Update 6: Shooting

With a basic level, it was time to work on shooting. First things first, I had to get rid of the soldier model I downloaded. Instead, I transitioned to a simple, blue cylinder, my player object. I then created a few red cylinders to represent my enemy objects. 

Next, it was time to actually shoot. I started with a laser, mostly because instead of having to deal with an object moving from point A to point B, I really just have to draw a line. Later I'll work on getting animated bullets and missiles to be fired. Creating the laser, with a line renderer, was refreshingly easy to setup.  

With a laser, a source and a target, I was ready to shoot! I created a little function that scanned the level looking for objects of a certain tag type ("Enemy"), and used that to dynamically create shoot buttons, to target each enemy.

Update 5: Starting the Engine Prototype

With a basic plan, and some knowledge of the Unity Development Engine courtesy of some online training programs, a few books (see references at the bottom of the post) and some videos, I'm ready to start the engine prototype. The goal of this prototype is to have a basic turn based game. No fancy effects, just a 3D map, with player and enemy objects that can move and shoot each other.

With this is mind, I created a short work plan with a list of tasks that would have me building the prototype in a few months. I know that much of what I will be developing will be brand new and slow. Shooting, moving, path finding, object selection, map building: it's all going to be a new adventure. 

So far, I've been able to replicate the same basic prototype level I created in Google Sketch-up and added a camera to examine the level. I wasn't 100% happy with the result, but I also had to look back at it and say “it’s OK, lets look at this more later”. It just seemed to me that I started with this powerful graphics engine and made things look so… BUDGET, by making it into an isometric view. I can see myself definitely going back to a Perspective view soon.

But lets look at the positives. I created a level. I added a camera that could scroll and move. I then downloaded a free model that had WASD movement (with keys) built in. It even shoots... It was progress. Next I'm going to add some enemies and some basic shooting.

The 3 books I referenced are:

Game Coding Complete, 4th Edition

Unity 3.x Game Development Essentials

Game Development with Unity