the beta version of unity3d version 3 is out. you might want to try it.

http://beta.unity3d.com/download/5955475463/UnitySetup-3.0.0f1.exe

Thanks Aphek!!! I' hoping they'll release the boot camp demo soon. I'm trying to find simple ways to get the arm controllers and other scripts working but my models are deforming strangely while those in the demo work perfectly.

@Everyone: No one seems to be posting anything on the levels, game play and stuff. These aspects are very important in game development and I don't see how we are going to do anything without a plan. I hope we can do something as fast as possible.

I can't get the beta to work but the demo is included.

I have not yet tried my copy of unity 3. The scripts that came with the first person shooter were written specifically
for the assets that came along with the demo. They are only meant to be a guide. If you want to adapt them for your
own use, what i will suggest is that for every function and code cross reference them with the script manual that came
with unity. That way you will understand the functions and be able to re-purpose them for your use. There is a tutorial
by Noesis titled " Gameplay and Scripting in Unity3d " some where in the web.

The demo won't run on unity 2.6. It requires lots of features and some aspects of the scripting has changed. I'll import just the models and the compatible scripts and try to make them work. I wonder why they never explain the complex parts of their demos and project examples such as the arrangement of the bones in the models and the centering of car wheels and colliders. People have to go through so much trouble because of it. I started a new project and used the models from the 3rd person shooter and it worked but I can't crosscheck the arrangement in blender because it doesn't import fbx files. I'll look around the internet to see if there's any script to enable importation.

I don't think Noesis and the numerous examples out there explain the complex stuffs. They mostly concentrate on general things and simple functionality. I learn more by visiting blogs and forums where I can ask questions easily. I did ask about the aiming and stuff but no suitable answers yet.

I think the best thing to do is to try and analyze the working models for now.

why not itemize the list of problems you are encountering so that
it can be sorted out systematically. I am not really clear on the specific
issues that need to be solved.

need any certification for game development.

javascript:void(0);

Here's the list:

UNITY SPECIFIC:

AIMING: How do we script the arms of the player to rotate upwards or downward? I only know of one solution and few people have been able to get it working with their projects. It would help if we are able to study the models used in the demos so we can model ours in the same pattern, i.e The arrangement of bones, orientations and centers. I was able to get the new model from the unity demo into blender with some help from 3D gamestudio's MED by exporting to 3ds in it but the bones were not exported. Anyone with 3ds max or some other tool should try exporting and uploading.

PHYSICS: Almost the same problem with the above. My wheels of my own car models are disorganized despite trying my best to model it according to the model in the demo. I noticed the scripts require certain orientations and some require you to organize your car at 0,0,0 location in unity.

ANIMATION: I've managed to script animation into layers but I'm not clear on jump animations. Mine doesn't work well yet. I haven't studied the 3rd person platformer animation script yet so maybe when I do, I might come up with something.

COMPLEX AI: The AI script I use is the one that accompanies the fps project and is very simplistic. Basically, the enemy wanders around waypoints till the player gets close and the attack function is called. We'll need to improve on this. I  finally finished working on the fps example and added a few things. While playing it, I noticed the enemies can't aim upwards so back to the aiming problem.

3D SPECIFIC:

MODELING: My modeling still isn't good enough and the people who included 3d as one of the areas they are good at haven't been coming online. We need to work on this aspect and decide on the general look of every object in the game(art style, effects, etc).

ANIMATION: Same with the above. I've been able to make simple walkcycles and I'll walk on run cycles next but I'd like to see better realistic animations in the final game.

TEXTURES: I haven't been able to learn much on this aspect. I use gimp and most tutorials use photoshop plus I'm not a good painter yet. I've done as much as I can regarding textures but I can't focus on it yet.


GENERAL:

We have a vague storyline but we don't have ant plans regarding the levels and stuff. Characters haven't been well discussed. No plans on environments and looks. If we don't get this things right, its in doubt if we are ever going to complete this project. I'm hoping people start doing something soon.

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I am currently studying the 3d platform tutorial. As soon as am through, i will check the fps and the car race tutorials.

@ ZIGGYSOFT: Welcome to the team.

@APHEK: Okay, I've decided to study the arm ik script in the 3rd person shooter for some time. I'll post anything I find.

Its nice to know that this project is still alive. I am really sorry for my inability to contribute all this time, i have been really busy with other projects. Gameaddict, you are really doing well with unity, that is really great.

I would like us yo review the whole idea, it seams we are all trying to learn the technologies we plan to use. Its will be very difficult to combine learning and working on this project at the same time as not many of us will have that patience.

My suggestion is, since most of our team members are equipped with the knowledge of HTML, PHP, JAVASCRIPT etc we can consider starting with browser based games which at the moment have a really great market. Google Zynga and their mafia wars,farmville etc to see their successes. The artists in the team can help with graphics/art. All we need is a good storyline, keep it social and integrate it with facebook or other social sites. Do you know that about 200 million people play social games on facebook alone?

I think this is a more feasible idea. We can still continue to learn what ever engine we decide to use later. The reason we have not done anything tangible is because we are still learning which will take time. Besides, i dont think there are really good tutorials for unity except the paid ones.

This is just my suggestion, if you guys agree with me we can move on with it.

What do you think?

@worldbest

I totally agree with you.

The current game cannot be completed in less than a year. Something quick and fun will encourage a lot of people.

Okay guys, I just hope we can learn and improve quickly over time. If we're going to do online projects, I think we should quickly research the available platforms and how much freedom we have to use any language we want and plug it into their system. I've learned a lot from this current project on many aspects of game design and I'm hoping we don't fall into the same obstacles again. i.e doing one part while other parts are left alone and so many other problems. The thing is, we should rethink our goals and ideas and start having more fun. We should try to start with simple things and improve on them rather than pushing our selves to make a game of a particular genre and implementing all the cool things we can think of. I'm thinking a learning project with simple games like multiplayer ludo or ayo would be easy to do on flash as long we can work AI aspect of calculating the distance needed to move based on simulated roll of dices and placing gui arrows on movable block till the last legal area is reached. I don't know actionscript but I'm up for learning if I can get the dev tools. Then we can move to large stuffs with storyline. But then, wouldn't it be easier to make games like vampires or mafia (just a simplistic version) in flash than ludo? All we have to program is the clickable paths and randomize results while keeping the players attributes and points as a factor and making it go with the storyline. Just thinking, We'll need good artists though. Ludo could work with simple colored pieces but we'll need good artists if we go with something that has a storyline.

Unity 3 is finally out

@Maxim: Nice to know you agree with me. Thanks

@GA: Great! I think we can create something like mafiawars, we write our storyline, we can have maybe 10 missions on each level. We will display images/illustrations to give the users visual feeling, then we place the UI element/controls at a particular area. As for platforms, we can integrate with Facebook, MySpace, Tagged, Yahoo!.  I believe this will be a very interesting project and the amount of contribution will get will be enough because we will be using popular web technologies.

I would say for those of us who haven't played the MafiaWar game. we should take sometime to try it out. After which we will talk about storyline.

We'll need really good digital artists/painters.

Gbenga Dare
Idealist
Graphix design
online Game Concept
07069409525

@Gega

Welcome to the group. We are about to make a big change to our previously stated targets and ideas, so we will be needing ideas and suggestion on a browser-based game. Your being a graphics artist is a plus to the team. If you dont mind, can you post some artworks or any graphics you have created here to further inspire others especially our other artists. Thanks and welcome to the team.

@All

Are we in total support of a browser based game? We need to decide immediately. I am currently working on a storyline and i will post it once am done. Please send in your storyline as soon as you can.

I will create a post in the Graphics sections to try and get some more graphics artist to join us. I will also send a notification message to the rest of the team right away.

Alright, i'l be back,

cheers

name:pheeque good in:php/mysql,html.Email:pheeque@gmail.com, Av been following this post since its inception and i must commend u gameaddict.Great idea u av there bruv! The ludo game would be a great start up game,

Though not a programmer but I really love what you guys are doing. I want to be part of this team anyway. I have plans of starting something on IT very soon and will like to infuse online gaming with it. I am more of a business stratagist and idealist. I could give ideas for games too using my powerful thinking mind. Kudos to you guys as I am looking forward to being a part of this. How many people do we have in this Team?

@pheeque
Welcome to the team. Its nice to know you have finally decided to join us. Good decision. We love contributions, please feel free to contribute. Welcome

@kayjegs
Welcome to the team, we will definately need you. As of now, we have over 20 people who have joined. Please feel free to contribute. Welcome again.

thnx @worldbest, whats up with the project manager u said u were developing?is it up n running yet, if true can i get a copy of the client version?

@Pheeque

I stopped the development sometime ago. I found out that i was just reinventing something that was already available for use which is sourceforge. We will be able to manage the project once we create a sourceforge project and hosted discussion board. Then we can make use of facebook for quick communication because i believe many of us are active facebook users.

Basically, we can have a combine of existing technologies to do the job for us.

This is a message sent to me by kenbox

Hello, World Best.


Thanks for your mail,
Sorry for my in-activeness of late in the 3D game project.
I totally agree with the reasons you specified as the main reasons why we've not made appreciable progress yet.

I believe that, we can still make it if we still strive towards it. If it's made more of a learning experience than of a business (Product) venture.

Most good software (open-source) started like so, not really as a project with targets but as a learning and challenging experience.

Imagine the break through we will accomplish if we successfully launch a playable game (3D, say PS1 level) on PC, we will automatically become the pioneers of the game industry in Nigeria (west africa).

I have no objection towards making a web based game (Because it's still a similar process just change of tools), but I would advice against distractions.

And Again, I strongly Advice we have a way of meeting (preferably virtual) say via IRC Yahoo so that we could collab @ realtime.

we should also think about hosting code,   important.

I am constrained now, I will become available by early November and would have some code to show.

Thanks Once Again

Looks like we have different opinions on the kind of game to make. How many of us still think we should move on with the 3D game development or branch to a browser based game/social game, one that will take less time to develop?

If we decide to continue with the 3D game. We'll need an engine with a lot of resources which i think Unity may not have.
If we decide to go with a browser game, are we going to do a simple puzzle game or a rpg?

Unity 3 look really awesome. Going to download it.
GA: Please refer me to good unity tutorials

Thanks

I think kenbox has said it all, The main idea was to develop a 3d game and not a browser game.Work had even started on it.Now,contemplating on whether to develop a browser game would only serve as a distraction.Rome wasnt built in a day.A particular block started it all.I dont know about the source forge platform but maybe u should get sum info about cvs, My 2cents

I see you guys are designing games for PC. How about mobile games. I've done some mobile apps myself, not games yet. How can I be of help on the PC level?
How about marketing and anti piracy schemes?

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@ Worldbest: The first place for unity tutorials is the resources section on their site. Some tutorials are not well explained as there's a lot of code in them like the 3rd person platformer so spending sometime on the basics will give you some ideas. The project examples haven't helped me much since I can't analyze the models cuz I use blender.

other sites:

Burgzerg has a cool series that teaches you lots of things: http://www.youtube.com/user/BurgZergArcade#p/c/E5C2870574BF4B06 and http://www.burgzergarcade.com/hack-slash-rpg-unity3d-game-engine-tutorial

M2H has a lot of simple and explained project examples and cool tutorials including networking: http://www.m2h.nl/unity/

This guy blogs about games and stuff and gives source code: http://forestjohnson..com/

David Lancaster has taught a lot of people about game development: http://davidlancasterdevelopment..com/  I can't find the location of his evac city tutorial on the net anymore but I could upload the pdf for you.

This site has more links:http://infiniteunity3d.com

You can also check http://www.scribd.com

@Number One: Welcome to the team

@Everyone: I think the problem is that we are not really sure of  what game development is and some of us are not willing to understand it. It's strange but it's true. We seem to want everything the wrong way. It's good to want to create something that people are going to enjoy but we don't understand how to go about it. I've read many post on forums all over the net about projects and stuff relating to game development and the problems that have led to the failure or cancellation of the projects seem to be the same ones affecting us.

Lack of focus, impatience, greed etc. We want to achieve many things so fast, we want what we do to be amazing, we want to be the first to do things, we want it all,

The first thing I'm going to tell you all is that game development can be the most boring and unproductive thing you will ever do. You will slave in front of your PC for months only to find out your brilliant idea is actually nothing. This is a field that requires love and understanding because it is not a single thing. It is many things coming together. It is something that is  very very very very difficult even with the best tools at your disposal.

If you choose to go into it with the mindset of an adult, You are likely to fail. If you go in like a child, you are likely to fail. How then do you go in? Like an old man or a baby. You either go after with lots of experience and time or you go in knowing you are in a world where you can never be sure of anything. You go in ready to cry for help and seek understanding from those who know better but may not always be willing to help. You go in one step at a time, one day at a time, the breeze in you hair, virtual worlds of possibilities ahead, and you take over these worlds one vertex at a time.

Translation: We need to step back and rethink what we are doing. We should be having fun by now. We should be doing little crazy things with the tools we have and bring every thing together slowly. Sure, we could do a few little complete games in between but real knowledge and satisfaction will come when we do things the way they are supposed to be done,  SLOWLY,  DEMO MODE ANYONE? SHORT LITTLE DEMOS, IDEAS, SPARKS, BRING THEM TOGETHER, SLOWLY!!!

With tools like unity 3d, It is easy to deploy games across a variety of platforms easily. We could go with flash and develop for pc, mobile and web. I think the issue is not yet about deploying games. The issue is about making games. Let's have fun with what we have and maybe soon, we'll have a lot of things to put together. Life is made up of lego blocks!!!

@GA
You dey vex o! Well said. Will checkout the links. Thanks

Alright, it is evident that the initial idea of creating a 3D game will go on. We will continue with Unity, the engine which we have decided to work with. All team members are expected to have a copy of Unity 3D which can be downloaded from their site http://unity3d.com . Then, we can then use the resources cited by GameAddict for learning.



Cheers

Found a unity3D learning resource, it is actually a 422 MB File video VTC Introduction to Game Development Using Unity 3D

Found it here: http://www.heroturko.org/tutorials/other-tutorials/279969-vtc-introduction-to-game-development-using-unity-3d.html

Download link: http://hotfile.com/list/670813/0052d81


Contents:

Introduction
Welcome (02:59)
Installing Unity3D (01:09)
Reviewing the Interface pt. 1 (05:48)
Reviewing the Interface pt. 2 (03:15)
Navigating in 3D (04:14)
The Unity3D Concept (05:52)
Our First Game
Creating a New Project (05:08)
Walking Around (05:55)
Adding Crates & Physics (05:13)
Unity Prefabs (03:44)
Painting Terrain (04:48)
Painting Grass (06:07)
Adding Trees (03:49)
Skyboxes (03:46)
Introduction to Scripting
Unity Scripting (04:40)
Variables & Syntax (05:19)
Functions (05:06)
Predefined Words (03:44)
If & Else (05:23)
Unity Functions & Switch (06:42)
Core Unity Classes (04:36)
Private Versus Public (03:07)
3D Under the Hood
What Are We Looking At? (02:25)
Fun With X Y & Z (04:32)
Local Versus Global (05:59)
Throwing Objects (05:58)
Importing Models
Understanding Materials (04:00)
Shaders in Unity (05:51)
Importing in Unity (06:37)
Interacting with Models
Animating a Door (05:37)
Scripting Animations (04:40)
Raycasting (07:21)
Special Effects
Understanding Particles (03:20)
Sparking a Fire pt. 1 (05:16)
Sparking a Fire pt. 2 (02:56)
Sparking a Fire pt. 3 (05:55)
Weapons
Picking Up Items pt. 1 (04:01)
Picking Up Items pt. 2 (04:04)
Prepping the Grenade (05:15)
Scripting Grenades pt. 1 (03:06)
Scripting Grenades pt. 2 (06:04)
Adding the Explosion (03:23)
Scripting the Explosion (05:34)
G.U.I. & Menus
Understanding Unity GUI (03:10)
Adding GUI to Our Game pt. 1 (06:24)
Adding GUI to Our Game pt. 2 (06:23)
Scripting Our GUI (04:48)
Adding a 3D Main Menu pt. 1 (04:00)
Adding a 3D Main Menu pt. 2 (04:34)
Scripting the 3D Main Menu (06:25)
Enemies
Turret Prep & Cleanup (07:17)
Will the Turret Notice Us? (02:45)
Artificial Intelligence pt. 1 (04:25)
Artificial Intelligence pt. 2 (05:05)
Artificial Intelligence pt. 3 (02:39)
Artificial Intelligence pt. 4 (05:41)
Artificial Intelligence pt. 5 (05:33)
Applying the AI (04:49)
Animating the Guns pt. 1 (02:38)
Animating the Guns pt. 2 (05:09)
Timing the Attack (05:57)
Health System
Adding the Health GUI (02:11)
Scripting the Health GUI pt. 1 (04:27)
Scripting the Health GUI pt. 2 (03:08)
Subtracting Health (07:22)
Game Over Menu (01:19)
Audio
Adding Audio Clips (05:20)
Exporting the Game
The Build Menu (04:11)
Quality Settings (02:08)
Player Settings (01:48)
Where to Go From Here
Generating Massive Worlds (04:33)
Generating Texture Maps (02:08)
Unity Resources (01:10)
Conclusion
Wrap Up (01:36)
Credits
About the Author (01:12)

I think if we can download this particular video, it will surely help us! I hope i still have room for such size in my data plan o.

Download link: http://hotfile.com/list/670813/0052d81

@ga pardon my ignorance,does unity3d have any support for geographically dispersed developers? if we all own copies,is there an option 4 networking our works maybe over the internet or something, i believe the motto is work and learn, once again pardon my ignorance,

Another place to learn from: http://unity3dstudent.com/ or http://unity3dstudent.com/category/modules/essential-skills/

Have not done much but I am really loving unity o