Getting Started with Unity
This article covers the steps to ensure you have the correct computer specifications to run Unity. We cover the process for setting up Unity on a PC or a Mac computer. Each section has a video to go along with the content about the topic.
Install the Unity Editor for the first time
When installing new software, it is important to check if the software has any system requirements. Here is a link to Unity's System Requirements for Unity 2021 LTS.
Once you confirm that your computer meets the requirements, visit the download page and select the Unity Hub version for your operating system (Windows, Mac, or Linux).
You might be wondering why you need to download Unity Hub instead of just Unity directly. Unity Hub is the central location for all your projects, different editor installations, and helpful links you might need. For more information about Unity Hub, check out the content directly from Unity here.
Now that you have the Unity Hub application installed on your computer, sign in with your Unity ID or create a new account.
Setting up a Microsoft account
In order our game objects to move around or preform tasks we will need to create a C# script file that will be added to the game object as a component. For us to write these script files we will use Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 as our IDE (integrated development environment). Microsoft does offer a lite version of Visual Studio called Visual Studio Code,but there are a few additional steps to get VS Code to work correctly with Unity. In the end it doesn’t always work the way it should, and because of this I would recommend using Visual Studio 2022.
Create and manage projects in the Unity Hub
After installing Unity and all other required components, we can proceed to cover the Unity Hub and the single version of Unity that runs the project. To ensure easy access to our project for review purposes, we will create a folder for all our Unity projects.
Setting up Version Control
When it comes to any size project that you are creating, you want to have a back up of the project in case something goes wrong with the computer you are working on or the software gets corrupted in some way. Version control will give us a way to make copies of our project as we build or even collaborate with others.
As for what software you will use for the version control is up to you. I will cover 3 different companies that offer solutions in this field but in the end I will be using GitHub during this course.
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. is a platform and cloud-based service for software development and version control using Git, allowing developers to store and manage their code. Wikipedia
GitHub was also acquired by Microsoft in 2018, which gave GitHub a better connection to Visual Studios for programming purposes. Visual Studio and GitHub are better together. If you have a GitHub account, you can use that account to sign into Visual Studio as well.
Bit Bucket
Bitbucket is a Git-based source code repository hosting service owned by Atlassian. Bitbucket offers both commercial plans and free accounts with an unlimited number of private repositories. Wikipedia
GitLab
GitLab Inc. is an open-core company that operates GitLab, a DevOps software package which can develop, secure, and operate software. The open source software project was created by Ukrainian developer Dmytro Zaporozhets and Dutch developer Sytse Sijbrandij. Wikipedia