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

Mission 1 Quiz

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

Unity Essentials Pathway

Unity Essentials Project: SQ Portfolio

Bro, where's ma ufo?

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

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

Set up a 2D room

Complete your 2D Puzzle Game

Add an animated pet

2D Essentials: More things to try

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

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

Easy: Complete the rings flythrough using Q and E

Medium: Make another mural

Expert: Put together the tube slide

Proceed to the next tutorial

1.C.4 - Expert - Put together the tube slide_V2.mp4

1.C.2 - Easy - Complete the Rings Flythrough using Q and E V3.mp4

1.C.3 - Medium - Make another mural V4.mp4

Further develop your project and skills with optional challenges of varying difficulty.  

Games

Film

Automotive

Mission 1 - Editor Essentials

Try these optional activities to challenge yourself, build your skills, and improve your project!

Each challenge is tagged as Easy, Medium, or Expert difficulty so that you know what to expect. You can do one of them, all of them, or none of them — it’s totally up to you!

Easy: Complete the rings flythrough using Q and E (up and down).

If you’re not interested in doing these challenges, skip to the end of this tutorial to mark it as complete.  

In addition to the main WASD keys for moving in Flythrough mode, you can also use the Q and E keys to fly straight up and down. Using Q and E can really help in certain 3D navigation predicaments. 

Once you’re comfortable using the WASD keys, try to incorporate Q and E into your Flythrough mode navigation. 

This optional challenge is classified as Easy difficulty. 


1.  In the Hierarchy window, re-activate the Rings GameObject to make the rings reappear in the Scene view. 

2.  Complete the rings course using Flythrough mode (right-click and WASD keys), and also incorporate the Q and E keys to see if you can complete it more quickly. 

3.  If you find you’re flying too fast, open the Scene view camera settings dropdown menu in the Scene view toolbar and reduce the Camera Speed.

The best way to get comfortable with Unity is practice, practice, practice. Why not add another mural to your scene to get some more practice with the Move and Rotate tools, and spruce up the playground scene a bit while you’re at it? 

This optional challenge is classified as Medium difficulty. 


1.  In the Hierarchy window, use the foldout (triangle) to expand the Mural GameObject and then select the Puzzle_Pieces GameObject. 

This will allow you to move all of your first mural’s puzzle pieces at once. 

2.  Use the Move tool to drag your first set of puzzle pieces to the left or right a bit to make room for an additional mural.

3.  With the Puzzle_Pieces GameObject still selected, press Ctrl+D (macOS: Cmd+D) to duplicate the set of puzzle pieces. 

This will create a duplicate GameObject called Puzzle_Pieces (1) in the Hierarchy window.

4.  Use the Move tool to move the new set of puzzle pieces to the side.

5.  Activate the Tangram_Reference GameObject and refer to it while you make another mural. Hide that reference image again when you’re done.

Hint:  Remember to use the techniques you learned for a more efficient workflow:

Get into a top isometric view for the best editing perspective. 

With the Move tool, select the green square at the intersection of the X- and Z-axes arrows to slide the puzzle pieces along both axes at once.

Use the keyboard shortcuts W and E to quickly switch between the Move and Rotate tools. 

You may have noticed an inactive GameObject in the Hierarchy window named Tube_Slide. Unfortunately, this tube slide is broken into three pieces and needs to be assembled — that’s your job! 

This optional challenge is classified as Expert difficulty.


1.  In the Hierarchy window, select the parent Tube_Slide GameObject and enable the checkbox at the top of the Inspector window to activate it. 

2.  Use the tips below to assemble the tube slide so that a kid could go down the slide successfully: 

Use Local instead of Global coordinates — with local coordinates you’ll be able to tell when the piece of the tube slide is oriented upright, since its local green Y-axis arrow will be pointing straight up. 

Use the legs as a guide for how high to position the pieces — the legs should just be sitting on the ground. 

After you have completed the assembly, use the parent Tube_Slide GameObject to move and rotate the entire slide into a position you like.  

No matter if you chose to tackle a single challenge, complete them all, or skip them, you're set for the next step! 


Proceed to complete a quiz and get credit for completing this project.

Editor Essentials: More things to try

1. Overview

2. Easy: Complete the rings flythrough using Q and E

3. Medium: Make another mural

4. Expert: Put together the tube slide

5. Proceed to the next tutorial

Complete this tutorial