Leverage the power of the new and improved UI system for Unity to enhance your games and apps
About This Book
- Discover how to build efficient UI layouts coping with multiple resolutions and screen sizes
- In-depth overview of all the new UI features that give you creative freedom to drive your game development to new heights.
- Walk through many different examples of UI layout from simple 2D overlays to in-game 3D implementations
Who This Book Is For
If you have a good understanding of Unity's core functionality and a decent grasp of C# scripting in Unity (although not essential if you are just using the Editor with the new UI), you'll be well placed to take advantage of the new UI feature set.
What You Will Learn
- Get to grips with the Legacy Unity GUI fundamentals to better understand the path forward
- Explore the tools Unity introduced with the new UI system such as the Rect Transform layout tool
- Unwrap the new base Unity UI controls and what makes them tick
- Work with the layout features and take control in a multiresolution world
- Build stunning UI within the 3D as well as the traditional 2D world
- Understand the new Unity Event System and how it fits in to the new UI system and beyond
In Detail
Unity is a powerful cross-platform development engine that provides rich framework to create 2D and 3D apps or games. Through Unity, users are able take master the complexities of game development with ease, including animations, physics, renderings, shaders, scripting and now, Unity have released a new and advanced system to cope with the UI demands for modern applications and games.
Unity 3D UI Essentials is a complete walk-through of the new UI system in Unity V4 and beyond (including Unity 5). This fast-paced practical tutorial provides you with in depth details of the new UI controls and layouts that can be used to create stunning and multiresolution UI.
Venture forth into the highly componentized and advanced UI system, covering new features such as responsive designs and layouts. Also you get to deep-dive into the scripting side of the UI system as Unity has made the entire framework open source, giving free access to the source code of the new UI system to all developers.
So get ready for a wild ride into the new Unity UI system and set your course for awesome!
Simon Jackson
Ever since my early years I have been a tinkerer, engineer, problem solver, and solution gatherer. In short, I love to break things apart, figure out how they work, and then put them back together, usually better than before. I started way back when with my first computer, the Commodore Vic20. It was simple, used a tape deck, and forced you to write programs in basic or assembly; they were fun times. From there, I progressed through the ZX Spectrum +2 and the joyous days of modern graphics, but with the 30 minute load times from a trusty tape deck. Games were a passion of mine even then, which led to many requests for another gaming machine, but Santa brought me an Amstrad 1640, my first PC. From there, my tinkering and building exploded, and that machine ended up being a huge monstrosity with so many addons, tweaks, and fixes; I was Frankenstein, and this PC became my own personal monster crafted from so many parts. Good times. This passion has led me down many paths, and I learned to help educate others on the tips and tricks I learned along the way; these skills have equipped me well for the future. Today I would class myself as a game development generalist. I work with many different frameworks, each time digging down, ripping them apart, and then showing whoever would listen through my blog, videos, and speaking events how to build awesome frameworks and titles. This has been throughout many generations of C++, MDX, XNA (what a breath of fresh air that was), MonoGame, Unity 3D, The Sunburn Gaming Engine, HTML, and a bunch of other proprietary frameworks; I do them all. This gives a very balanced view of how to build and manage many different types of multiplatform titles. I don't stop there, as I regularly contribute to the MonoGame project, adding new features and new samples before publishing it on NuGet. I also have several of my own open source projects and actively seek out any new and interesting ones to help with. By day I am a lowly lead technical architect working in the healthcare software industry seeking to improve patients' health and care through better software (a challenge to be sure), but by night I truly soar! Building, tinkering, and educating whilst trying to push game titles of my own. One day they will pay the bills, but until then I still lead a double life. More recently, I achieved the highly acclaimed reward of being a Microsoft MVP in the ID@Xbox program, for my evangelizing efforts in the game development space. This won't change much about me, but will give me additional tools to help game developers out there. Lastly, you should check out my previous title, which has been one of Packt's best sellers since its release, especially if you want to learn more about Unity's 2D system. Check it out here: http://bit.ly/MasteringUnity2DGameDevelopment.
