Tech Setup

Setting up Unity and Visual Studio / Code

  1. Create a Unity ID if you don't already have one, and download Unity Hub: https://unity.com/download

  2. Open Unity Hub, and download any version of Unity Editor (2021~2023) with long term support (LTS)

    ⚠️ DO NOT USE UNITY 6!

  3. When downloading the Unity Editor, make sure to include the following modules (in check boxes)

    • âś… Microsoft Visual Studio Community
      (*only available on WINDOWS)

      • If prompted to run the Visual Studio Installer, make sure that “Game Development with Unity” is checked under the Workloads tab.

      • If you’re using a Mac device:
        Because Visual Studio for Mac is no longer supported, you’ll need to download Visual Studio Code instead.

      Next, install the Unity for Visual Studio Code extension (published by Microsoft) from the Visual Studio Code Marketplace, or the Extensions Marketplace inside Visual Studio Code.

    • âś… Windows Build Support (IL2CPP or Mono)

    • âś… Mac Build Support (IL2CPP or Mono)

  4. In Unity Hub, activate a free personal Unity license.

  5. Make a New Unity Project.

    In Unity Hub, go to Projects > New Project > Select your editor version at the dropdown field above > Select Universal 2D (To start, we will use the Universal Render Pipeline and create a 2D Unity Project.)

    All Unity projects are stored locally as a folder on your computer. Select a name (e.g. “InteractiveAnimationProject1”) and location for your project folder.

    We’ll leave “Connect to Unity Cloud” and “Use Unity Version Control” unchecked for now.

    Then click “Create Project.”

  6. Set up Unity for Visual Studio / Code integration

    Open up your newly created Unity project. In the Unity Editor, go to Windows > Package Manager > Make sure that Visual Studio Editor package (version 2.0.20 and above) has been installed on your project.

    Then, go to Edit > Preferences > External Tools > Select your External Script Editor as either “Visual Studio” or “Visual Studio Code”. This will be the default program that runs when you try to open up a script in Unity.

Intellisense for Unity C#

Intellisense is a useful auto-complete feature that will give a dropdown list of suggestions for your code as you're typing.

I recommend getting this working on your scripting program, because it will make the process of understanding C# a lot more assisted and easier to navigate. It is also helpful for referencing variables and functions across multiple scripts in your projects.

If you're not getting any dropdown options when writing your code, try troubleshooting your Intellisense feature -- here's some resources you may start from:

Setting up Blender

On your own laptop or desktop, install the same version of Blender that's on the classroom computers.

More instructions soon... (once we enter the world of CG!)