Welcome to the course

Install the Unity Hub and Editor

Get started with the Unity Editor

Create a balanced primitive structure

Unit 1 - Unity fundamentals

In this unit, you will create your first Unity project, get comfortable using the Unity Editor, and then design your first scene. 

Unit 1 - Get started in Unity

Introduction to Unit 2

Setting up the Game

Moving the Player

Moving the Camera

Setting up the Play Area

Creating Collectibles

Detecting Collisions with Collectibles

Displaying Score and Text

Adding AI Navigation

Building the Game

Fill out a Game Design Document

Introduction to Unit 3

Get started with audio

Create 3D sound effects

Add special effects to existing audio

Challenge: Your own soundscape

Add audio to your game

Introduction to Unit 4

Get started with VFX

Play around with a Particle System

Create an environmental Particle System

Create a burst particle

Challenge: Add some magic to your scene

Add VFX to your game

Introduction to Unit 5

Get started with user interfaces

Add a title to your scene

Manage screen size and anchors

Create a menu background with images

Add basic button functionality

Add toggles and sliders

Challenge: Make a worldspace UI

Add UI to your game

Introduction to Unit 6

Get started with animation

Create your first 3D animations

Refine your animation

Control animation with an Animator

Import animation

Challenge: Bring the scene to life

Add animation to your game

Introduction to Unit 7

Get started with shaders and materials

Explore meshes and rendering

Explore shaders

Simulate solid surfaces

Map materials with textures

Create translucent and transparent effects

Add physical texture with bump mapping 

Challenge: Create your still life composition

Add materials to your game

Introduction to Unit 8

Get started with lighting

Get started with lighting in Unity

Configure the Directional Light and skybox

Add light sources to your scene

Configure shadows in your scene

Bake a lightmap for your scene

Improve your lighting with Light Probes

Examine and complete the indoor scene

Refine and troubleshoot the indoor scene

Showcase your work with lighting

Add lighting to your game

Introduction to Unit 9

Explore the production cycle

Reimagine your game on multiple platforms

Iterate on the player controller

Source new assets

Unity pro tips

Prepare for the UCA Game Dev exam

Finalize your project

Unit 2 - Program a basic game

Unit 3 - Audio

Unit 4 - VFX

Unit 5 - UI

Unit 6 - Animation

Unit 7 - Materials

Unit 8 - Lighting

Unit 9 - Iterate on your game

In this unit, you will create a simple game called Roll-a-Ball that will be the foundation for your personal game project, which you will work on for the entire course.  

In this unit, you’ll learn how to implement audio effects in Unity. Then you’ll apply those new skills and add audio to your own game. 

In this unit, you’ll learn how to implement visual effects (VFX)  in Unity. Then you’ll apply those new skills and add VFX to your own game. 

Unit 4 - Visual Effects

In this unit, you’ll learn how to create user interfaces (UI) in a Unity project. Then you’ll apply those new skills and add UI to your own game. 

Unit 5 - User Interfaces

In this unit, you’ll learn how to create and control animations in a Unity project. Then you’ll apply those new skills and add animations to your own game. 

Add physical texture with bump mapping

In this unit, you’ll learn how to add custom materials, including a repeating pattern and a normal map to simulate height and surface texture. Then you’ll apply those new skills and add animations to your own game.

In this unit, you’ll learn how to add lighting to your scene to make things more polished and visually pleasing. Then you’ll apply those new skills and add lighting to your own game.

In this unit, you’ll reflect on the process so far, iterate on the player controller, swap out the assets in your game, and then you’ll learn some Unity tips and tricks to take your skills to the next level.

Unit 9 - Iterate on your Game

In this unit, you’ll make sure you’re ready to take the certification exam and make any final adjustments to your game to make sure it meets the goals outlined in your Game Design Document.  

Unit 10 - Prepare for certification and publishing

This course is designed to help you prepare for the 

Unity Certified Associate: Game Developer

In this course, you will master the fundamental skills needed for game development with Unity, including programming in C#, designing immersive audio and stunning visual effects, crafting intuitive user interfaces, and applying unique animations, materials and lighting.

You'll start by creating a design document for your own game, then gradually build a working prototype. Throughout the course, you'll enhance your game using the skills you acquire, taking it from a simple idea to a finished product.

Towards the end of the course, there is dedicated time for a comprehensive review of everything you’ve learned to ensure you’re fully prepared to ace the exam

When you're done with the course, you will not only have the skills to pass the Unity Certified Associate exam and continue creating your own games, but you'll also have a fully realized game that you've designed and created from scratch.

2022.3

UCA: Game Developer - Certification Prep Course

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Overview

Review your primitive options

Tips and tricks

Instructions

Requirements

Submit your work

Castle with turrets and vertical sliding door

Unity Game Developer Associate - Build a Balanced Primitive Structure

Unity Game Developer - Create Balanced Primitive Structure

Dawn law

My very poorly structured building but it balances

Beefnoodlesoup

It is a metal plank supported by four concrete pillars, with a plastic sphere on top.

metal plank with a flat plastic sphere

NoahReese77

Seesaw

majorhhheee2

Balance cubes

yyu14

Balancing structure 

Soft_cats

Balanced primitive structure

nice_banana

It is a bit wobbly, but at least it doesn't fall over. 

My Balancing Project - Made with Clipchamp (1).mp4

My Balancing Primitive Objects Project

rfern27

rotating plane and quad.mp4

parenting-objects.mp4

cylinder-collider-issues.mp4

balanced-structure.mp4

Creating a balanced structure in Unity requires both artistic vision and a deep understanding of how to navigate and transform 3D objects in the Scene view. In this tutorial, you will construct a sculpture from various Unity primitives, ensuring it remains stable with gravity enabled.

In this challenge, you’ll construct a unique sculpture using a variety of Unity primitives that remains balanced even with gravity enabled.

To accomplish this task, you'll need to put your scene view navigation skills to the test, especially your ability to move, rotate, and scale objects in 3D space. 

The real-world inspiration for your structure could range from an abstract rock sculpture to a giant modern tower. For example, how could you represent some of the structures below in Unity?

Photo on the left by Aaron Thomas on Unsplash. Photo on the left by Dong Cheng on Unsplash

Before you get started building, it will be helpful to get an overview of all of the 3D primitive shapes at your disposal:

Plane: A flat, rectangular surface with no height dimension, ideal for creating large-scale flat surfaces like floors or terrain in a 3D environment because it contains many vertices for detailed texturing and interaction. Only one side of the plane is rendered, making it invisible from behind.

Quad: A flat, two-dimensional square with only two triangles, which is what separates it from a plane. It is suitable for simple, efficient flat surfaces or for displaying 2D elements in a 3D scene, like sprites and billboards, due to its lower complexity compared to a plane. Similar to the plane, only one side is rendered, making it invisible from behind.

In the video below, notice how many more subdivisions the plane has than the quad, but also notice that they both share the feature of only rendering their front face.

Cube: This object is useful for constructing a wide range of geometric structures due to its uniformity and simplicity.

Sphere: This object is useful for simulating round objects like balls, planets, or character heads.

Capsule: A cylinder capped with hemispheres at both ends, typically used for character collision detection in games.

Cylinder: A 3D shape with two flat circular faces and a curved side, useful for simulating objects with a circular cross-section like tree trunks or barrels.

Below are a few very helpful tips before you get started building.


Create an empty parent GameObject to stay organized

In order to make sure that your structure stays nice and organized in the Hierarchy window, it is helpful to make an empty parent GameObject, then create all of your primitives as child GameObjects. To do this, right-click in the Hierarchy window and select Create Empty, rename the parent GameObject something like “Structure”,  and reset the position to the origin.

Then, simply right-click on the Parent GameObject in the Hierarchy window when you create new primitives and they will automatically be assigned as child GameObjects. This way, you’ll be able to easily move the entire object around with a single GameObject, and it will keep your Hierarchy window more neat.

Note: You can also drag one GameObject on top of another to make it a child GameObject. For efficiency, hold Ctrl (macOS: Cmd) to select multiple individual GameObjects or hold Shift to select a list of GameObjects. Check out the video below for a demonstration of this.

Sometimes you will want to make things perfectly symmetrical or perfectly spaced apart. Rather than just using the move tool in this situation, you can use the Transform properties to space objects precisely. For example, the cubes below are all spaced exactly two units apart on the X axis.

If you make an object larger, it does not make it heavier. To make it heavier, you need to adjust the Mass property in the Rigidbody component, which defines the object’s weight in kilograms. In the example below, the cylinders only balance because the two cylinders on the left have a mass of 1kg, while the cylinder on the right has a mass of 2kg.

Use Mesh Colliders for unusual primitives

A collider is a component in Unity that defines the shape of an object for the purposes of physical interactions with other objects in the scene. The collider determines the actual shape for building and balancing purposes — the mesh is simply a visual representation.

However, there are some situations where the mesh will not match the collider, such as with a cylinder. The cylinder primitive actually uses a capsule-shaped collider, which makes it difficult to use for building, since it doesn’t actually have any flat surfaces on the collider.

In situations like this, you can use something called a Mesh Collider component, which uses the actual mesh to define the shape of an object for physics interactions. When the Convex property is enabled, the mesh is treated as a convex shape, offering improved performance but potentially sacrificing some accuracy compared to a non-convex mesh collider. Check out the image below to see how the Mesh Collider component wraps more accurately around the mesh than the Capsule Collider component.

Another situation where your collider might not match your mesh is when scaling a sphere to a non-sphere shape. The sphere collider always retains its perfectly spherical shape, so you will get a mismatch. Check out the example below of the default Sphere Collider component compared with a Mesh Collider component on a scaled sphere.

To swap out the default collider with a convex Mesh Collider component, watch the video below.

With the guidance above in mind, use the following instructions to create your own scene:

You can either recreate one of the example structures above, find other inspiration, or use your imagination to design something unique.

Start fresh by creating a new Unity scene.

Add a plane GameObject to serve as the foundation for your structure.

Add various primitive shapes (like cubes, spheres, capsules, or cylinders) to assemble your structure.

Add a Rigidbody component to your primitives, so they obey the laws of physics.

Make sure to position the camera to nicely frame your creation.

To successfully complete this challenge, your Unity sculpture should meet the following criteria:

It Incorporates at least two different types of primitive shapes.

All objects must have a Rigidbody component with the Use Gravity property enabled.

It remains standing when you switch to Play mode.

It has a custom material applied to the GameObjects for a visually engaging aesthetic.

After you’ve fulfilled the requirements, please submit and share your project! Follow these instructions to submit your project:

1.  Take a screenshot or screen recording of your project in Play mode.

2.  Add a submission title and description.

Make sure to include the image or video of your project. If you have additional details to share about your process or the project that you have created, you can share them in the description too.

5.  Check your submission preview and then complete the CAPTCHA test and select Submit and continue.

We highly recommend that you comment on at least one other creator's submission. Did they successfully complete the challenge? What do you like about the project?

Create a balanced primitive structure

1. Overview

2. Review your primitive options

3. Tips and tricks

4. Instructions

5. Requirements

6. Submit your work

Please login to submit