As far as Unity 3D creations go, my Bouncy Bouncy Lights project is pretty simple, as expected of a beginner's learning project. My Unity (re)learning session started with their LEGO microgame tutorial, but I didn't want to submit a LEGO-derived Unity project for ART.HAPPENS. (And it might not have been legal under the LEGO EULA anyway.) So after completing the LEGO microgame tutorial and its suggested Creative Mods exercises, I still had more to learn.

The good news is that Unity Learn has no shortage of instruction materials, the bad news is a beginner gets lost on where to start. To help with this, they've recently (or at least since the last time I investigated Unity) rolled out the concept of "Pathways" which organize a set of lessons targeted for a particular audience. People looking for something after completing their microgame tutorial is sent towards the Unity Essentials Pathway.

Before throwing people into the deep pool that is Unity Editor, the Essentials Pathway starts by setting us up with a lot of background information in the form of video interview clips with industry professionals using Unity. I preferred to read instead of watching videos, but I wanted to hear these words of wisdom so I sat through them. I loved that they allocated time to assure beginners that they're not alone if they found Unity Editor intimidating at first glance. The best part was the person who claimed their first experience was taking one look and said "Um, no." Closed Unity, and didn't return for several weeks.

Other interviews covered the history of Unity, and how it enabled creation of real-time interactive content, and the tool evolved alongside the industry. There were also information for people who are interested in building a new career using Unity. Introducing terminology and even common job titles that can be used to query on sites like LinkedIn. I felt this section offered more applicable advise for this job field more than I ever received in college for my job field. I was mildly amused and surprised to see Unity classes ended with a quiz to make sure I understood everything.

After this background we are finally set loose on Unity Editor starting from scratch. Well, an empty 3D project template which is as close to scratch as I cared to get. The template has a camera and a light source but not much else. Unlike the microgames which are already filled with assets and code. This is what I wanted to see: how do I start from geometry primitives and work my way up, pulling from Unity Asset store as needed to for useful prebuilt pieces. One of the exercises was to make a ball roll down a contraption of our design (title image) and I paid special attention to this interaction. The Unity physics engine was the main reason I chose to study Unity instead of three.js or A-Frame and it became the core for Bouncy Bouncy Lights.

I've had a lot of experience writing in C# code, so I was able to quickly breeze through C# scripting portions of Unity Essentials. But I'm not sure this is enough to get a non-coder up and running on Unity scripting. Perhaps Unity decided they're not a coding boot camp and didn't bother to start at the beginning. People who have never coded before will need to go elsewhere before coming back to Unity scripting, and a few pointers might be nice.

I skimmed through a few sections that I decided was unimportant for my ART.HAPPENS project. Sound was one of them: very important for an immersive gaming experience, but my project will be silent because the Gather virtual space have a video chatting component and I didn't want my sounds to interfere with people talking. Another area I quickly skimmed through were using Unity for 2D games, which is not my goal this time but perhaps I'll return later.

And finally, there were information pointing us to Unity Connect and setting up a profile. At first glance it looked like Unity tried to set up a social network for Unity users, but it is shutting down with portions redistributed to other parts of the Unity network. I had no investment here so I was unaffected, but it made me curious how often Unity shuts things down. Hopefully not as often as Google who have become infamous for doing so.

I now have a basic grasp on this incredibly capable tool, and it's time to start venturing beyond guided paths.