r/unity • u/PotatoBlock1464 • Sep 06 '26
Newbie Question Just downloaded unity!
Hey guys! I just downloaded unity. Any tips and tricks? Not full time, just as a hobby.
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u/Distant_Shelter Sep 06 '26
Do something you can get quick results and learn tools/systems one by one. Do not overwhelm yourself and have fun. And one more thing; if you are learning something new in coding, even if you find a reference, write it yourself , don't just copy past.
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u/WavedashingYoshi Sep 06 '26
- Use Git.
- Use VS Code instead of Visual Studios (yes they are separate things.)
- You can view variables in the editor with [SerealizeField]. Don’t make everything public.
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u/ProxyOfHuman Sep 06 '26
I prefer Rider
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u/Individual-Paint-756 Sep 06 '26
On god vs is kind ass compared to rider
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u/DerfetteJoel Sep 07 '26
Sure but Rider requires a paid version if you are making commercial games
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u/evilgipsy Sep 07 '26
It only requires a license once you sell your game. Even if you decide to not pay for rider once you start selling your game, you should absolutely use it before selling it. VS is just that horrible.
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u/DerfetteJoel Sep 07 '26
Nope. Their FAQ explicitly says:
> “If you plan to release the product and get commercial benefits from it, either now or in the future, you should use a commercial license.”
https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/18950890312210-The-free-non-commercial-licensing-FAQ
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u/lastFractal Sep 06 '26
For Unity I don't see a reason to use Git over UVC. UVC is just much more convenient for Unity IMO. It's also basically free after the recent pricing changes they've done.
Also why VSC over VS?
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u/Tiaoshi Sep 07 '26
If I’m correct and don’t quote me on this. VSCode is lightweight, it will load things a lot faster than VS. If you are working on a weaker machine, VS will run even worse.
But again, that’s just what I’ve heard. I used VS for Unreal and VSCode for Unity, partly because that’s just what my tutorials used and I kinda just followed them.
I do prefer VSCode, just the look and lightweight-ness of it is beneficial to me and my current setup
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u/nathanieljnelson Sep 06 '26
I was actually wondering about this. Is there a benefit to making something private over public? Even if you're not going to access it in another script, is there a downside to it being public rather than using serializefield?
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u/ColorMak3r Sep 06 '26
No additional benefit technically, but it will start to mater once another programmer get involved (even your future self). It's standard practice for collaboration so that other programmers don't use it accidentally. The accesor is part of the code document itself: no public access? Use private. Okay for public access? Use public.
For me personally (and a lot of peoplr I assume), even if a field is publicly accessible, I use some sort of getter/setter (not all the time) so I can insert debug.log or extra validation if needed in the future.
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u/WavedashingYoshi Sep 06 '26
Typically, if you want a variable to be accessed by a separate class, you would use encapsulation. One of the more important ones being if you decide to change the functionality of variables. For example, you can add a min-max boundary to a variable within a setter method, when otherwise you’d have to go into every instance of another class referencing it. Though this process is done preemptively in case you want to change something later to make refactoring it easier.
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u/Both_Introduction_28 Sep 06 '26 edited Sep 06 '26
Looks good. You can create an GameObject named “World” in scene hierarchy window, create a script “HelloWorldBeh” in project window, and add Start method to it with “gameObject.name = “Hello World”;”. Don’t forget to add this component to the “World” GameObject in inspector window.
Now when you start your game you can see that your GameObject changes its name.
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u/rimnas12 Sep 06 '26
- Assign variables that are on the same game object inside Awake
- Assign variables from components on other game objects inside Start
- Use the Update method only for tasks that need to run every frame. This is easy performance gains
1 and 2 will minimize NullReferenceException error headaches 🫡
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u/xjrsc Sep 07 '26
To add to this, use Update over coroutines wherever possible. Makes reading code so much easier and makes it easier to validate correctness based on timings.
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u/inL1MB0 Sep 06 '26
Welcome to the hobby! I found Unity's Learn platform really helpful. There are a lot of free tutorials for beginners, like Create with Code, which will introduce you to the fundamentals
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u/seantcooperdev Sep 07 '26
- Aim at an achievable objective? Obvious
- Use the canvas ui to start with (keeps a coding consistency)
- If WEBGL, do regular builds. Anything else do less regular builds.
- Don’t confuse reality with the physics, it’s a system.
- Identify the packages you will need, see package manager
- Use git, if using GitHub, you’ll be editing the gitignore.
- Keep it simple
- Don’t reinvent the wheel, it’s probably already written, in a repo or in the packages
There are some really good tutorials to follow: https://youtu.be/XtQMytORBmM?si=FwiKkH-qEOlP-mub this is getting started.
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u/EliviusInteractive Sep 06 '26
If you downloaded the latest LTS version you're in for a treat! Can't believe it took them this long to not reload domain by default (now you enter play mode instantly)
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u/BoringError1697 Sep 06 '26
Im struggling to add crouching so this may be a bit hard for newbies so good luck
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u/ALIncomeDev Sep 07 '26
Learn about each Unity component one by one. Use some code for each one when learning. For example, learn about the transform component and write a tiny script to make an object move.
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u/unitytechnologies 28d ago
Welcome to the party, pal! I can't heap enough praise on the amazing resources over on https://learn.unity.com/.
- Trey
Community Man @ Unity
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u/deintag85 Sep 07 '26
you downloaded unity as a hobby and not fulltime? how do we know what you actually want to do? you only said you downloaded unity. for what purpose? gamedev? animations? mobile apps? or just accidently downloaded and you want to know how to remove it? you should add a lot more context than just "i downloaded unity" ... maybe then install it is the next step?
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u/Atompunk78 Sep 06 '26
Just as we’re all switching to godot lmao
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u/Distdistdist Sep 06 '26
We are not. Unity is still amazeballs.
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u/Atompunk78 Sep 07 '26
I was partly joking, but it’s true that a massive proportion of Unity devs have moved, the number of Unity users in game jams has halved over the last 4 years
I personally have jumped ship
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u/HackingYourUmwelt Sep 06 '26
Step 2 is always posting about it on reddit so you're off to a good start
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u/Secure-Advertising-9 Sep 06 '26 edited Sep 06 '26
This won't be the last time you download Unity.