Issue #189 - Advanced Tips

This article was originally published on GameDevDigest.com

Unity 2022 LTS, technical art, advanced tips, and more. Enjoy!

1999 Game Developers Conference Audio - This is a collection of digitized audio cassettes for 92 GDC events, including keynotes, overviews, how-tos, and panels. They were donated from an attendee who had the entire sold tapes for the conference
archive.org

C# Tip: Advanced Switch Expressions and Switch Statements using filters - We all use switch statements in our code: they are a helpful way to run different code paths based on an check on a variable. In this short article, we’re gonna learn different ways to write switch blocks, and some nice tricks to create clean and easy-to-read filters on such statements.
code4it.dev

6 useful extensions for IEnumerable - Today I want to show you some useful extension methods for IEnumerable.
steven-giesel.com

Capturing the Art of Gameplay - Capturing gameplay effectively can help to highlight the level of detail and love put into these virtual worlds by their creators, whilst broadcasting them to a familiar or entirely new audience.
blog.gamedev.tv

Unity 2022 LTS is coming in June - Let’s dive into some of the highlights from this release that I’m particularly excited about.
Unity

Advanced tips for character art production in Unity - In this guest post, Sakura Rabbit (@Sakura_Rabbiter) shares how she approaches art production and provides tips for creating a realistic character in Unity.
Unity

Accessing texture data efficiently - Learn about the benefits and trade-offs of different ways to access the underlying texture pixel data in your Unity project.
Unity

Static Batching May Not Reduce Your Draw Calls - We are going to talk about “the boring” static batching… again. Yes, one of the most commonly spoken about topics when it comes to performance optimization. “Just use static batching and forget about the rest, right?“.
thegamedev.guru

How to use RaycastCommand - One of the things that I discovered while optimizing the current game that I’m working on is RaycastCommand. It’s a Unity API to make multiple raycast requests in a single call. This uses the Jobs System so the computation of these raycasts is done in multiple threads.
coffeebraingames.wordpress.com

How to start learning technical art - Hi everyone! I got a lot of questions recently asking “How do I become a tech artist” & “What should I start with” so I thought I would put together my answers in a blog post, to hopefully help more people out.
Nina Klos

Serpensquares - This is the fifth tutorial in a series about prototypes. In it we will create a game about constructing paths by placing square tiles.
catlikecoding.com

Waterfall Shader Breakdown - Back in 2019 I shared this waterfall shader that interacts with a sphere - pretty sure it’s my most popular tweet. For a while there’s been comments in the thread explaining some parts of it, but I’ve also wanted to write a proper breakdown of the shader. It’s quite stylised (which probably comes as no surprise given the usual stuff I do), but the technique could apply to other art styles too.
Cyanilux

Compute Shaders in Unity: Shader Core Elements, First Compute Shader Review - In this installment, we will closely examine the essential elements that compose compute shaders.
Danil Goshko

Understanding and implementing regular Matcaps in Unity - To refresh you on matcaps - it’s basically a very complicated material represented as a square texture showing one side of a sphere
Kumo Kairo

Videos

Growing an Internet Cult: 'Cult of the Lamb's' Social Strategy - In this GDC 2023 talk, Jared J. Tan, Devolver Digital's Community Strategist, discusses how the development team created meme-able moments and an iconic art-style by thinking about marketing from the start. He details how he harnessed those elements while blending creative content and social media analytics to grow a culturally relevant gaming brand.
GDC

Unity 2022 LTS is here! | Unity - Introducing Unity 2022 LTS – now available for download!
Unity

Answering Your Questions - Let's talk about some stuff! My process for creating videos, unfinished projects, thoughts on Godot, and more.
Sebastian Lague

I Tried Recreating Counter Strike 2's Smoke Grenades - Counter Strike 2 releases soon and it comes with some very innovative smoke grenades! But, how do these smoke grenades work? Why can't anyone properly recreate them? and can I crack the code? Topics covered include: Frame debugging, voxels, mesh voxelization, flood fill propagation, ray marching, volumetric transmittance, volumetric shadows, worley noise, phase functions, and signed distance functions.
Acerola

Static Batching, Explained. Free, Powerful Draw Call Optimization | Unity Tutorial - Static Batching is a built-in tool in Unity that helps optimize the rendering of static meshes. In this tutorial you'll learn what it is, how it works, and in which scenarios you can expect to see a large uplift from Static Batching.
LlamAcademy

Gaussian Blur Post Process in Unity 2021 URP - Gaussian Blur is a useful effect to have at your disposal when making games, and URP's Scriptable Renderer Features will help you create an efficient two-pass blur post process effect. In this tutorial, learn how Gaussian Blur works and incorporate it into Unity's post process volume system using a code-based Renderer Feature!
Daniel Ilett

Crafting a Better Shader for Pixel Art Upscaling - In this episode, we explore a subject that was only tangentially related to my game project: rendering pixel art with anti-aliasing. Applications for this technique range from anti-aliasing for pixel-art textures in low-poly games like Minecraft, to games that primarily feature pixel art sprites in 3D environments, like Octopath Traveler.
t3ssel8r

Splatmap Shader - Advanced Gamedev Tutorials - Blending and mixing textures without terrain (to create cliffs / caves / etc.)
blenderfan

Enhance a top-down game with URP 2D lights | Unity at GDC 2023 - 2D top-down games can be beautiful, especially if you make the most out of Unity's new features with dynamic lighting, animation, or effects. This session walks you through the new upcoming 2D sample game, designed to help you show examples of high-end 2D art and tech coming together. This talk, in particular, offers a quick overview of some 2D lights and shadows techniques used in the sample.
Unity

How to get past the "blank canvas" in level design - To help me make more videos, and join our Discord community, support the Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/stevelee_gamedev
Steve Lee (Level and Game Design)

Assets

Unity Spring Sale - This is the perfect opportunity for users to get the assets and tools on their wishlist to take their work to the next level. More than 500 of our most popular assets will be available at 50% off for the duration of the sale and we will also have a series of Flash Deals on select assets at up to 70% off for a limited time.

Some highlights of the assets on sale: Magica Cloth 2, A* Pathfinding Project Pro, Mesh Baker, TopDown Engine, UMotion Pro Animation Editor, Text Animator For Unity, Rayfire For Unity, plus a lot more.

Plus, don't forget the Flash Deals update daily, with new assets going on sale for 70% off!
Unity Affiliate

The Complete Learn Coding Mega Bundle - Learn coding & AI by building real projects. Learn to code with the world’s most popular tools and languages! Build apps and AI with Python and ChatGPT, and discover visual coding with Scratch. Create games with Unity, Unreal, Godot, Roblox, and Phaser, build C++ apps, and make responsive websites. Learn mobile development with Java, Kotlin, and Swift, and build an AR experience—plus, you’ll support Lotus Outreach International with your purchase!
Humble Bundle Affiliate

Polygon Assets Bundle - Low-poly game development asset trove Looking for a little help to build your digital world? Get an instant library of flexible, lightweight, low-polygon assets, perfect for any game. Whether you’re trying to create a moody, atmospheric sci-fi adventure (Poly Style Mega Sci-Fi Sandbox) or a dangerous and dark survival horror adventure (Mega Survival Kit), there’s something here for every kind of game. Vehicles, city-scapes, fantasy villages, medieval camps—it’s all here waiting for your creativity. Plus, your purchase helps support Save the Children!
Humble Bundle Affiliate

Goap - A multi-threaded GOAP (Goal Oriented Action Planning) system for Unity.
crashkonijn Open Source

Unity Command Console - very simple Command Console to create cheat codes and easy developers commands
Huntrox Open Source

UITableViewForUnity - ITableViewForUnity is a componet which can be used for implementing various of list UI views with Unity engine.
zhaozilong1988 Open Source

Advanced First Person Perspective Character Controller - An open-source project focused on creating the best lightweight yet feature-rich non-Rigidbody first person perspective character controller for Unity3D.
NeKoRoSYS Open Source

Localization-System - Localization System for Unity can be used for both RTL and LTR languages (based on CSV file). You can use your desired outline for the texts and also add strings to the predefined localization values dynamically.
SMahdiFaghih Open Source

DotRecast - DotRecast are port of recastnavigation(c++), recast4j(java). C# Recast & Detour is a navigation mesh toolkit for games, Unity3D and servers.
ikpil Open Source

Unity-ScreenSpaceReflections-URP - SSR solution for Unity URP. Supports Linear Tracing and Hi Z tracing. The package includes SSR render feature and Hierarchical Min-Z Depth Buffer render feature.
JoshuaLim007 Open Source

Unity procedural cables - Components for make procedural cables and curved shapes. For now, it allows to procedurally create cables or ropes that hang on a parabolic curve. It is possible to choose the diameter, the number of vertices along the length and the diameter. The UV is proportional to the length of the string, so the coordinates are always correct.
henrihanot Open Source

Instant Pipes - An editor tool for procedurally generating pipes by just dragging the cursor from start to end — the pipe will find the path in a customizable way.
letharqic Open Source

tension-tools - The project contents contains the code nessesary to calculate tension data on inside Unity Shaders 3D.
apilola Open Source

Expression Parser - Simple expression parser library for unity
codewriter-packages Open Source

50% off Polyperfect - Get 50% off Polyperfect assets – now until June 8. PLUS, Get Low Poly Icon Pack for FREE with code POLYPERFECT at checkout.
Unity Affiliate

Runtime Scene Gizmo for Unity - Interactable runtime scene gizmo for uGUI
yasirkula Open Source

Unity Web Browser - Unity Web Browser (UWB) is a Unity package that allows displaying and interacting with the web from within Unity.
Voltstro-Studios Open Source

Post-Processing Wireframe/Outlines - A wireframe and outline (2-in-1) effect for Unity that uses depth-based edge detection to render thick, quality post-processing wireframes and outlines. You can control the line thickness, edge detection threshold, colour, and blend state. Unlike the typical edge-detection techniques of using a sobel filter/kernel, we compare depth against the local area average- calculated using what is essentially box blur.
MirzaBeig Open Source

Learn To Draw With Walter Foster - Learn to draw the traditional way. Pick up those pencils and brushes, because class is now in session! If you’ve ever wanted to learn the fundamentals of traditional art methods, you’re in luck. Thanks to our friends at Walter Foster publishing, you can dig deep into the arts with books like Art Starts with a Line, 101 Textures in Colored Pencil, and Art of Visual Notetaking. Perfect for beginners of any age, you’ll unlock the secrets of line drawing, colored pencils, charcoal, water colors, and more in this comprehensive collection of educational material. Plus, your purchase goes on to support the It Gets Better Project.
Humble Bundle Affiliate

Eldamar Studio Ultimate Unity Assets Bundle - Amazing assets for Unity game devs. Turn your creative vision into gaming reality with the help of these assets from Eldamar Studio! Curated for Unity developers, this bundle features stylish low-poly environments, high-quality materials packs, visual effects, ready-to-go weapons, and lots more for a wide range of genres and styles. Get a versatile game creators’ variety pack, and help support Save the Children with your purchase!
Humble Bundle Affiliate

Spotlight

Betrayal At Club Low - Tonight you're on a rescue mission, infiltrating a nightclub that was once a coffin factory. Will you succeed? Will you fail? Or will your night take an unexpected detour? Roll the Pizza Dice and find out!

[You can also read more on the Unity Blog. Get it now on Steam and follow them on Twitter]
Cosmo D Studios

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.