Unity 3D two day training course

I have just completed a 2 day training course in using Unity3D which I thought would be another string to my bow. I think it's useful to have 'some' knowledge about as many technologies as possible to keep decision making over which technology is best for a job less biased. Given the choice I think people tend to go for what they know rather than what is most appropriate.

Unity3D is an IDE specifically built for creating 3D games. It's cross platform and has exporters for iPhone, Android, standalone (for PC and Mac) and web. Initially it was for first person games only, but in the most recent release it will support third person games as well. This is great, as I did worry about the variety of games that would end up being created. There's only so many ways to skin a cat, and FPS's have been done to death on the console.

So Unity3D is amazing for creating terrains and running around in them. This can be done very quickly with no coding necessary. All the collistion detection can be done very simply too. Shadows are a breeze to create (baked that is... real time shadows didn't really look that great). There is a really good physics engine built in and the whole thing runs really quickly. Yeah, you have to install the plugin, but it's really quick and easy. I don't think that will be a barrier to it's future.

The scripting can be done in c# or javascript. I think the scripting side may seem a bit messy compared to most modern languages, and is a bit reminiscent of the days AS2. Organising which scripts are attached where and referencing other scripts can lead to messy code. I was told that the c# code supports listeners but haven't got round to looking to see if that works the same way as it does in AS.

Here is the game I ended up creating:

Unity3D ROBOT WARS IN THE DESERT!

I was inspired to make some more games, but finding the right models for my ideas may put a stop to me getting too into the whole thing. I like the ability in 2D to be able to quickly knock up images for myself to use which is proving a lot more time consuming in 3D.