Lesson 1.1 - Start your 3D Engines

The first thing we need to do is create a folder that will hold all of our course projects, then create a new Unity project inside it for Prototype 1.

1. On your desktop (or somewhere else you will remember), Right-click > create New Folder, then name it “Create with Code”
2. Open Unity Hub and select the Projects tab from the left sidebar
3. Select New to create a new project, using one of the supported versions of Unity such as version 2022.3.
4. Select the 3D (Built-In Render Pipeline) template, name the project “Prototype 1”, and set the location to the new “Create with Code” folder
5. Select Create, then wait for Unity to open your new project

Now that we have an empty project open, we need to import the assets for Prototype 1 and open the scene

1. Click to download the Prototype 1 Starter Files, then extract the compressed folder.
   Windows: Right-click on the file > Extract All
   Mac: Double-click on the file
2. From the top menu in Unity, select Assets > Import Package > Custom Package, then navigate to the folder you extracted and select the Prototype-1_Starter-Files.unitypackage file.
3. In the Import Unity Package window that pops up, select Import and wait for the assets to import.
4. In the Project window, in Assets > Scenes > double-click on the Prototype 1 scene to open it
5. Delete the Sample Scene without saving
6. Right-click + drag to look around at the start of the road

Since we’re making a driving simulator, we need to add our own vehicle to the scene.

1. In the Project Window, open Assets > Course Library > Vehicles, then drag a vehicle into the Hierarchy
2. Hold right-click + WASD to fly to the vehicle, then try to rotate around it
3. With the vehicle selected and your mouse in the Scene view, Press F to focus on it
4. Use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out and hold the scroll wheel to pan
5. Hold alt+left-click to rotate around the focal point or hold alt+right-click to zoom in and out
6. If anything goes wrong, press Ctrl/Cmd+Z to Undo until it’s fixed

The next thing our game needs is an obstacle! We need to choose one and position it in front of the vehicle.

1. Go to Course Library > Obstacles and drag an obstacle directly into the Scene view
2. In the Inspector for your obstacle, in the top-right of the Transform component, click the more options button > Reset
   Note: The more options button may appear as three vertical dots or a gear icon, depending on your version of Unity
3. In the Inspector, change the XYZ Location to x=0, y=0, z=25
4. In the Hierarchy, Right-click > Rename your two objects as “Vehicle” and “Obstacle”

Now that we’ve set up our vehicle and obstacle, let’s try running the game and looking through the camera.

1. Select the Camera in the hierarchy, then press F to focus on it
2. Press the Play button to run your Game, then press Play again to stop it

In order for the player to properly view our game, we should position and angle the camera in a good spot behind the vehicle

1. Use the Move and Rotate tools to move the camera behind the vehicle looking down on it
2. Hold Ctrl/Cmd to move the camera by whole units

Last but not least, we need to customize the Unity Editor layout so that it’s perfect for editing our project.

1. In the top-right corner, change the layout from “Layout” to “Tall”,
2. Move Game view beneath Scene view
3. In the Project window, click on the little drop-down menu in the top-right and choose “One-column layout”
4. In the layout Dropdown, save a new Layout and call it “My Layout”

New Functionality

• Project set up with assets imported
• Vehicle positioned at the start of the road
• Obstacle positioned in front of the vehicle
• Camera positioned behind vehicle

New Concepts & Skills

• Create a new project
• Import assets
• Add objects to the scene
• Game vs Scene view
• Project, Hierarchy, Inspector windows
• Navigate 3D space
• Move and Rotate tools
• Customize the layout

Next Lesson

• We’ll really make this interactive by writing our first line of code in C# to make the vehicle move and have it collide with other objects in the scene