawner, and Collision
• Unity’s UI System
• Navigating Between Scenes
• Selecting A Character
• Static Variables
• Singleton Pattern
• Events And Delegates

Skill level: Beginner

Duration: 7h 24m

How to access: Access the course here.

Discover the XR Interaction Toolkit for VR

When it comes to Unity, the XR Interaction Toolkit is considered the new standard for building VR projects. This new system basically forgoes any form of coding. Instead, everything is component based – so making an item interactable is as easy as dragging on the right components and adjusting the settings.

In Zenva’s Discover the XR Interaction Toolkit for VR course, you’ll learn just that – how to use the XR Interaction Toolkit. This course covers all the basics you’ll need to get started, including teleportation and hand-grabbing controllers. All the while, you’ll also create a nifty kitchen simulator project to add to your portfolio!

Key topics covered:

• Set up the XR Interaction Toolkit
• Create interactable objects
• Implement teleportation-style movement
• Deal with hand-grabbing controllers
• Add particle effects based on object orientation

Skill level: Beginner to intermediate – Unity skills are expected.

Duration: 59m

How to access: Access the course here.

Unity User VR Developer Certification Wrap Up

And there we have it – the best courses to prepare for getting the User VR Developer Certification from Unity.

While we’ve given you a lot of material to work with, we encourage you to explore as many courses as physically possible. Remember, you have to pass the User Programmer Certification first, so you’re going to need to ramp up your Unity skills quickly in order to even prepare for this particular exam. So please continue to browse sites like Zenva and master all that you can. The more you learn Unity, the better position you’ll be in!

We hope these courses help you start your preparations, and we wish you the best of luck in becoming a VR expert!

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Things such as sparkles shot from magic wands or fire sparks coming from a bonfire are small details that can add much more credibility to the sceneries and games we create. They are also an important aspect of “game feel” that can just, in general, improve the user’s experience with the game. So – as you can imagine – it doesn’t hurt how to learn to do them as a developer.

In this quick tutorial, we’ll show you how to make fire particles in Unity. We’ll go over the settings and adjustments needed to bring your particles alive inside this powerful game engine. Moreover, you’ll also have a glimpse of the numerous features Unity has already available for you to explore when designing your particle systems.

Let’s dive in!

Project Files

You can download a copy of the source code files for the project done in this tutorial here.

This tutorial assumes you have a few basics of Unity and, most importantly, that you have Unity installed. Also, just to be clear, we are using Unity’s default particle system, not the VFX graph. That’s a tutorial for another day.

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Unity’s Particle System

First, let’s create a particle by right-clicking in the Hierarchy and selecting Effects > Particle System:

In the small pop-up menu at the bottom of the scene, we have several configuration options at the ready:

We can pause, stop or restart the particle emission by altering the playback time of the particles, and also slow it down by changing the playback speed. By checking the ‘ShowBounds‘ checkbox we can also see how far the particles are reaching:

This comes very in handy for us to quickly test how our particles are behaving. Nonetheless, we have a much richer range of settings for our particle system inside the Inspector:

Each tab has a different feature you can apply to your particle. We see that the Emission and Shape ones have a little check symbol in front of them, meaning that they are currently enabled for our particle system. The Emission tab controls how many particles we emit over time, while the Shape tab indicates the sort of shape we’re emitting from (a cone, a box, a circle, etc) and sets up the angle and radius, among other properties:

Another tab that’s checked in is Renderer, which allows us to customize how the particles face the camera. Right now they are set to ‘Billboard’ and if we change it to ‘Horizontal Billboard’ we’ll see the particles flat as well but facing the up direction instead:

We can also change the material of the particles in this tab, as well as the trail material. To add any trails to your particles, you need simply to enable the Trails tab:

Particle System Properties

Let’s see all these properties in action! We have:

• Start Lifetime – Dictates how long the particle exists in the world

Going back to the Particle System tab, if we bring down the Start Lifetime property from 5 seconds to 1 second we immediately see how it changes in height, as the particles are only alive for 1 second now:

To add a more organic feel to it, you can click on the arrow next to the value entered and select “Random Between Two Constants“. You can then enter two numbers, such as 0.5 and 1.5:

Note how the particles don’t all disappear at the same time anymore. We can do so with the Start Speed property as well to add more variety in how fast the particles are emitted.

We also have:

• Start Size – how large the particles are when they start out
• Start Rotation – the rotation of the particles when being emitted
• Start Color – the color we want the particles to be
• Simulation Space – designates the spread of the particles in the world

If we switch Simulation Space from ‘Local’ to ‘World‘, we see that the particles are now being moved along with our cursor to whatever position we place it:

Other interesting tabs are Velocity over Lifetime and Color over Lifetime, where we alter the speed and color of our particles over their lifetime periods. We can use the latter to make our particles fade out as time goes by:

Or have multiple colors to our gradient as follows:

Going to the Size over Lifetime tab, it allows us to change how large the particle is over time, based on an animation curve as seen below:

You can edit the curve by adding points to it and the particle will reflect the changes directly:

The Noise tab is also helpful to add some randomness and organic movement to our particles:

Remember to be careful of the Collision tab, as it adds a collider to every single particle and you may have an impact on performance by having too many of them. You can add colliders to make an explosion effect and also trigger an OnCollisionEnter function for that, for example.

Let’s put all this to use by creating our fire particle!

Fire Particle in Unity

Create a new particle system and name it “Fire Particle”. From there, let’s change how the particles look by setting the Render Mode to Mesh and the Material to Sprites-Default in the Renderer tab:

In the Particle System tab, set Start Lifetime to 1 – 1.5, Start Speed to 0.2, and Gravity Modifier to -1. Also set Shape to Sphere and Shape Radius to 1 (or 0.5) in the Shape tab:

Next, enable the Color over Lifetime tab, and set the Color gradient to the one below:

Back to the Particle System tab, set the Start Size to 1 – 1.5:

Enable the Rotation over Lifetime tab, and set the Angular Velocity to 45 – 90:

Also enable the Size over Lifetime tab, and set the Size curve to the one below:

You can bring the first point more to the left-up corner for the fire to get bigger faster as well, and then it’ll get smaller as time goes by. Feel free to tweak this as you like.

Finally, set Rate over Time to 20 in the Emission tab:

If we change the background color of the camera to a solid black, we can better visualize our fire particle all set up:

Notice how it’s changing color and has the fading-out effect, just as wanted!

Conclusion

Well done on concluding this tutorial!

Here you learned how to create simple fire particles in Unity in a fast and easy way! This is your first step towards designing all other sorts of particles, whether you want portal effects, magic attacks, or more. Unity allows us to customize our particles quite a lot through its default Particle System, and the more you explore it the more organic your particles will look.

We encourage you to practice with the Particle System more and try coming up with unique designs on your own! You may also want to take a look at Unity’s VFX Graph at some point as well, which takes particles to a whole new level with more power and performance – and much of the same fundamentals at play.

Regardless, good luck with your games, and we hope they “feel” that much more exciting!

Want to learn more about particles in Unity? Try our complete Intro to Particle Systems for Games course.

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That said – would it surprise you to learn that balancing audio is hard and not everyone wants that gushing waterfall overriding the character dialogue? This is why, for many players, having sound settings is super important so they can customize the experience to their needs.

In this Unity tutorial, we’ll go through how to set up sound settings for the master volume, as well as the volumes for sound effects and music. For that, we’ll take a look at the audio mixers in Unity, its different groups, and how to create a canvas with sliders for each group that the players can adjust to their liking.

Let’s get started!

Project Files

You can download a copy of the source code files for the project done in this tutorial here. This tutorial requires good familiarity with Unity and C# scripting.

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Audio Mixers

The Audio Mixer feature of Unity allows you to mix various audio sources, apply effects to them, and perform mastering. It is an asset that we can create by going Right-click > Create > Audio Mixer:

You can double-click on the icon to open up the Audio Mixer window:

By default, we have the Master group, which overrides every single audio source in the game. This allows us to adjust the Pitch and the Volume of the overall audio of the game in the Inspector:

Modifying Audio in Script

In order to modify the volume in a script, we need to right-click and select ‘Expose Volume (or pitch) to script‘:

Now it will appear in the Exposed Parameter dropdown list:

Audio Mixer Group

To create a new group, you can click on the + button in the Groups section. We’re going to create two new groups, which are Music and SFX for sound effects:

Now that we have SFX and music as children of the master group, we need to assign these to specific audio sources. For example, if you select the Player object of your project, you’ll see there is a property called Output inside the Audio Source component. This is where our Audio Mixer Group is going to be sending the modified audio in:

If you assign this to the SFX group, you will be able to modify the output inside of the Audio Mixer window:

Volume Settings

Next, we’re going to be setting up the visual UI (User Interface) for volume settings.

Creating UI Canvas

First of all, we’re going to create a new GameObject called Canvas, which contains all of the UI elements.

To create a canvas, right-click on the Hierarchy > UI > Canvas:

If you select the Canvas and press F, the screen will be zoomed out to focus on it:

Adding Image To Canvas

To add an Image object to the Canvas, we’re going to right-click on Canvas and go to UI > Image:

As you can see, it has created a brand new Image object, which is a child of Canvas:

Let’s rename this Image to ‘VolumeSettings‘:

Resizing Canvas Components

To change the size of the element, you can drag it around with the Rect tool selected:

You can then click and drag on the blue circles to change the size of the image:

Or you can click and drag on the sides to resize them along that specific axis:

Alternatively, you can set the specific Width and Height using Rect Transform in the Inspector:

We’re going to click on the Color property of the Image component and change it from white to black:

Adding Text

We recommend you use TMP (TextMeshPro) instead of Unity’s default Text because it provides more flexibility in font settings:

You can import the package when adding the first TMP object to the scene (Right-click > UI > Text – TextMeshPro):

Once that’s complete, you can give it a new name (e.g. ‘HeaderText‘), type in a header (e.g. ‘Volume‘), and modify the font settings in the Inspector:

What we’re going to do now is create three separate sliders for adjusting the Master Volume, the SFX Volume, and the Music volume as follows:

To create a new Slider, right-click on the sub-heading (e.g. “Master Volume”) and select UI > Slider:

You can then scroll down to the Slider component in the Inspector to set the Min Value and the Max Value of the slider. Since we’re working with dB (decibels), the maximum value would be the original volume of the audio clip, which is 0 dB, and the minimum value would be -40 dB:

We can then duplicate this by pressing Ctrl + D (or Cmd + D):

Scripting The UI

Now that the UI objects are all set up, let’s create a new C# script called “Volume UI” and attach it to the parent Canvas object:

Inside the script, first of all, we need to import the TMPro, Audio, and UI library at the top of our script to be able to utilize these features in our script:

using TMPro;
using UnityEngine.Audio;
using UnityEngine.UI;

And then we’re going to declare a few public variables so we can access and modify the UIs that we created earlier:

public class VolumeUI : MonoBehaviour
{
    public AudioMixer mixer;
    public GameObject window;
    public Slider masterSlider;
    public Slider sfxSlider;
    public Slider musicSlider;
}

Then we need to create a new function called “SetSliders” to load the saved volume settings (float) from PlayerPrefs, for instance.

PlayerPrefs is an easy way to store and access important data between game sessions. For more information, refer to the documentation: https://docs.unity3d.com/2020.1/Documentation/ScriptReference/PlayerPrefs.html

// called at the start of the game
// set the slider values to be the saved volume settings
void SetSliders ()
{
    masterSlider.value = PlayerPrefs.GetFloat("MasterVolume");
    sfxSlider.value = PlayerPrefs.GetFloat("SFXVolume");
    musicSlider.value = PlayerPrefs.GetFloat("MusicVolume");
}

This function is going to be called at the start of the game, so the player doesn’t have to reset the volume settings every time they open up the application. That being said, if there is any saved volume property found in PlayerPrefs (HasKey), then we need to set the mixer volume levels based on the saved PlayerPrefs before setting the sliders:

void Start ()
{
    // do we have saved volume player prefs?
    if(PlayerPrefs.HasKey("MasterVolume"))
    {
        // set the mixer volume levels based on the saved player prefs
        mixer.SetFloat("MasterVolume", PlayerPrefs.GetFloat("MasterVolume"));
        mixer.SetFloat("SFXVolume", PlayerPrefs.GetFloat("SFXVolume"));
        mixer.SetFloat("MusicVolume", PlayerPrefs.GetFloat("MusicVolume"));
        SetSliders();
    }
    // otherwise just set the sliders
    else
    {
        SetSliders();
    }
}

Now what we need to do is set up a new function for when we modify the master slider value:

// called when we update the master slider
public void UpdateMasterVolume ()
{
}

The UpdateMasterVolume function is going to be called whenever we modify the master volume slider. Inside here, we’re going to set the MasterVolume exposure parameter to be the masterSlider‘s value. Then we can save it in PlayerPrefs using SetFloat (which is similar to saving data, whereas GetFloat is similar to loading data):

// called when we update the master slider
public void UpdateMasterVolume ()
{
    mixer.SetFloat("MasterVolume", masterSlider.value);
    PlayerPrefs.SetFloat("MasterVolume", masterSlider.value);
}

We can do the exact same thing with the SFX volume and the Music volume:

// called when we update the master slider
public void UpdateMasterVolume ()
{
    mixer.SetFloat("MasterVolume", masterSlider.value);
    PlayerPrefs.SetFloat("MasterVolume", masterSlider.value);
}

// called when we update the sfx slider
public void UpdateSFXVolume()
{
    mixer.SetFloat("SFXVolume", sfxSlider.value);
    PlayerPrefs.SetFloat("SFXVolume", sfxSlider.value);
}

// called when we update the music slider
public void UpdateMusicVolume()
{
    mixer.SetFloat("MusicVolume", musicSlider.value);
    PlayerPrefs.SetFloat("MusicVolume", musicSlider.value);
}

Toggling A Window

Now what we need to do is make it so that whenever we press a certain key (e.g. V), we’re able to toggle this window open. To detect a key press, we can use the Input.GetKeyDown function:

void Update ()
{
    // toggle the window when we press V
    if(Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.V))
    {
    }
}

When the window is active in the hierarchy, window.activeInHierarchy will return true, otherwise, it will return false. We can utilize this to activate/deactivate the window:

void Update ()
{
    // toggle the window when we press V
    if(Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.V))
    {
        window.SetActive(!window.activeInHierarchy);
    }
}

If the window is active, we want to enable the mouse cursor (CursorLockMode.None) so the player can click and drag the sliders.

Otherwise, if we’re disabling the window, we’re going to lock the cursor again (CursorLockMode.Locked):

void Update ()
{
    // toggle the window when we press V
    if(Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.V))
    {
        window.SetActive(!window.activeInHierarchy);
        // enable or disable the cursor
        if(window.activeInHierarchy)
            Cursor.lockState = CursorLockMode.None;
        else
            Cursor.lockState = CursorLockMode.Locked;
    }
}

We also don’t want our camera to be able to look around when we’re in the volume settings, so inside the Update function of the PlayerController script, we’re going to run the Look function only if the cursor is locked:

void Update ()
{
    Move();
    if(Cursor.lockState == CursorLockMode.Locked)
        Look();
}

Make sure to save the script and drag all the UI objects into the corresponding fields:

Adding Script Events To Buttons

We need to link each of those sliders to the VolumeUI script. To do that, we need to select each slider and add an On Value Changed event by clicking on the + icon:

Inside here, we’re going to drag in the Canvas object and select the Update (Master/SFX/Music) Volume function as the function to be called whenever the slider value changes:

The volume settings window shouldn’t be open at the beginning of the game, so we can deactivate it for now, and press V to open it up in Play mode:

And here we have it:

Conclusion

Well done on reaching the end of this tutorial!

With this tutorial, you’ve learned how to allow your players to have much finer control over the audio channels of your game in Unity. Whether for user satisfaction or accessibility, this can sometimes make or break your game depending on how needed sounds are for an optimal experience.

However, the learning doesn’t stop here. Feel free to practice by adding more audio channels to the canvas we’ve created. For instance, if your game has dialogues, maybe it’d be interesting for your players to change the volume of that as well. Or, you may want to add a slider for UI sound effects, and so on.

That said, we do encourage you to dive even deeper into more advanced topics and wish you the best of luck in your projects!

Want to learn more about audio in Unity? Try our complete Game Audio Effects for Beginners course.

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You can access the full course here: CREATE YOUR FIRST 3D GAME IN UNITY

Menu – Part 1

In this lesson, we’ll set up the Menu for our game.

The Menu Scene

This Menu will be a separate scene. Let’s create a new scene called Menu in the Scenes folder now.

Then, we’ll double-click on the Menu asset to open the Menu scene. You’ll see a default empty scene in your Editor.

First, we’ll change the background we have:

• Select the Main Camera object
• Go to the Camera component in the Inspector window
• Set the Clear Flags property to the Solid Color option. This way, the camera will render color as a background
• Set the Background property to a nice green color. This will be the background color of the scene

Now you should have the green background in the Game view.

Then, we’ll create a new Canvas object in the Hierarchy, as we did earlier.

The Title Text

Now, let’s create a title text for our game:

• Create a new TextMeshPro object as a child of the Canvas
• Name it TitleText
• Position it above the center of the Canvas

Then, we’ll configure the TitleText > TextMeshPro component in the Inspector window the following way:

• Set the Text to “My 3D Game“
• Enable the Bold Font Style
• Make the Font Size bigger. We’ll go with 60
• Set the Alignment to Center-Middle

Here’s how your title should look like in the Game view:

The Menu Buttons

Next, we’ll create a button that will start the game:

• Right-click in the Hierarchy and select the UI > Button – TextMeshPro option from the context menu
• Name that button PlayButton
• Make the PlayButton about the same size as the TitleText
• Position the PlayButton in the middle of the Canvas

Then, let’s select the child Text object of the PlayButton, go to the Inspector, and set the TextMeshPro > Text to “Play“.

Next, we’ll create a button to quit our game:

• Duplicate the PlayButton by selecting it and pressing the Ctrl+D hotkey
• Rename the duplicate to QuitButton
• Move QuitButton to be below the PlayButton
• Change the text on the QuitButton to “Quit“

You can start this scene and click on the buttons, but nothing will happen right now, as we have to set those buttons up.

The Menu Script

Let’s create a script to control those buttons:

• Create a new C# script called Menu in the Scripts folder
• Attach this Menu script to the Canvas object

Then, we’ll open the Menu script and do the following:

• Remove the Start and Update functions, as we won’t need them
• Add the SceneManagement library so we could load the scenes from this script

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.SceneManagement; // Add me!!


public class Menu : MonoBehaviour
{


}

Our UI buttons can call functions from the scripts. So, we’ll create the functions that those buttons will call. Let’s start with a function for the Play button:

• Create a new public function called OnPlayButton
• In that function, make the Scene Manager load a scene with an index of 1. This will be our Level 1 

public void OnPlayButton ()
{
    SceneManager.LoadScene(1);
}

Next, we’ll create a function for the Quit button:

• Create a new public function called OnQuitButton
• In that function, call the Application.Quit function to make the game close

public void OnQuitButton ()
{
    Application.Quit();
}

Here’s what the full Menu script looks like:

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.SceneManagement;


public class Menu : MonoBehaviour
{
    // Called when we click the "Play" button.
    public void OnPlayButton ()
    {
        SceneManager.LoadScene(1);
    }


    // Called when we click the "Quit" button.
    public void OnQuitButton ()
    {
        Application.Quit();
    }
}

Updating The Scene

Now, let’s get back to the Menu scene in Unity Editor. We have to connect our buttons to the Menu script now.

We’ll set up the PlayButton first:

• Select the PlayButton and go to the Inspector
• There is a menu for the On Click event at the bottom of the Button component
• Click on a plus icon there to add a new entry
• Drag the Canvas object to the object field of that entry
• Select the Menu > OnPlayButton function in the function field

Now, when you click on the Play button, this button will call the Menu.OnPlayButton function.

Before testing this Play button, we have to add the Menu scene to the Build Settings:

• Press the Ctrl+Shift+B hotkey to open the Build Settings window
• Press the Add Open Scenes button to add the Menu scene to the list
• Drag the Menu scene to the top of this list

If you start the game and click the Play button now, it will take you to the Level 1.

The Quit Button Challenge

As a bit of a challenge, we want you to connect the Quit button to the Menu script by yourself.

In this lesson, we created the Menu and made it start the first level. In the next lesson, we’ll finish our work on the Menu.

Menu – Part 2

In this lesson, we’ll connect the Quit button to the Menu script.

The Quit Button Challenge Implementation

Here’s what you need to do to connect the Quit button to the Menu class:

• Select the QuitButton game object
• Go to the Button component in the Inspector
• Add a new entry to the On Click event listener
• Drag the Canvas object to the object field of that entry
• Select the Menu > OnQuitButton as a function of that entry

If you start the game and try to press the Quit button, nothing will actually happen. That’s because the Application > Quit function works only in the built project, and doesn’t work in Editor.

In this lesson, we finished our work on the Menu. In the next lesson, we’ll set up one more level and connect them all together.

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Transcript – Menu – Part 1

Welcome back everyone. In this lesson we are gonna be looking at setting up our main menu. So this is gonna be in a brand new scene.

So let’s go down to our scenes folder right here and I’m gonna right click and go create scene. And I’m just gonna call this one, menu. Okay?

We then wanna double click on this to open it up. Yes, we’ll save the scene we’re currently in. And here we are in a brand new scene.

Now the first thing we’re gonna do is make it so that the background, if we go over to our game view here, isn’t the sky box, okay? We’re gonna make it a nice flat color. So let’s select our main camera game object.

And in the inspector, let’s change the clear flags from Sky Box to solid color. This basically means that if there is no object in the way it’s just gonna render a background color.

And we can of course change that by changing the background color property right here. And I’m just gonna make this a nice green, something like this perhaps. Okay?

And then what we can do is we can go ahead and create our canvas, which is gonna hold our UI elements. So I’m gonna right click and go UI canvas. That’s gonna create a new canvas and an event system.

And then on our canvas we are gonna have three different UI elements. We’re gonna have some text for basically the name of the game and two buttons, one that is for playing the game and one for that.

And one we press when we want to quit. Okay, so I’m gonna right click on Canvas, I’m gonna go UI, text-text Mesh Pro. Let’s call this one, title text. We can hop over into our scene view.

And if you’re not in this view that I’m right now you just wanna click on the 2D button at the top right corner of the scene view and then select the text or select your canvas and press F to focus in on it.

So for our title, I’m gonna position it just above the center like so and I’m gonna make it bold, font size, we can keep it at about 36 and let’s just center the alignment as well.

And I’m gonna call this one, My 3D Game. There we go. Okay, now next up we need two buttons. One to play the game and one to quit the game.

Now for buttons, we can right click on canvas go down to UI, and you’ll see down here we have a long list of different elements.

We could have sliders, scroll bars but you’ll see there is a button-text mesh Pro. Let’s click on that and I’m gonna call this one our play button.

Okay, so now for this button, I’m gonna increase it in size a bit like so, and then I’m going to open it up ’cause as you can see there’s a child object which is the text element.

And I’m gonna rename or I’m gonna change the text to display play. Okay, just like that. So if we look at our game view that’s what it’s gonna look like.

And then for the second button, we can just copy and paste the play button or control D to duplicate it, move it down tiny bit. I’m gonna rename this to our quit button and then change its text to say quit.

Okay, and there we go. So when we press play, we’ll as you can see, if I press play, I’m actually able to click on these buttons. You can see there’s a little color change but they don’t do anything.

So how do we make it so that when we press play it will launch us into our first level and quit will basically quit the game.

Well, for that we are gonna be creating a script. So let’s go to our scripts folder and we’re gonna create a new C sharp script called Menu.

And this menu script, I’m gonna go ahead and attach this to our canvas since I reckon that’s probably gonna be the best place to have it for now attached to the canvas.

And then let’s open it up. Now, inside of the menu script we’re not gonna be needing start or updates. So we can delete those two like so.

And instead we are gonna be adding in using UnityEngine dot SceneManagement because we do wanna be able to switch between scenes.

Now the way that the buttons work is that when you press a button, you can set it up so that it can actually call a function on a given component.

So what we’re gonna do on this menu script which is a component of Canvas, is we’re gonna create a function for pressing the play button and a function for pressing the quit button.

So I’m gonna create a public void and I’m gonna call this one, On Play Button. Now, it is important to note that this function has to be public because we are going to be accessing it from outside of this class.

And when we press the play button, what we want to do is lower it into the first level. So I’m gonna go SceneManager dot LoadScene. And there’s two ways you can do this.

You can of course enter in the name of your level one, okay. But later on you might go ahead and change the name of the level. You know, you might make it level one dot one or whatever.

So instead, I’m just gonna use the build index of one. Now the build index of one is not the first scene, but the second one, okay, zero build index zero is gonna be our menu scene.

And then build index one is gonna be our level one. So we can just enter in the build index like so. And then we have the quit button. So I’m gonna create a public void On Quit Button function right here.

Now what this is gonna do is it is going to quit the application. Okay? So if we have our game window up and we press quit, it’s gonna close down the game.

Now Unity has this already set up for us so all we need to do is go Application dot Quit. Okay? Just like that. And that is gonna close down our game pretty easily.

So yeah, on play button and on quit button, these are the two functions we have created. Now let’s go over and connect those to the buttons.

So back inside of the editor right here, what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna select the play button right here and I’m gonna go down to the inspector.

Now in the inspector you see that we have an image component which basically renders the button background image and then we have a button component and this is basically in charge of detecting when we’re clicking on it and changing the tint for when we’re highlighting, when we’re pressing, et cetera.

And you’ll also see something down here which says on click and it says list is empty. Now this is what is known as an event listener.

We’re not gonna really go into what an event is but basically this is a list that we can attach functions to so that when we press the button those functions are executed.

So what I’m gonna do is click on the little plus down here at the bottom right to add a new item to the list. And I’m gonna drag in the canvas to the object field here.

And then where it says no function, I’m gonna click on that, I’m gonna hover over our menu and then I’m going to select the on play button function right here.

So now when we click the play button, this on click event is gonna basically look at its list of functions and it’s gonna call those. So before we press play and test this out, let’s first of all go to file build settings and add the menu here.

Now to quickly add the scene you currently in, we can just go add open scenes, that’s gonna add the menu to the list but we want menu to be the first scene in the list. So I’m just gonna click and drag it up here.

That is because menu is now building index zero, level one is one, level two is two. We can then close outta this, press play. And then when we have launched into our game let’s press the play button and see what happens.

And you’ll see it takes us over to level one and then we can of course play through this game here. So yeah, that is the play button working. Now as a bit of a challenge, I want you to go ahead and set up the quit button right here.

I want you to connect this up to our on quit button function which of course is our menu script. That is a component of Canvas.

So it works in pretty much the exact same way as we’ve done with the play button but you’re of course choosing a different function. So have a go at that and I’ll be right back to see how you’ve done.

Transcript – Menu – Part 2

All right, so I hope you had a go at the challenge. Pretty much what we want to do is we want to create the On Trigger Enter function right here, okay?

So On Trigger Enter which has the collider as the parameter. And then what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna check, if other.CompareTag is Player.

So if the object that has hit the coin is of type Player then we are going to go, other.GetComponent, oops dot Get Component, PlayerController.AddScore and would send over a value of one for this coin, okay?

And then to destroy the coin we want to go Destroy game Object, okay? With a lowercase G, which references this game object that the script is attached to.

So that is all the code we need for detecting our overlap triggers, and then adding to the player score and then destroying the coin. So let’s save that. Let’s go back into Unity now.

And what we’re gonna do is we are gonna select our coin object, just move it over to a position where we might want it to be. Let’s just say over here, go to our game view, press Play and let’s see if it works.

So as you can see, our coin is spinning around and if I collect it, you’ll see that it disappears. And if we click on our player game object, you’ll see down in our player controller, we have our score property visible and it has a value of one.

Okay, let’s actually go ahead now and select our coin. Let’s go to a prefabs folder. Let’s drag it in there to save it as a prefab. And we can now copy and paste this coin a couple times to see how the score ticks up.

So I’m gonna select our player. I’m gonna press Play and keep an eye on the score property down here at the bottom right, okay?

When I start collecting coins you can see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and six, okay? And then of course, if we get hit by the enemy we get tail pulled back to the start and everything has been reset.

So yeah, that is how we can set up coins which then ties into our player’s scoring system. Now in the next lesson, we are going to be looking at actually setting up our level, okay?

We’re gonna be placing our enemies around, we’re gonna be placing our coins, getting the platforms and all that set up, and so that we can start actually getting some levels built, okay? So thanks for watching and I’ll see you all then.

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With the rebranding of Facebook and Oculus’ headset, along with the growing VR industry, now is the best time to jump into VR development. In this article, we’re going to cover the steps you need to take to specifically build games for the Meta Quest, and help you discover the need-to-know information to do it.

Let’s dive in!

What You Need to Know About Virtual Reality

In this section specifically for beginners, let’s establish some baseline concepts before we jump into making a game for VR. These will inform the sorts of games you can build, and are important when it comes to establishing your design.

What is Virtual Reality?

Virtual reality is, in its simplest, the virtual simulation of 3D spaces. Using a headset, you’re immersed visually into a convincing but ultimately digital environment. The headset controls the camera and stands in for your natural vision, and is capable of things like head tracking. In so doing, the idea is that you’ll have a more immersive experience as if you were actually there.

Depending on the headset, you may also have access to controllers, which can be used as hands. Depending on the game, these controllers can enable you to swing equipped weapons, grab objects, and more.

Despite how advanced virtual reality sounds, it’s worth noting that it works for many different devices, from PC to mobile. Though we’ll be focusing specifically on the Meta Quest headset and what it’s suited for, it is still good to keep in mind that this isn’t the only one available.

What are Stationary Experiences?

When designing a VR game, you may wish to go for a stationary experience. These sorts of experiences only track where your head is looking – or in other words how the game camera should be rotated. Other head tracking features that affect position are not utilized in these experiences. So, as the title of this experience implies, users are fairly stationary.

That being said, these can still be used to great advantage. They work well for things like theme park ride simulations or virtual tours. They also more readily avoid simulator sickness – a common phenomenon in VR that causes people to experience motion sickness. It is also considered the more accessible of the two experiences in VR, even if less immersive.

What are Room-Scale Experiences?

At the opposite end of the spectrum, room-scale experiences are those that aim for complete immersion. The game camera not only follows where your head is looking, but also how it is positioned in the world. As such, if you crouch down, the camera goes with you. If you look over an object, the camera goes with you. And so on and so forth.

While this experience is more prone to simulator sickness, it is fantastic if you want to really increase the immersive of the game you’re making. However, keep in mind only more heavy duty headsets, like Meta Quest fortunately, are capable of this style of experience.

How the Meta Quest Works

Years ago, VR was a fairly expensive and clunky platform. Now with the Meta Quest (originally known as the Oculus Quest), VR is reaching its broadest audience yet.

When it comes to portability and ease of use, the Meta Quest is by far the winner among the different VR headsets. However, there are also some advantages specific to Meta Quest, which have made it the focus of our article here. Thus, we want to cover these as well, so you know just what Meta Quest has to offer you.

All-in-One

The Meta Quest, is what’s known as an all-in-one headset. This means that the tracking and computing is done entirely in the headset. No cables plugged into a computer, or external sensors are required.

Inside Out Tracking

You may have seen other VR headsets like the Valve Index, which require external lighthouses to be setup in order for the tracking to work. With the Meta Quest though, you need nothing. The tracking is entirely computed from and on the headset itself, with the help of numerous cameras capturing the surrounding environment. This, along with accelerometers, allows for fairly precise tracking.

Six Degrees of Freedom

Not so common now-a-days, but with mobile VR and the Oculus Go – they features three degrees of freedom. This basically means the headset can be tracked in the three rotational axis’ (yaw, pitch, and roll). With the Meta Quest though, the degrees of freedom are six. The three rotational axis’, as well as the three positional axis (forward/backward, up/down and left/right). This allows for much more immersion, as the player can not only look at the virtual environment, but move through it.

Picking your Game Engine

Now that we got all the information heavy stuff out of the way, let’s jump into the meat of it: how to make a game for Meta Quest.

In order to create a game, we need a game engine. This is a piece of software which allows us to design and code our games. They have many features already setup for us, like 3D environments, interactions, physics, UI, platform support, etc. When it comes to VR, the Unity game engine is your best bet.

Unity, is a favorite among game developers since it has support for pretty much every platform and type of game: VR, AR, 3D, 2D, multiplayer, etc. Many of the VR games you have played were likely made in Unity. This is because Unity was a fairly early adopter of the technology and has since refined their toolkit.

Unity is also free for developers who are earning less than $100,000 in revenue or funding per year. Thus, it is a great choice even for indie developers who are just starting out on their game development journey.

Now there are other engines capable of VR, such as the popular Unreal Engine. We don’t want to mislead you on that count. In fact, if you’re after photo-realistic graphics, we can understand the allure of Unreal Engine, as it is the best game engine for that aspect. Unreal Engine is also well-established in AAA companies.

However, it comes with a few disadvantages:

• Unreal Engine simply isn’t as versatile as Unity. As mentioned above, Unity supports tons of different platforms, so learning how to use Unity gets you more mileage even outside of making games for Meta Quest.
• Unity works better on lower-end computers. Of course, for testing purposes, you will still need a VR-ready computer. However, Unity itself is all around less resource-intensive than Unreal Engine.
• Unity’s default programming, C#, is much easier to learn and use than Unreal Engine’s default language, C++. Though arguably C++ is more industry-standard, it simply has a much more difficult syntax and lacks some modern features modern programming languages like C# have.

Though the choice is up to you, we still highly recommend Unity in this case. If you’d like to know more about the Unity vs. Unreal Engine issue, though, you can check out our article on that exact topic.

Planning your Game

The next step to making a game for Meta Quest is simply to plan it. Game design is a whole separate field of study, so we won’t go too much into that. Though, if you are interested, you can read this article on making Game Design Documents to help you along the way.

Regardless, virtual reality doesn’t have as many limitations as you might think. So, simply put your ideas to paper, decide your features, and have fun with it.

However, there are two issues to consider when planning your game that are specific to virtual reality.

Movement

When it comes to VR, there are two main styles of movement.

With teleportation, users select points on the map and are instantly transported there. Once at the point, they remain in that spot until they click another point to teleport to again. As for the points themselves, they can vary in implementation. Some games allow free-roam with the teleportation, and others use specific set points that limit further where a user can go.

In smooth movement, users use their controllers to move player characters just as they would in a regular game. Though head tracking elements are still at the mercy of the headset, movement is ultimately smooth. It is worth noting, though, this area is rapidly changing, as many companies are experimenting with omni-directional treadmills to enable movement controlled by actually walking.

Simulator Sickness

As we mentioned before, simulator sickness is a common issue with virtual reality. Without getting into the science behind it, just understand it as motion sickness like you’d feel in a car, airplane, or boat. Unfortunately, people’s sensitivity to this issue with virtual reality varies widely – some people have no problems whatsoever, and some people can’t play for 5 minutes without getting dizzy and nauseous.

During your planning phase, it’s wise to consider some best practices you’ll need to implement in order to combat simulator sicknesses. While we’re sure you can find even more tips throughout the helpful game development communities on the internet, we’ve included some common ones here.

• If using smooth movement, players should always be able to move themselves around – don’t move the player via code or other means.
• If you need to move players around yourself, it’s usually better to go with stationary experiences.
• If you need smooth movement AND the ability to move players around, you can block peripheral vision when moving the player as an alternative means to lessen simulator sickness.
• Ideally your game should run at 60FPS, as lower framerates correlate to higher chances of simulator sickness.
• Use fade-in and fade-outs to hide scene loading, teleportation, or any situation where the user is instantly transported somewhere else.

Make your Meta Quest Game

With plans all set to go, it’s time to start making your game for Meta Quest. We’ve included some of our favorite tutorials below. However, before jumping in, you may want to start by reading the Oculus Quest Documentation and the Getting Started with Oculus in Unity guide. Both of these will serve as great resources as you expand your game development knowledge.

Unity Game Development Mini-Degree

Before learning virtual reality, it’s a good idea to master Unity – as that is a skillset in itself.

With the Unity Game Development Mini-Degree by Zenva, you’ll learn all the foundations you’ll need to utilize Unity to its fullest. You’ll cover topics ranging from getting set up with Unity and coding principles with C#, all the way to developing games in specific genres like first-person-shooters. You’ll also get to explore several of Unity’s unique tools, such as ProBuilder, Cinemachine, Shader Graph, and much more.

Though a premium resource, it will ensure you get an amazing full curriculum of courses to be ready for any game that comes your way.

LEARN UNITY – The Most BASIC Tutorial I’ll Ever Make

If you need to learn Unity for free, LEARN UNITY – The Most BASIC Tutorial I’ll Ever Make by Imphenzia is another great choice just for learning Unity.

In this tutorial, you really will learn everything you need to know as someone who has opened Unity for the first time. This includes how to get Unity set up on your computer, how to navigate the Unity editor, how game objects work in Unity, how to add things like materials and colliders, and even how to deal with C# scripting. You’ll also learn a few useful game mechanics along the way, such as how to collect coins and how to debug your programs.

Thus, if you have zero Unity experience, this is a fantastic tutorial that will get you up to speed for the VR tutorials on this list.

Introduction to VR in Unity

Introduction to VR in Unity, created by Valem, is a 12-video playlist focusing specifically on various virtual reality aspects in Unity.

Using the XR Interaction Toolkit, Unity’s newest tool for adding interaction to VR games easily, you’ll explore useful mechanics that can be utilized in many different kinds of games. This includes things such as different styles of movement, how to interact with objects using hand controllers, and even performing things like ray casts to interact with UIs. You’ll also learn more niche mechanics, such as climbing or interacting with things like doors and levers.

Setup information is included as part of the series as well, so it’s a perfect start to your VR journey.

MINI-COURSE – Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit – VR Tutorial

In MINI-COURSE – Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit – VR Tutorial by Zenva, you’ll get the quick version that will get you set up with a VR project in 30 minutes.

This tutorial focuses once again on the XR Interaction Toolkit. With this toolkit, you don’t even need C# to add interactivity to your project – as this tutorial will show. Instead, it focuses solely on getting the toolkit installed into your project and what components you need to have to make it work with hand-tracked controllers. While learning this, you’ll also set up a little demo kitchen scene with the goal of making the objects interactable within the scope of VR.

If you want to know how to get from blank project to VR project in no time flat, this tutorial is the way to go.

How to Make VR Games in 2022

This simple video, How to Make VR Games in 2022, by Justin P Barnett similarly covers just the basics you’ll need to get started with VR in Unity – with a specific focus on Meta Quest.

Like the tutorial above, this one focuses mostly on the basics. You’ll learn how to set up the XR Interaction Toolkit in Unity quite thoroughly, and then cover basic interaction such as movement and picking up objects. This video also covers how you can actually test your VR creation for various different operating systems – yes, including Linux. As a bonus, the video also shows you how to apply Justin’s own template to your project, making this process even speedier.

No matter what game you make, this one strips it down to the most universal level that is useful to any sort of project!

Virtual Reality Mini-Degree

The Virtual Reality Mini-Degree, another premium resource from Zenva, is a full set of courses focused specifically on virtual reality.

In this curriculum, you’ll learn everything from the basics of Unity to making full virtual reality games. This includes games in many popular genres such as FPS games, RPGs, rhythm games, and more. You’ll also explore interactive experiences in general, and learn how to create various styles of simulations that focus-less on gameplay and more on creating unique and immersive environments. Beyond this, you’ll of course get to learn various basics as well, including the different styles of movement available.

If you want to come out of this experience with a full portfolio ready-to-go, this may be the set of courses for you!

Parting Words

We hope you’ve found this information on building a game for Meta Quest useful! While virtual reality is still a growing technology that will continue to change, making a game is possible even now. As we hope to have conveyed as well, it doesn’t have to be a particularly intimidating experience either. If you have the will, you can make a game!

We wish you the best of luck with your Meta Quest VR experiences, and we can’t wait to see them out in the world.

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