Game Dev Digest — Issue #162 - Important Tools And Enhancements

Issue #162 - Important Tools And Enhancements

This article was originally published on GameDevDigest.com

Check out Unite's keynote for all the important updates coming, as well as tools you can use right now. Enjoy!

---

What are some underrated tools every game developer should know? - A software or a website that would help make game development easier for early game developers.
reddit.com

Shader Tutorial: Enter The Matrix - Last time we had a look at UVs, which we use as texture coordinates and took a deep dive into what it means to shift coordinates vertically and horizontally. In this lesson we're gonna continue thinking about ways to put designs onto objects by learning how to rotate things in our shaders.
Team Dogpit

Creepy, cute, compelling: The recipe for smash hit, Cult of the Lamb - We sat down with Jay Armstrong, Massive Monster’s design director and lead programmer, to discuss how the team chose which genres to combine, what they did to balance a two-genres-in-one-game approach, and their top tips for overcoming challenges to keep development focused.
Unity

Official Lightmapping Troubleshooting Guide - I developed this guide in order to help developers get the most out of Baked Global Illumination (GI) in the Unity Editor. Here, I unpack some of the most common lightmapping problems and their solutions, supported by images and links to pages in the Unity Manual.
forum.unity.com

Generic types are for arguments, specific types are for return values - Today, we’ll discuss the following guideline: you should use the most generic types possible for arguments and the most specific types possible for return values.
enterprisecraftsmanship.com

Connected ComponentsFrom Red Blob Games's Blog - Occasionally someone will ask me how to implement Connected Components, which is useful for several things, including
simblob.blogspot.com

Unity Releases - Unity versions 2022.1.21 and 2023.1.0 Alpha 16 have been released.
Unity

Videos

Unite 2022 Keynote | Unity - Unite is back, and we can’t wait to tell you about what’s new in this year’s keynote. Learn about enhancements to Editor tooling, device support, and rendering that will help you build the games you want, how you want. Discover workflows to help you scale your game with new content, analysis, and multiplayer support. And, see how we’re putting innovation in your hands with supercharged performance capabilities and cutting-edge graphics.
Unity

Unity Session State - Using Session State in Unity to clear preferences between sessions of the Unity Editor as opposed to Editor Prefs that store state information that should be persistent across Unity Editor sessions.
Warped Imagination

Unity VFX - Tsunami Wave Tutorial (Nami Ult - League of Legends) - Let's recreate Nami's Ultimate from League of Legends in Unity! It's a great way to learn how to do stylized water effects, since you will learn how to make a stylized water shader and stylized water texture too. Enjoy!!!
Gabriel Aguiar Prod.

The Absurd Usefulness of Noise in Game Development - Exploring why procedural noise (such as perlin noise) are so useful in game development and graphics.
SimonDev

Instant "Game Feel" Tutorial - Secrets of Springs Explained - Meet the BEST Game Feel method you've never heard of!
Toyful Games

How to Optimize Your Game for the App Store | Unite 2022 - Did you know that the Apple App Store and Google Play combined have over 1.4M games? You've worked hard to launch your game, but how can you make it stand out? In this session, learn how to get organically discovered through app store optimization and prepare your game for paid user acquisition.
Unity

Display button prompts with sprites in TextMesh Pro - You can display button prompts (or just buttons to press) as sprites inside your TextMesh Pro text boxes with just a bit of initial setup. You'll see how to do it by hardcoding them in as well as in Unity's new input system, where bindings might change at some point.
Christina Creates Games

Keep Those Precious Adjustments! - Saving Play Mode Changes - Unity Tutorial / Unity Tip - This Unity Tutorial looks at the most common ways for saving changes made in play mode after exiting and associated topics like assets and editor tint.
Erkberg

Unity Tutorial - Let's create Day & Night Cycle - In this Unity Tutorial we will create day and night cycle. You will also learn how to react to changes in time which will allow you to build flexible schedule system. I hope you will enjoy it! :)
PitiIT

Assets

Low Poly 3D Bundle - Characters, creatures, and environments for your games.

Looking from some low-poly, high-style arts assets for the game you’re developing? Pick up this bundle curated with Unity creators in mind, and start populating your worlds! Get polygonal packs of animals, building blocks for cities, angular arsenals of weapons, and character models suited for a range of game genres. For detailed information regarding the license, please check out GameDev Market's site here.

Plus, your purchase will support Alzheimer's Research UK!
Humble Bundle Affiliate

LotPixel Shared Over 1,350 Free Texture Sets - Natural stone textures have been added to the library.
[direct link to the assets]
80.lv

TextureMerge - Software to merge (or pack) textures into image channels, producing one image with up to four textures.
Fidifis Open Source

Vertex Color Baker - An AssetPostprocessor for Unity that can bake ambient occlusion and curvature information into mesh vertex color channels, mainly intended for mid-poly workflows and procedural hard surface shaders.
Fewes Open Source

PrefsGUI - Accessors and GUIs for persistent preference values using a JSON file.
fuqunaga Open Source

Expression Parser - Simple expression parser library for unity. Create your own ExpressionParser implementation to support other data types.
codewriter-packages Open Source

Potion Liquid Wobble Shader Graph - Easy Unity Tutorial - In this video we will show you how to create a Potion Liquid Wobble Shader Graph using Unity 2020.3 URP.
Binary Lunar

PerspectiveProjection - PerspectiveProjection is a Unity package intended for camera frustum projection, a Technique that is used in virtual production to turn LED screens into a backdrop where CG content is projected in real-time. It can be used to give depth to flat screens when captured by a real-world camera which position and rotation are tracked in some way (i.e. Vive Tracker) and passed to a virtual camera within a Unity scene.
RoyRoden Open Source

Unity Cloud Build to Steam Uploader - The goal of this project is to automate the remaining manual steps. It does that by polling Unity Cloud Build for changes and uploading them automatically to Steam.
aschearer Open Source

Unity-Gyroscope-Parallax - Unity Parallax based on gyroscope components. Supported fake gyroscope for simulation in Unity Editor. Alternative version to Unity-Mouse-Parallax.
IvanMurzak Open Source

Extensions - Extensions are methods for capturing many types of data in Unity, which greatly enhances the day-to-day tasks of creating games.
KurbanismailovZaur Open Source

Unity Swipe Input - The swipe capture system was conceived as a separate module that could take over all the work on recognizing and processing swipes on mobile platforms. Interaction with the component is carried out using events.
burning-laboratory Open Source

Easy Fortune Spin Wheel UI - A powerful,Customizable, and esay-to-use Spin Wheel UI for Unity.
herbou Open Source

Unity TabsUI - Video tutorial.
herbou Open Source

Multi-Scene - A multi-scene workflow/tool for using multiple scenes in one go in Unity.
CarterGames Open Source

Vortex - Animation library for unity engine built on top of Playable API.
kaiyumcg Open Source

Spotlight

ThumbTracks - Your help is required! Can you rescue the stranded vehicles ? Expertly dodge cable cars and paddle steamers! Skid passed tornadoes and flaming balls of lava! Race around giant tumbleweed and crocodiles! All just using your thumb*!

Aim for a PERFECT every stage to maximize your XP. Level up and upgrade your vehicles. Unlock achievements and go for the global high score!

But beware! If you crash it's "...just one more go..." time!

[Follow this solo dev's progress on twitter and the website]
Bitten Games

---

You can subscribe to the free weekly newsletter on GameDevDigest.com

This post includes affiliate links; I may receive compensation if you purchase products or services from the different links provided in this article.