Set up a 2D room

Complete your 2D Puzzle Game

Add an animated pet

2D Essentials: More things to try

Mission 5 Quiz

Unity Essentials: 2D Essentials Quiz

Create a top-down minigame similar to the 3D living room experience, but in 2D.

In this 2D Mission, you'll create a top-down 2D version of the interactive living room scene you created earlier. 

Just like in the 3D scene, you'll control a character, and try to collect all the objects in a room. By completing this scene, you'll learn how working in 2D is similar to working in 3D, but also how it’s different.

2D Essentials

Unity Essentials Pathway

Master the basics of Unity with the Unity Essentials Pathway. Perfect for beginners, this free learning journey introduces game development, 3D content creation, and Unity's core tools. Start building today!

Unity Essentials Pathway - Learn Game Development for Beginners | Unity Learn

Unity Essentials is the perfect place to start for beginners to Unity. No previous experience is necessary.

New to Unity? This guided learning Pathway includes everything you need to get started.

Designed for anyone new to Unity, this guided learning journey is your first step toward creating confidently in the Unity Editor and bringing your visions to life. In this learning Pathway, you’ll design different rooms of a house, learning the essentials of one key skillset as you complete each room.

Unity Essentials

Unity Essentials: Install Unity

Open the Unity Essentials project

Explore the Editor Interface

Master 3D scene navigation

Pass the Scene view flying test

Design a mural in the Scene view

Editor Essentials: More things to try

Unity Essentials: Editor Essentials Quiz

Explore a playground scene and design a mural to get comfortable with the Unity interface.

This tutorial series introduces you to the essential skills of navigating the Unity Editor.

You'll learn to navigate 3D space in a playground scene, using Flythrough mode and tools like Move and Rotate to design a mural.

Once you master these skills, you’ll have the foundation required for confidently creating in Unity.

Editor Essentials

Add furniture to the kid’s room

Make a bouncy ball

Make a tower of prefab blocks

Adjust the lights, background, and camera angle

3D Essentials: More things to try

Unity Essentials: 3D Essentials Quiz

Design a kid's bedroom with a bouncing ball and a tower of collapsing building blocks.

In this tutorial series, you'll explore Unity's capabilities by designing a kid's bedroom scene with dynamic elements like a bouncing ball and a tower of blocks. You'll learn new skills in 3D navigation, object customization, and using Unity's physics system. 

You’ll also create prefabs, adjust lighting, and capture your scene with a camera. 

This foundational knowledge is vital to creating any type of Unity project.

3D Essentials

Create an immersive soundscape

Audio Essentials: More things to try

Unity Essentials: Audio Essentials Quiz

Add immersive sound to a kitchen scene with a variety of different types of audio.

In this Audio Mission, you will learn the fundamentals of implementing different types of audio into Unity scenes. You’ll learn how to set the tone with background music, how to add realism with sound effects, and even how to implement spatial audio in a 3D scene.

Audio Essentials

Add a movement script

Create a rotating collectible

Collect the collectible

Programming Essentials: More things to try

Unity Essentials: Programming Essentials Quiz

Add code so that a player character can explore a living room and gather collectibles. 

In this Mission, you’ll program a simple interactive experience where you control a character in a living room scene and move around to collect objects. 

You'll be able to choose from a variety of characters and collectible objects. In our example, we'll use a robot vacuum that maneuvers to pick up dirt around the room.

Programming Essentials

Build your portfolio project

Publish to WebGL

Challenge: Add a bonus scene

Capture a video of your project

Share your project

Combine all of your scenes together into one cohesive portfolio project that you can share with others. 

It's time to collect all your good work together into a singular portfolio piece that you and others can play!

A portfolio, especially in the realm of real-time 3D (RT3D) and game development, is not just a collection of work, but a practical way of demonstrating your familiarity with essential tools and concepts. 

In this Mission, you will package all of your work from this Pathway into a single playable experience that you can easily share with others.


Publishing Essentials

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Overview

Open the sprite sheet in the Sprite Editor

Slice your sprite sheet

Animate the sprite sheet

Make the pet interactable

Review and proceed to the next tutorial

5.3.1 - Overview.mp4

5.3.4 - Animate the sprite sheet.mp4

5.3.5 - Make the pet interactable.mp4

5.3.3 - Slice your sprite sheet.mp4

5.3.2 - Open the sprite sheet in the Sprite Editor_U6.mp4

Use the Sprite Editor to animate a 2D cat or dog, then add it to the room.

Sprite Atlas

Use the Sprite Editor

Games

Film

Automotive

Mission 5 - 2D Essentials

In this tutorial, you’ll use the Sprite Editor to make an animated 2D cat or dog, then add your new pet to the living room. This more dynamic element will help bring your scene to life a bit more. 

2D sprites are often animated using sprite sheets. A sprite sheet is a large image containing many smaller images (sprites). As you might know, an animation is just a series of image frames played one after the other — and a sprite sheet is useful for holding all of those individual frames in one place. 

Unity has a built-in tool called the Sprite Editor that helps you work very efficiently with sprite sheets. 

In this step, you’ll open either the dog or the cat sprite sheet in the Sprite Editor. 


1.  In the Project window, navigate to _Unity Essentials > Sprites > Animated. 

2.  Select Sprite_Sheet_Cat or Sprite_Sheet_Dog to preview the sprite sheet at the bottom of the Inspector window. 

3.  In the Inspector window, change the Sprite Mode property from Single to Multiple, then select Apply. 

This will allow you to slice the sprite sheet into multiple individual sprites. 

4.  Select Open Sprite Editor to view the sprite sheet in the Sprite Editor window.  

1.  From the Slice dropdown, keep the default Automatic options, and select Slice. 

Note:  If you get a warning about a Potential loss of Sprite data, don't worry. Select Yes to continue.

You’ll see new gray rectangles around the individual sprites. 

Note:  If the Slice dropdown is grayed out, you might have missed the instruction in the last step to set the Sprite Mode to Multiple.

2.  Select Apply to save your changes, then close the Sprite Editor window.

3.  In the Project window, expand the Sprite_Sheet_Cat or Sprite_Sheet_Dog assets to reveal the individual sprites that make up the sprite sheet. Use the arrow keys to flip through the sprites to get a sense of the animation in the Inspector preview window.

With your sprite sheet now neatly sliced into individual images, you just need to create an animation file that controls how these frames will be animated in the scene. 


1.  Use the Shift or Ctrl (macOS: Cmd) keys to select all eight of the individual sprites for either the dog or cat (0 through 7), then drag them together into the Hierarchy window. 

2.  A dialog will open that asks you to save a new Animation file in your assets. Name the new animation file either “Dog.anim” or “Cat.anim”, then select Save. 

This file controls how to cycle through the frames of the sprite sheet.

3.  In the Hierarchy window, rename Sprite_Sheet_Cat or Sprite_Sheet_Dog to “Cat” or “Dog”, then move the animated pet to an open spot in the living room.

4.  Just like with the furniture, set Order in Layer to 10 so the pet is always on top of the rugs. 

5.  Enter Play mode to see your animated pet in action. 

The player will be able to pass right through the animal right now — you’ll fix that next. 

Just like you did with the furniture, you’ll need to configure the physics on this animal so you can push it around. 


1.  With the pet selected, add a Circle Collider 2D component and Rigidbody 2D component so that the player can interact with it. 

2.  Configure the Rigidbody 2D properties appropriately:

Increase the Linear Drag and the Angular Drag.

3.  Enter Play mode again to test the interactivity. 

If you want, add the other animated animal to bring even more life to your scene! 

Congratulations on using the Sprite Editor to bring a pet to life in your living room. 

Here are some of the things you learned along the way:

Explain how a sprite sheet can be used to create animated 2D objects.

Slice sprite sheets into individual images using the Sprite Editor.

Make an animated sprite sheet that loops through frames.

Proceed to the next tutorial, which includes optional challenges to further develop your skills, explore new concepts, and improve your project. 

Add an animated pet

1. Overview

2. Open the sprite sheet in the Sprite Editor

3. Slice your sprite sheet

4. Animate the sprite sheet

5. Make the pet interactable

6. Review and proceed to the next tutorial

Complete this tutorial