To ensure that there are no delays at the start of your course, we recommend that your home computer is set-up with the Unity3D games development engine a few days prior to the course starting. This course requires that your home computer is set-up correctly to enable the attendee gain the most from the course.

Notes:

  • Before you start: This set-up process can take hours (e.g., on slower computers), however your attention is usually only needed for the first 10-15 minutes of the installation. The installation is mainly unattended (assuming you have enough hard drive space)
  • Depending on the modules to be installed, the Unity software can take up to 1GB of hard drive space
  • For the purposes of attending this educational event, the Unity3D software requires a Personal License which can be downloaded for free

This process covers the following pre-course steps to ensure the attendee’s computer is set-up correctly for Unity3D:

  1. Check system requirements
  2. Installing Unity3D on your computer

Please note that there is additional information that the course attendee is required have with them at the start of the course (see “Important!” section below).

 

Check system requirements

The Unity3D gaming engine has a set of minimum requirements that your home computer must meet in order to function properly.

Please check that your home computer meets the following system requirements (there are different requirements between Windows and Mac computers): Review Unity3D system requirements

 

Installing Unity (Hub and Editor) on your home computer

Installing Unity is a two-step process – first, we install a Unity Installer (also called Unity Hub), before installing the Unity Editor (which is the editor with which we write Unity code). Unity Hub enables the installation of multiple versions of Unity Editor, along with the ability to easily switch between them (depending on the projects we happen to be working on).

Below are instructions for installing both Unity Hub and Unity Editor (though more detailed instructions can also be found here).

 

Step 1 – Installing Unity Hub (the installer)

To install the software:

  • Visit the download page: Download and Install Unity Hub Installer
  • After reading the Terms of Service, kindly accept the terms of the “Unity Personal” license if they apply to you
  • Click the “Download Unity Hub” button and follow the instructions provided
  • Download the Unity Hub installer, and follow the instructions to complete the Unity Hub installation (note that we are still yet to install Unity Code Editor)
  • On the final screen for installing Unity Hub, please click the check box to “Run Unity Hub”

 

Step 2 – Installing Unity Editor (the code editor)

After installing Unity Hub and bringing it up onto the screen, we now need to install the Unity Editor. The version of Unity to be installed should be a minimum version 2019.3 or greater.

Note: The Unity3D code editor can take up as much as 1GB of space on your computer’s hard drive, so you may need to free up space on your as part of completing this installation.

Installation of the Unity Editor, is done from the Unity Hub and involves the following steps:

  1. Creating a Unity account, if you don’t have one already (requires a valid email address and password)
  2. Choosing a Unity development license (if you don’t already have a Unity development license, we recommend the free “Unity Personal” license)
  3. Installing the Unity Editor itself
  4. Installing additional Unity modules
  5. Installing Visual Studio Code script editor

 

Please click here to follow the detailed steps required for installing the Unity editor.

Once installed, open Unity3D and ensure that you don’t get any errors whilst opening the software.

 

MonoDevelop vs Visual Studio

Throughout the Unity3D course, you will see references to an app called MonoDevelop, which is used from within Unity3D.

MonoDevelop is an IDE (integrated development environment) which is special software that is used to write computer code for a variety of platforms, one of which is games development.

At the time the course was written, MonoDevelop was the default IDE for writing code inside of Unity3D. Since then, a different IDE called Visual Studio has become the default IDE used in Unity3D.

Wherever in the course you come across MonoDevelop, remember that the latest version of Unity3D uses Visual Studio instead.

Visual Studio is installed automatically as part of your installation of Unity3D.

 

Important!

As part of installing Unity, you will be required to create a Unity account – we recommend doing using the attendees personal email address. Please make a note of the email address and password that was used to create your Unity3D account – this information will be required during the course, so kindly ensure that your child has this with them at the start of the event. Not doing so may delay your child starting the course, and could impact how much work is completed during the course.

If you have followed the above instructions:

  • and successfully opened Unity3D, you’re good to go!
  • and are still having issues setting up the required software, we offer limited service technical support. As this is a constrained resource, we ask that you limit contact to issues specifically related to setting up your home computer for the course that you have booked. Slots are available on a first-come-first-served basis, however we will do our utmost to find a slot for you.

We look forward to welcoming you/your child to the online computer coding course.