I have not abandoned Unity, just have other things that are taking precedent. I will be back, I just don’t no when. That’s why the site is still here. I may not have written anymore lesson, yet, but the basics are still needed by a great many beginners. Maybe not necessarily for UnityScript, but the basic concepts of scripting (programming), in general, are still there to help those that may even be wanting to use C#.

With new products for Unity, like uScript and PlayMaker, a great deal of the need to understand scripting is being removed for those just getting started with Unity. Of course, even these products have a learning curve. Some people, like me, will use them, but I’m that type of “mindset” that wants to understand, at least on a basic level, what is actually happening under the covers, just in case I need to enter that dark pit of code.

That’s it for now.

Terry

No matter, I’m sure it will take some time for the word to get around. Besides, I enjoy creating the lessons for my own benefit. As I dig into Unity to develop these lessons I get even more understanding of Unity.

Since I’m not new to programming, scripting is actually the easiest part. How it fits into Unity, with its unique requirements, is the most interesting part for me. Unity has so many parts to it, so learning the whole system is pretty much a “Learn to do things as you need them” process. Yet so much depends on tying all the pieces together with scripts.

The next series of lessons will study loops. This leads directly into looping through items stored in containers such as arrays.

Before that, though, is my first Unity conference in Montreal, Unite 2010. Really looking forward to it.

When a person reaches my age, 62 in Dec., you come to the conclusion, from a lifetime of experience, that things don’t always go as planned. I bought Unity Pro because I didn’t know for sure what might happen going forward. I made the purchase just in case I might produce games. It’s better to have a Pro license and not need it, than to need it and not have the money.

During the process of learning Unity, I came to the conclusion that scripting for some people was a rather frightening challenge. Especially if they had no programming skills at all. Soooo, since my original goal was to create tutorials, I decided to take my learning process and lay it out so others could benefit from the steps I’m taking.

The thing is, though life’s experiences, I’ve learned that learning from experts isn’t always the easiest pass to take in the beginning. The problem is that experts have reached a plateau of knowledge, which is great of course, but they’ve forgotten those early days when they, too, were struggling to learn. What happens, as they try to help others, is they try to explain concepts as though they are self-evident. All the tiny details are left out.

The student, totally new to any of the basic programming concepts, ends up scratching their head saying “What did he say?” I’ve seen plenty of responses in the Unity Community forum suggesting to get a book about JavaScript to get the basics. Even video tutorials provide only brief incite into actually understanding what to script and why.

Try to find a book on JavaScript that doesn’t have a major leaning toward creating web sites. Then, supposedly, the very green student is supposed to “see the light” and some how automatically know how it all relates to scripting in Unity. That, in turn, is supposed too help the student understand what the expert was trying to convey.

I’m not a noob to programming. I was conducting a class via print in OS/2 Magazine teaching C++ for programming OS/2. That totally fell apart when I had a snowblower accident that wiped out my fingers on my left hand. Yes, I lost a finger and damaged another pretty bad. That was about 6 years ago. I’ve since adapted and can type reasonably well again. However, the C++ details pretty much faded away over the years.

I’d probably be just as comfortable doing C#, but most noobs will definitely find scripting much easier using UnityScript. So during my relearning process, I created this site to help others as I progress myself.

I hope this site helps those that may need assistance.

Terry