Unity 5 for Android Essentials

Valera Cogut

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781784399191
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Programming Games
• Index: Computer Science

A fast-paced guide to building impressive games and applications for Android devices with Unity 5

About This Book

• Design beautiful effects, animations, physical behaviors, and other different real-world features for your Android games and applications
• Optimize your project and any other real-world projects for Android devices
• Follows a tutorial-based approach to learning the best practices for accessing Android functionality, rendering high-end graphics, and expanding your project using Asset Bundles

Who This Book Is For

This book is perfect for competent Unity developers who want to learn how to develop, optimize, and publish games for Android devices in a quick and easy manner. This book assumes basic knowledge of game design concepts and/or some experience with other game technologies such as Unreal Engine 4, CryEngine, or GameMaker.

What You Will Learn

• Discover tips and tricks to optimize Unity scripts
• Create Java and native C plugins for the Android platform
• Access Android features and sensors inside the Unity 5 engine
• Render high quality graphics and optimize Cg shaders
• Play Legacy and Mecanim animations in Unity 5
• Download new assets and code behavior while your game is running on an Android device in order to expand your game in real time
• Debug your games and applications on Android devices using the Unity Profiler tool

In Detail

Unity is a very popular and effective technology for creating 2D and 3D games and applications. The Unity rendering engine provides great real-time rendering of high quality graphics without too much cost and effort. It boasts industry leading multi-platform support and world class monetization and retention services for mobile games, making it the first choice for many game developers across the world. Unity 5 is a great starting point for game developers looking to develop stunning and robust games.

Starting with a refresher on the basics of Unity 5, this book will take you all the way through to creating your first custom game. By the end of the book, you will understand how to work with all the aspects of Unity 5. You will quickly explore all the major key features of the Unity 5 engine and learn to implement real-world Android game and application features in practice.

We begin by introducing how to set up the Android SDK on Windows and Mac OS X and configure Unity 5 settings for the Android platform. As you progress through the chapters, you will learn to implement innovative and user-friendly features with the aid of real-world examples. You will explore how to render high quality graphics with physically-based shaders and global illumination to enhance your project's performance. Building on this, you will then learn to transform your native C# and JavaScript code into Unity scripts. Best practices to improve your Android games will also be discussed to help you create games fast and efficiently. Finally, putting together all these concepts, you will learn to create your own Android game from scratch.

This book will teach you how to harness the benefits of different tools to become proficient at game design and development processes.

Style and approach

This book is a simple and fast-paced guide that helps you through the process of creating real-world Android games and applications with the Unity engine using step-by-step and practical examples that progressively build upon each other.

Unity 5 for Android Essentials

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Table of Contents

Unity 5 for Android Essentials

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Setting Up and Configuring an Android Platform

Configuring Unity 5 for Android devices

APK expansion files in Unity 5

Overview

Formats

The updating process

Setting up expansion files in Unity 5

Building for Android devices

Unity License Comparison Overview

NavMeshes, pathfinding, and crowd simulation

Level of Detail (LOD) support

Audio filters

Video playback and streaming

Full-fledged streaming with asset bundles

Hundred thousand dollar turnover

Mecanim – IK Rigs

Mecanim – sync layers and additional curves

Custom splash screen

Build size stripping

Lightmapping with global illumination and area lights

HDR and tone mapping

Occlusion culling

Light probes

Static batching

Render-to-texture effects

Fullscreen postprocessing effects

NavMesh – dynamic obstacles and priority

.NET socket support

Profiler and GPU profiling

Real-time directional shadows

Script access to asset pipeline

Summary

2. Accessing Android Functionality

Creating Java and native C plugins for an Android platform

Creating plugins in C

Creating plugins in Java (Eclipse IDE)

Writing Java code in plugin

Turning on and off a hardware flashlight

On Unity side

Exporting and importing a JAR library from Eclipse into Unity

Importing AndroidManifest

Using Java plugins in Unity scripts

Anti-piracy check

Vibration

Activity Indicator

Screen orientation

System information

Accessing the Android sensors and features within Unity 5

Acceleration

Gyroscope

Compass

Summary

3. High-end Graphics for Android Devices

Physically-based shaders

Basic shader concepts

The vertex shader

The geometry shader

The pixel/fragment shader

Shading languages

Cg

Unity shaders in Cg

A custom diffuse lighting model

A basic reflection environment

Masked texture reflection

Lighting model techniques

The Lit sphere model

Realistic rendering

Global illumination

Practicing in shader optimization

Best case practice

Summary

4. Animation, Audio, Physics, and Particle Systems in Unity 5

New Mecanim animation features in Unity 5

State machine behavior

State machine transition

Asset creation API

Direct blend tree

Programmatically creating assets by Unity 5 API

Creating the controller

Adding parameters

Adding state machines

Adding states

Adding transitions

Going deeper into new audio features

Mood transitions

Physics and particle system effects in Unity 5

Particle system performance tips and tricks

Legacy versus Shuriken Unity's built-in particle systems

Particle system tips

Summary

5. Asset Bundles in Unity 5 Pro

An overview of the asset bundles in Unity 5

Downloading new code and data in real time for Android devices

Managing loaded asset bundles

Asset bundles and binary data

Asset bundles and scripts

Asset bundle dependencies

Safeness techniques in practice

Summary

6. Optimization and Transformation Techniques

Occlusion culling and level of detail in optimization techniques

Optimizing by LOD

Unity C# and Unity JS optimization tips and tricks

Transforming Unity C# code into Unity JavaScript code and vice versa

JavaScript variables and types

C# variables and types

Converting types in Unity JS

Converting types in Unity C#

Unity JS function versus Unity C# function

Unity JS return versus Unity C# return

Unity JS yielding versus Unity C# yielding

Unity JS directives versus Unity C# directives

Summary

7. Troubleshooting and Best Practices

Measuring performance with the built-in Android profiler

General CPU activity

Rendering statistics

Detailed Unity player statistics

Detailed script statistics

Detailed statistics on memory allocated by scripts

Debugging Android devices with the Unity profiler tool

Profiler timeline

The CPU area

The Rendering area

The Memory area

The simple view

The detailed view

The audio area

The physics area

The GPU area

Real-practice techniques

The high-speed, off-screen particles technique in Unity

The pool technique

The scriptable profiler tool

Unity profiler tricks

Creating a simple profiler

Summary

Index

Unity 5 for Android Essentials

Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: August 2015

Production reference: 1310715

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78439-919-1

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author

Valera Cogut

Reviewers

Todd Bello

Robbyn Blumenschein

Ali Raza

Joe Whitehouse

Commissioning Editor

Amarabha Banerjee

Acquisition Editor

Vinay Argekar

Content Development Editor

Samantha Gonsalves

Technical Editor

Faisal Siddiqui

Copy Editor

Charlotte Carneiro

Project Coordinator

Kinjal Bari

Proofreader

Safis Editing

Indexer

Tejal Soni

Production Coordinator

Aparna Bhagat

Cover Work

Aparna Bhagat

About the Author

Valera Cogut is an independent professional software and video game developer who has worked in the game industry since 2008 and has more than 12 years of programming experience. He is a passionate software and game developer with different areas of expertise. Before diving into the game industry 6 years ago, Valera created websites and applications with PHP, the Yii framework, the Zend framework, Relational Database Management Systems, Apache and Nginx, C#, C++, C, Objective-C, Java, Python, UML, and many other technologies. Having a mathematical background (analytical geometry, linear algebra, logic, statistics and probability, differential equations, graph theory, and mathematical analysis), he finally realized that game development was his mission. Reusable designs, optimized algorithms, clean code, and elaborated workflows—these things make him happy.

Valera has had the opportunity to produce titles for multiple platforms, including Windows Phone, Android, iOS, PC, and Mac. Today, he continues to produce fun and original games, participate in game jams, and author books. He was a technical reviewer for Unity Android Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide, Packt Publishing.

Currently, Valera has a contract as a Unity3D C# developer for Kaufcom GmbH, a well-known games and apps producer from Switzerland http://www.kauf.com (Android games: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=kaufcom).

First of all, thanks to Vinay Argekar, Melita Lobo, Samantha Gonsal...

Table of contents

• Unity 5 for Android Essentials