Game Development & Design
Unity 3D has often been marketed as the Game Engine of the future,
and with its plethora of editing features, it is little wonder why. Game
Studios the world over, have sat up and taken notice of how much the Unity
Engine has sped up the development process. The main reason for this, is that
the Unity 3D Engine has made implementation more accessible, allowing both the
artists and the designers to make direct inputs into the game instead of
handing the assets over to the programmers to implement.
Some of the advantages of Game Development with Unity 3D include:
- A unified asset pipeline—there isn’t any need to
spend time on resource subsystem. No buggy import routines to write and
fix, as the process has been simplified to a “Drag-and-drop” system.
- Great tweaking and debugging support—all your
gameplay variables are shown right as you play, and can be changed as and
when you see fit. Pause the game anytime, or step through the code one
statement at a time.
- A comprehensive library of rendering options,
sounds, physics and controls is already written. These ready-made codes,
often referred to as “boilerplate” codes, simplify matters even further.
- An integrated level editor means that there is no
need for the level designer to switch to a level tool, and then having to
input that into the engine.
- Has cross-platform capabilities, meaning that
developers no longer need to port their codes to suit one platform to
another. Only minor tweaking is required.
In short, Unity 3D simplifies the entire development process and greatly shortens development time. This translates to less turnover time for gaming studios, meaning that companies can now produce games at a faster rate. However, as with all simplification processes, there are some drawbacks to Unity 3D.
The programmer, besides having to learn how to use a new tool,
will often find the Unity engine is at the end of the day, a software. As per
compared to writing C# codes from scratch, which offers you more flexibility,
Unity 3D, like all software is limited by its own set of rules.
In the bigger of things, Unity 3D is a great tool, and a huge
breakthrough for games development. However, it is always wise to supplement
knowledge of Unity 3D, with know-how of other tools and gaming engines.
For
example, level design is one of the aspects that we can look at, where reliance
on the Unity 3D engine may hamper the skills of an aspiring developer. While
Unity 3D has a great built-in level editor, it is often wise to supplement that
know-how with knowledge of other tools to ensure that one is not over-reliant
on a single software. Aspiring level designers have a myriad of level tools to
choose from, such as the Source SDK and GtkRadiant.
MAGES
Institutes is one of only a handful of institutes in Singapore that offers a
level design course for games. This level design course will ensure that
aspiring level designers are guided by industry
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