Hadn’t realized that the tutorials were all scattered throughout the blog, so on a helpful tip from one of the readers, I have collected them all here in one place. Enjoy!

Unity 3D Basics – Tutorial 1
Unity 3D Basics – Tutorial 2
Prefabs
Basic Mouse Interaction
UnityGui and GameObjects
Basic Physics
Collision Detection

Keyboard Shortcuts

If you are an aspiring Canadian looking to become a certified Apple iPhone Developer, one of hurdles you may encounter a some point is when trying to enter your Canadian transit number for your banking details. You will try in vain to enter your 5 digit number only to find to your dismay that it doesn’t work.

In the US, transit numbers are 9 digits, and therefore the 5 digits you entered are not going to cut it. The solution is as follows:

You need to take the institution number (004 for TD for example) and add it to the front of the branch id (5 digits). You then needed to add an additional zero to the front for a total of nine digits. In summary the transit number was 0004. (ie 0004transitnumber)

Also, here is a list of institution numbers:

001 – Bank of Montreal
002 – The Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank)
003 – Royal Bank of Canada
004 – Toronto-Dominion Canada Trust
006 – Banque Nationale du Canada (National Bank of Canada)
010 – Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
016 – Hong Kong Bank of Canada
039 – Laurentian Bank of Canada
809 – Credit Union Central of British Columbia (includes VanCity)
815 – La Confédération des Caisses Populaires et D’Économie Desjardins du Québec
828 – Credit Union Central of Ontario Limited
829 – La Fédération des Caisses Populaires de l’Ontario Inc.
865 – La Fédération des Caisses Populaires Acadiennes Limitée

Hope this helps out some of my fellow Canuck developers!

Having now had the pleasure of building several games with both Unity iPhone and the base iPhone SDK from Apple here are some thoughts.

If you are just doing a simple 2D game or puzzle, the Apple iPhone SDK is a good choice. Although Unity can get the job done too, we’ve found that the real power of Unity comes into play when you start to cross the line from 2D to 3D…and hence the name “Unity 3D”. Kinda like cracking a nut with a sledgehammer sometimes!

Now if you opt to use the iPhone SDK, you are in for a heck of a learning curve compared to Unity, but once you get your bearings, you just might learn to like it. The other benefit of familiarizing yourself with some Objective-c and Cocoa is that it will actually help you with Unity once the next release drops over the next little while. You see, the next version of Unity iPhone will allow for binding custom ObjectiveC/C++ functions to C#/Javascript and also provide for native on-screen keyboard support and interoperability with Unity GUI. What this means is that you will have all the power of Unity, but should also be able to tap into raw SDK features that may be missing from Unity when you need to, giving you the best of both worlds.

Now, if you are planing on a 3D game, for us, it’s a no brainer, we use Unity 3D. The amount of time and effort trying to implement something significant in Open GL ES using the base SDK would be crazy. Unity makes putting an 3D game together about as easy as it’s going to get. We find it allows us to really focus on the games we are building not waste a lot of time and energy worrying about all the details taking place under the hood.

So in a nutshell, if you are really into iPhone and Unity development, you really should make an effort to learn both. For 3D games, Unity is the ticket and for 2D you can either use Unity or consider using the base iPhone SDK.

I’m looking forward to the next release of Unity iPhone and the iPhone 3.0 sdk … won’t be long now!

Just in case you missed this, Unity Iphone 1.0.2 is ready for download. I have been coding in objective-c with the Iphone SDK for the past week, so this one slipped by me. The are a number of player and speed improvements. You also now have a choice of a number of groovy new splash screens for your app. To find out the details click here. I’m looking forward to switching back to Unity next week and taking 1.0.2 for a spin.

We’ve had and amazingly positive response to our “Unity for Flash Developers” series of tutorials. With seven tutorials down range now, I’m starting to run out of easy comparisons and getting into features that are specific to Unity.

At Ethical Entertainment, we are using Unity heavily for Iphone development and from what I’ve been seeing and hearing, I think there is a lot of interest out there in the Unity community about how to get started with Unity Iphone games.

With this in mind, I am planning on doing some lessons on getting up to speed on Iphone development with Unity.

Stayed tuned, and have fun!

Way back in 1968, a brilliant computer scientist by the name of Alan Kay envisioned the Dynabook, a tablet like PC with nearly eternal battery life and software aimed at giving children access to digital media and facilitating education and learning.

We’ll about 40 some odd years have passed, and PC’s have flourished and powerful laptops now go for well under $1000. Although this has had a tremendous impact and kids a learning, I would argue that this has only been a partial realization of Alan Kay’s original vision.

Don’t get me wrong, personal computers and laptops are great but when it comes to kids, neither are optimal. The problem with desktop personal computers is that they tie you down to having to sit in a particular place and are for the most part not easily made mobile. Laptops improve on the situation, giving kids a powerful computer that can more easily go where they go. While laptops are indeed more portable, kids are not always going to feel comfortable carrying around a laptop on the bus, or when they are out and about with friends. Further more, most laptops do not have touch sensitive screens and are still a tad on the bulky side.

Enter the Iphone/ITouch. You may be surprised to know that this little device packs quite a wallop, much more than most portable game systems, and almost as much in not more then some current game consoles. While it is not as powerful as the current generation of laptop and desktop computers, it is surprisingly capable for a lot of things. Further more, you couldn’t ask for much more when it comes to portability, easily stowing away in just about any kind of pocket.

What this means is that kids can pretty much take this device anywhere, and won’t be shy about doing so. Couple this with a relatively large, high resolution, touch sensitive screen and you really start to have something qualitatively different than anything that has existed before. A touch sensitive screen means no need for a mouse or bulking accessories, and it means just about any kid can instantly pick up and use the device.

I think the Iphone/Itouch have the potential to realize the potential of Kay’s Dynabook and I think parents could really benefit from knowing about the possibilities it opens up for their children.

Being a parent of two little one’s myself, I have first hand experience seeing how easily my kids interact and play with the IPhone/Itouch. I am also aware that $200 is not a small drop in the bucket, but here are some reasons not to dismiss this device on initial price alone.

For one thing, most current hand held game consoles are just about, if not more expensive and for the most part are not nearly as powerful. Furthermore most of them can only play games. What you have to consider with the IPhone/ITouch is that it is essentially a full fledged computer that can do just about anything with. Once the initial cost is out of the way, parents will be interested to know that unlike typical console games which can get quite pricey, content for the Iphone/Itouch is relatively dirt cheap, and in some circumstances even free! You just download it to the device and you’re ready to go, no cartridges or disks to work about damaging or losing.

Make no mistake, this device is not a toy, but rather a sophisticated portable learning system. Kids can listen to music from around the world, watch podcasts, learning new languages and play games that are both fun and informative.

I am truly excited about unlocking the learning and educational potential of this device for kids. If you are too, stay tuned for future discussions on this topic.

We have been using the current release of Unity for Iphone for about 3 months now, and I have to say, it’s been a great experience so far. While it’s not perfect yet, it has allowed us to build games in a fraction of the time it would have taken with the bare Iphone SDK.

We successfully released our first game a few weeks ago, and have a second game scheduled for submission for next week. Originally coming from a Flash background, having gone through the growing pains on our first game, we were able to put our second game together a rate comparable to, if not faster than our normal Flash pipeline. As good as Unity for Iphone currently is, it does not easily allow you to tap into all the resources and functionality that you have in the native SDK.

Now that the windows version of Unity is down range, the OT crew have set their sights on some major upgrades for the Unity Iphone edition. Make no mistake, these guys are very keen and passionate about keeping up and doing things right. If you are interested in taking a peek into what the future has for Unity and the Iphone, click here to have a look.

Just in case you missed them, the Unite 2008 video presentations are now up on the Unity site here. Lots of really great info on things like coding, walking on uneven surfaces, shaders, extending the Unity Editor and more!

A nice little follow up to basic physics, this brief tutorial will show you a quick way to get our gameObjects handling collision events.

Click here to download the tutorial notes.
Click here to download the sample code.

On a side note, I am pleased to announce the release of our first Iphone game built with Unity! Check out Turtle Match on the app store.

Also, check out the Unity write up on AutoDesk’s Area. Hold on to your hats cowboys/girls, things are really heating up.

Have fun!

We’ll the best kept secret in indie game development, just got better and is set to explode in popularity with the release of a windows version. Up until yesterday, Unity was only available on Mac, which was great for me, since I’ve converted over to Mac a couple years ago.

While the exclusive feel of being part of the Unity community has kinda been nice up until now, I also recognize that there are a lot of really great PC game developers out there and that welcoming them to the community will only serve to accelerate the momentum Unity already has and inject new ideas and expertise into the community, which is great for all of us.

So welcome windows developers, the cats out of the bag, yes it’s true, Unity is truly awesome and I hope you’ll help to make it even better. Welcome to the club.

Congrats to the Unity team for all your hard work, we really do appreciate it! Good job.

Click here to find out more about Unity 2.5.