Get an external hd for backups of you don't have one already.

Check this channel and get something nice.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCss3QxegBkF8BAetIo0qXA

Midrange extreme value. 580 dlls.
Rx 480 or others
R5 2600
16gb ram.
https://youtu.be/p9daTy901MA

My high end pick; 1380 usd.
I7 9700k.
Tb nvme ssd
16 ddr4
Rtx 2070.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07VFFCQ6L/ref=psdcmw_13896597011_t1_B07KSXZFY7




I would set 1070 performance levels as standard. (1070 is cheap and bang for buck, but maybe consider an rtx with 8gb vram if you have the money)

if your gpu is already nice and want nicer then go for an rtx.

but want to know your old setup. I mean if you want upgrade define what's old, man.

What's your budget? I would go for a 3rd gen r5 or r7. R7 ir you are hard multi tasker.

I rather have multiple pcs on my pipeline. One for art one for coding. Multiple monitors and transfer files over lan.

8gb minimum. 12 would be ok. But if you can go to 16gb dual channel. Really good for multi tasking.

Plus you pc has to have resemblance to what the player is going to play. Unless you plan to use it as a server.

Minimum unity reqs are Like really low. Because it can simply develop for mobile. And use very primitive everything.

Minimum solid recommended id say
Sandy i3 or I5 2400 cpu.
4gb ram.
Gpu .. a 1060 or rx 480 just because it's so cheap used nowadays. (120 usd) or a 1050 for 75 dlls.

For refence a gt 1030 could work just fine for mobile.



Normal recommended I'd say
R5 1600 - 2600 if Intel at least 8th gen.

8gb ram would do but really 12gb if you want to have multiple programs running.
16 gb for perfect value and commodity.

A mobo with at least 4 ram slots.

Rx 480 8gb or rtx 2070 pref. Get lots of vram preferably.

Ssd obviously for OS and important unity projects.

If you really want to build it yourself watch techdeals yt channel.

Check jason weibman for the best unity tutorials.
Unity 3d college on YouTube.

He has the BEST paid unity course too. But if you want to learn unity in a professional effective way. Now you know were. He was a .net Dev too, then got into gamedev.

Cheers mate.

I find myself attracted to CG part. Not only the Unity part but whole science behind it intrigues me a lot. Here are some resources that helped me a lot for a better understanding on the topic:

• For shader writing i can suggest Alex Telford's tutorials on UnityCookie channel
  
• CatlikeCoding have some sweet sweet tutorials on unity.(also has pretty clean coding and good practices in my opinion).
  
• For fundemantals on CG i can suggest UC Davis online courses and Fundementals of Computer Graphics by Peter Shirley if you are up for a good read :)
  
  Here are some tutorials on various topics that may interest you:
  
  
• How to Create 2D Lightnings
  
• A great post that you may have missed on low poly sea generation
  
  These are the ones that i remember right now :) hope you will find them useful

Hey! Sorry for the late answer, I was drowning under school projects.

My personal favorite is Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping and Development. It gives a lot of on-point theory, it explains iterative design and good practices, and it's all clear and much more practical than your average game design book. The first part focuses on game design, the second part on programming (it's meant for beginners, so I just skimmed it) and the third one is a collection of 8 tutorials showing you how to make a prototype for 8 different kind of games. It's very clear and very complete. The only problem is that Unity is evolving so fast that the book might be obsolete too soon.

I have the first edition of that book that came out in 2014, and when I read it (in 2016), there was already several lines of codes that were outdated in the tutorials. (A second edition came out in 2017, I don't know how it is!). There's an official website that lists those lines and tell you what you should put instead, but it's a bit inconvenient. However, if your main interest is the game design part, you're good to go!

Another one that you might like is Challenges for Game Designers. I haven't gone through it yet, so I can't attest how good it is, but basically it's a book that switches between theory and practical exercises. I don't believe there's a book out there that provides that many exercises, so that's really good for sharpening your skills. It's also cool because you can design your games without having to implement them at all (they can even be though as board games!), so you save all the time of production and really just foster your design abilities, which seems to be your focus for the moment.

Finally, while not being a game design book per se, I highly recommend Derek Yu's Spelunky. It's a making-of written by the creator of the game himself, and it's full of great advice about game development in general. Also, as he explains the process of creating the game, if you pay attention to what he's saying, you can learn a lot about the craft without being given straight out theory.

I hope that fits your request! :) If you have any other question, hit me up! Also, I don't know why you asked about books specifically, but if you want any other recommendation in other format (videos, blogs, etc.), I will happily provide them.

There was a book I read 40 years ago that covered basically everything from vacuum tubes and semiconductors up to basically chips. It was in the library, and it was like 800 pages long. I asked on reddit if anyone knew what it was, and someone pointed me at the newest edition. But I don't really have time to go through all my comment history looking for "electronics book" or to write a program to do same, but you should feel free to do so. :-) Then I got into assembly for the 8-bit CPUs, picked up the 16-bit and 32-bit CPUs of the day, and the mainframe stuff. Then I went back to school. :-)

However, all that said, this looks like what I read, and the intro sounds like he's describing the first edition I remember: https://smile.amazon.com/Electronic-Devices-Circuit-Theory-11e-ebook/dp/B01LY6238B/ref=mt_kindle

If you want more about assembler, just flipping through this seems like it starts with the very fundamentals and goes through a fair amount. https://smile.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Software/dp/0735611319/ref=sr_1_5 If you already know how to program, and you understand the basics of how (for example) basic assembler language works and how the chip accesses memory and what an interrupt does and etc, then learning new assembler languages is pretty straightforward. Sort of like "I know Java, now I need to learn C#."

But honestly, at this point, I'd look online. When I learned all this stuff, textbooks were the way to go. Nowadays, everything moves so fast that you're probably better off finding a decent description online, or looking up an online class or something and seeing what texts they use.

If you don't want to learn assembler or hardware, but you still want to challenge yourself, the other thing to look into is unusual programming languages and operating systems. Things that are unlike what people now use for doing business programming. Languages like APL (or "J"), or Hermes, or Rust, or Erlang, or Smalltalk, or even Lisp or Forth if you've been steeped in OOP for too long. Operating systems like Eros or Amoeba or Singularity. Everything stretches your mind, everything gives you tools you can use in even the most mundane situations, and everything wonderful and wild helps you accept that what you're doing now is tedious and mundane but that's where you're at for the moment. :-) (Or, as I often exclaim at work, "My kingdom for a Java list comprehension!")

Buy The Pragmatic Programmer, read it from cover to cover. Let it change your life. It's not a specific language reference but it's pretty much required reading for any new programmer. It's about creating maintainable code, which is more of a mindset than anything, it's also a really really EASY and relatively entertaining read.

https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Master/dp/020161622X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520232423&sr=8-1&keywords=the+pragmatic+programmer&dpID=41BKx1AxQWL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

Another more specific book to use as reference is the Effective C#:
https://www.amazon.com/Effective-Covers-Content-Update-Program/dp/0672337878/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520232641&sr=1-1&keywords=effective+c+sharp&dpID=51ga39m0W5L&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

They make "Effective" books for nearly all popular languages, and they really are great references. If you don't understand everything in it like co-variance and contravariance google as a lot of good examples of these concepts in practice, as well as definitions. Believe me I understand that these things can get really confusing and frustrating coming from a non-academic background and trying to bridge that gap. But utilizing this book and understanding the lingo will also help you to find more answers to run on your own.

Now, as with anything in programming, the point is not to have to remember everything all the time in these books(despite what try-hard programmers on the internet will tell you). That comes with experience and you're human so don't set yourself up with that expectation. Read them once so you know what is in them, and keep them at your desk for reference.

When you need to construct an interface pull out the book go to the interfaces and give it a glance over to give you an idea on where to go.

Trailer

I posted this last month but I've since made massive updates like music, better graphics and a bunch more features that were suggested by Redditors the first time around. Anyway...

PREPARE FOR THE BEST VOICE ACTING OF ALL TIME! ...AGAIN!!

The game is an Asteroids/Motherload inspired story game and is totally free! (Ads are optional and IAPs are donations only)

I hope you give it a shot, it's now available on:

app store

google play

amazon store

and a bunch of sites online

I hope you'll give it a go. Have fun and know that all feedback is much appreciated.

I'm currently in the process of writing a book on using Unity myself, but it's still a couple months away from being finished (can only write on the weekends) so I can't recommend it yet. :-P

That being said, I was a fan of this book by Alan Thorne, but it only does one project. I do agree that Will Goldstone's stuff is great though too though somewhat dated.

If you're willing to print out a book, or something like it, Catlike Coding also does some great tutorial materials.

I'd be interested in seeing what others feel are lacking in Unity books/tutorials out there or what people are wanting to learn.

Hope this helps!

I'd suggest checking out Brackeys/Sebastion Lague/Sykoo On youtube as well as this website for tons of more in-depth written tutorials, for getting started, there's a ton of resources amongst those references. As far as generic C# stuff, for me the only way to tackle a new language is a good OReilly (or similar) book, I have this book which I believe covers a much newer version of C# than unity uses, but still is incredibly helpful.

Also, this is definitely not such a complex language that anyone should be suggesting taking another path first, yes here are are complex parts to C#, a lot of which I myself have yet to master. But you can do a lot of really cool stuff with simple concepts. I just finished building a physics simulator for my procedural engine and that was using only basic C# skills and built in Unity commands, nothing fancy at all. Don't let complexity scare you away, pick what you want to do, learn how to do that specifically to your satisfaction, rinse wash repeat. Do that for 6 months to a year and you'll be amazed by how much you've learned.

Good luck!

Like guy above said. Do the on rails shooter. You'll learn most of what you need to know and much more. To meet your 4 month deadline, get through them ASAP. You have no time to Spare. Priority One: Get something moving. Your idea looks very art heavy and you still have to learn Level Design. Do level design next, visit World of Level Design he's mostly UDK but the concepts transfer over. His pre-production book is worth note. Then get really comfortable with your 3d package and art concepts. Don't afraid to cheat using textures on flat planes. Do learn everything about edgeflow and topology.


You'll need Curvy from the Unitystore or a similar solution to align your boat to a path made in editor. You'll want ProBuilder and Prosnap to use like UDK's BSP brushes for broad prototyping. Proper scale and lighting will help greatly. For scale I would use real world measurements to the best of your ability in your 3d package. It does make a difference. I reccomend Painting with Light by John Alton for lighting and he covers atmosphere and color theory briefly as well as composition from a film makers perspective.

TL;DR

Take a look at spaced repetition. Study without any music and use the absence of music as a check to see if you are still motivated to do your studying.

<br />

I fucked up my first part of my education too. Lucy i realized that and got motivated again before i finished school.

I am currently 19 years old and I also always loved math (and some physics). I am from the Netherlands so our education system does not really translate well to English but i was basically in highschool when i only did things that interested me. I got low grades on everything else.

1 moment in highschool really stayed with me where I now have finally realized what was happening. In highschool i had a course about the German language. I already had a low grade for that class so I sat to myself to learn extremely hard for the next small exam. The exam was pretty simple. The task was to learn 200 to 250 German words. So I took a peace of paper and wrote down all 250 words 21 times. 1 or 2 days later I had the exam. But when i got my grade back it sad that i scored a F (3/10) . I was totally confused and it only destroyed my motivation more and more.
What I now have come to realize is that learning something is not just about smashing a book inside your head as fast as possible.

<br />

So these are some tips I wished I could have give myself in the first year of highschool:

Go and sit in an quit room or in the library. This room should be in total silence. Now start with you studying. As soon as you feel the tension to put on some music than you should stop and reflect and take a little break.

The default in nature is chaos. Learn to use this as your advantage. I sit in a bus for 2+ hours a day. 1 hour to school and 1 hour back. Nearly every student does nothing in this time. So I made the rule for myself to do something productive in that time like reading a book. Normally I am just at my desk at home and before I know it it is already midnight. So this is for me at least a really good way to force my self to start reading a book in dose otherwise wasted 2 hours.

Get to know your body and brain. I personally made a bucket list of 100 items that includes 10 items about doing something for a week like running at 6am for a week of being vegan for a week. Fasting is also really great. Just do it for 1 day. So only drink water for one day and look how you feel. And try the same with coffee, sex, fapping and alcohol. Quit 1 day and look at how you feel. And have the goal to quit 1 time for a hole week strait.

Watch this video to get a new few about the difference of low and high energy. I never understood this but I think that everybody should know about the difference https://youtu.be/G_Fy6ZJMsXs <-- sorry it is 1 hour long but you really should watch it.

Learn about about how your brain stores information and how you can improve apon this. Spaced repetition is one of those things that really changed the way I now look at learning something. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVf38y07cfk

<br />

I am currently doing my highschool math again for fun. After I am done with that again i hope to start with these 3 books.

• 3D.Math.Primer.for.graphics.and.game.development
  
• Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics - Eric Lengyel
  
• Graphics C version
  
  I hope this helps someone and if you guys have any tips about learning shaders in unity than please share them.
  

If you enjoy projects and quizze method of learning then the best series I can suggest is Head First Series. they have books in all manner of coding and their C# & [Design Pattern]() books are great for beginners to intermediates. I extremly recommend the Design Pattern one.

The biggest difference with this book series is they focus on a Conversational Tone instead of text book talk. And yes while these are more programming related, everything is easily translated to Unity.

Towards the original question. What else would you spend the $10 on? If you really want to learn Unity through video tutorials like theirs then quit fast food for a week, or coffee, or something to make up for the $10.

>mostly because you need to be good at a lot of mathemtics, is this true?

This is primarily for algorithms. It's pretty easy to be good at math, the hardest part I find for people who program is that they often don't think "outside the box" in breaking their program down.

I and others recommend programming in C#. You should be able to get off the ground with the following resources:

http://learncs.org/

https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-courses/software-development-fundamentals-8248?l=D9b9nHKy_3404984382

https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-courses/c-fundamentals-for-absolute-beginners-8295?l=bifAqFYy_204984382

http://www.amazon.com/Exam-98-361-Software-Development-Fundamentals/dp/047088911X

This list is for programming in general:

http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Master/dp/020161622X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453520022&sr=1-1&keywords=pragmatic+programmer

http://www.amazon.com/Clean-Code-Handbook-Software-Craftsmanship/dp/0132350882/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453520045&sr=1-1&keywords=clean+code

http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable-Object-Oriented/dp/0201633612/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453520067&sr=1-1&keywords=gang+of+four

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~stevenha/myteaching/competitive_programming/cp1.pdf

http://visualgo.net/

http://www.sorting-algorithms.com/

http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/3-key-software-principles-you-must-understand--net-25161

I've read it, there is some good intro to the unity IDE. The game developed during the course of the book is a bit overly fussy for an introduction. That said, it does show how to approach the 'unity way' to solve design challenges (e.g. aligning objects to interact correctly in 3d space - the key into the chest lock).

This other book was pretty good - it has some good parts, again it has some good info on the IDE - but also using multiple cameras and masking for some very slick looking effects.

http://www.amazon.ca/Unity-Development-Example-Beginners-Guide/dp/1849690545/ref=pd_sim_b_2

Bouncing between these two books worked well for me.

What do you think help is?
Seriously, stop fighting the advice you are getting. There is a minimum level of C# knowledge you should have so that you can understand the tutorials.
I am going to recommend a book to you, it is very good for helping beginners understand the basics.
It is called "The C# Player's Guide (3rd Edition)" I recommend reading about the first half of it before you continue with Unity.
Take my advice or not, that is a choice for you to make. But like many of the others in this thread, I have learned how to code already, I have been where you are in the process, this will help.


https://www.amazon.com/C-Players-Guide-3rd/dp/0985580135/ref=sr_
_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1518454821&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=players+guide+c%23

It depends on what you're looking for, really.

If you're just starting out, this is pretty fantastic. It primarily uses UnityScript but has a C# reference at the end of each chapter. I had a lot of fun starting with UnityScript and then porting the code to C# before checking it against the end reference.

I would recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/C-Players-Guide-2nd/dp/0985580127.As a beginner myself, I am still getting back to it when I'm in doubt about smth.It is very comprehensive and very well organized and helps you to understand the C# language as a whole rather than learning straight unity's monobehaviour.

I have read this

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1849695261?pc_redir=1410434094&robot_redir=1

And I think it's a great introduction to Unity

This one is great:

http://www.amazon.com/Unity-Development-Example-Beginners-Guide/dp/1849690545/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415211257&sr=1-1&keywords=unity+3d+game+development+by+example+beginner%27s+guide

This one may be a good choice. All the low reviews are because it assumes the reader has little to no C# experience and walks them through it. So, likely the perfect place to start.
Learning C# By Developing Games in Unity

http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-C-Andrew-Stellman/dp/0596514824

The head first books tend to be pretty good for people who haven't done development before. Unfortunately I don't know of anything unity specific.

thanks for all the ideas, he really is a book person and has no trouble with complex books/concepts, as such I have ordered " Learning C# By Developing Games in Unity " and will get him on the playground videos until that arrives. thanks for the thoughtful suggestions.

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Predator-Overclockable-Aeroblade-PH315-51-78NP/dp/B07CTHLX8C/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=laptops+gaming&qid=1570165442&sr=8-3 - $1k

https://www.amazon.com/IPS-level-i5-8300H-Processor-GeForce-Gigabit/dp/B07JF6HRJ1/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=laptops+gtx+1060&qid=1570165535&s=electronics&sr=1-6 - $810

​

Both of these are going to have 0 problems running Unity and allowing you to game as well. Cheers mate.

Pick up a coding book for C# (I really like C# Player's Guide), learn basic coding concepts first, then learn Unity's spin on things.
Don't copy and paste (at least in the beginning), type it in yourself so you can attempt to learn why it works (or doesn't work).
Use what limited knowledge you have to make very tiny games, because you'll gain experience and you'll learn something(s) new, guaranteed.
There's no "proper" way, except for experimenting and researching.

I've seen this one out and about. I flipped through it and it seemed a bit basic for me—which may be useful if you're new to both Unity and Programming.

Pro Unity Game Development with C#:
http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Unity-Game-Development-C/dp/1430267461

did you ever take a look at the book mathematics for 3d game programming and computer graphics I've been thinking of giving it a read this summer

The C# Player's Guide, 2nd Edition. It doesn't have a focus on game development, and honestly, I don't it should. C# is a programming language; a tool. Game development is simply a specific use case for C#, like smashing in nails is a specific use for a hammer. It can be used for other things.

I read this book front to back, and it helped me understand C# fully and develop some of my problem solving, which is an important skill in game development. I doubt a game development focused book will mention anything about the stack or the heap, the CLR and the .NET framework, or reference and value semantics.

Do the problems in the book, reference it and Microsoft's documentation often (and maybe get a C# reference book), and you'll have no problem developing anything in Unity.

> Unity seems to be encouraging this weird hybrid style.

This isn't actually true, there are lots of weird implementation details but there is nothing weird or hybrid about Unity's design. It's just not a data-oriented ECS. The Unity pattern is a variation on the Composite Design Pattern from this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable-Object-Oriented/dp/0201633612

Haven't read it, however you could probably look at this https://www.amazon.co.uk/C-7-0-Nutshell-Joseph-Albahari/dp/1491987650/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=C%23&qid=1563967181&s=gateway&sr=8-5 however if you just want to learn the basics you could just watch youtube tutorials and go from there