Workflow guide
Planning phase
Before you begin, take a moment to survey the game assets at your disposal. This includes:
- Textures and Sprites - Check for existing character models, environment textures, and UI elements
- Audio Files - Look for background music, sound effects, and voice lines.
- 3D Models - Identify available props, characters, and environmental objects.
- Animations - Review character movements, effects, and transitions.
- Scripts and Code Snippets - Determine if there are reusable scripts or pre-existing functionality that can save development time.
Remember that game developement is a marathon, so phasing yourself includes planning your resources realisticly. There's no reason to make everything yourself alone from scratch. Shamelessly use and purchase assets that serve your purposes. Take shortcuts and get creative at how you can do more with less. There's nothing wrong in using AI, as long as it's legal and you are being honest about it.
Version control
Do a little bit of research of what Unity version you should use. The newest one at any given time is usually not the stable one nor the most supported one in game asset store. There's nothing wrong in picking older versions especially if they are stable and well supported. But when picking your game version, try to stick with it. Updating or upgrading, let alone downgrading can be catastophic for your workflow.
Error mapping
Before you want to bring in more potential trouble, clean and clear up any errors that prevent compiling. There should never be any errors in clean project but when importing or downloading SDK features, there might always be issues when opening your Unity project due to various reasons. Note that not all errors prevent you from building, testing or playing your game. Some are fatal, others are just Unity's own hallucinations that you can ignore.
Asset importing
Install what you need or want from the Unity Package Manager from Window > Package Manager
Choose your package from the left panel, then on the right top corner, press download, install if it's already downloaded or update.
If your intented package is not visible on the package list, check the packages source from the top left corner next to the (+) icon. (+) Icon opens more options to add packages manually from disk or git.
We recommend keeping Project asset folder organized and well maintained. We do not recommend mixing your assets with 00ViD-folder, but use the 01ProjectFiles instead or make a custom one.
Package Manager
Folder Structure
Templates
Consider taking time to prepare Presets and Import Templates in Unity. These will save your work time and alleviate your mental burden.
Presets and Import Templates are made from small mixer-icon on top right of the Inspector Window next to ?-icon. After making your Preset/Template, you apply it to your objects from the same icon.
Presets
Notice that whether you get to make a Preset or Import Template from that mixer icon in Inspector Window, depends on what type of asset you have selected. If you have Unity game object selected from the Hierarchy, you make a Preset. If you have a game asset selected, mesh or texture etc. you make an Import Template.
When selecting Unity game object from Hierarchy, there's a mixer icon in every Component. That's because you can make presets for every Component setting separately.
You can also make a preset for project settings. This is useful when doing multiple projects.
Scenes
When you are ready to start finally working on the game itself, it's time to think a little about your scene structure. This will affect how your game is played, optimized and built.
In your Build Settings window you can drag your scenes from your Project folder into the Scenes In Build area. You can change your scene order by dragging the scenes in your Scenes In Build area as well as toggle them on or off for building purposes.
Basics
InitScene
AirBalloon
Showroom
Hierarchy
Keep your Hierarchy clean, organized and well named. While it is a chore it will speed up your work in the long run and ease your debugging. Not to mention makes it possible for someone else to continue or help your scene editing. Don't be afraid to make lot of empty objects. They act like folders and layers. We recommend keeping scale always at 1x1x1 if possible and especially in root. If you must use any other scale values, see if you can add 1x1x1 root parent and put the rescaled object under it as a child.
Mission System
Make your VD Mission System hierarchy ready. It helps you plan out and see how long your game/simulation is going to be an what you need. Read more of the Mission system here:
Mission Components
Mission Hierarchy
Mission Objectives
Completing Objectives
Prefabs
Prefabs are created by dragging Hierarchy objects into Project folders or from the right click menu on said folders. Prefabs speed up fixing and editing. By editing a Prefab, all the clones receive the editing simultaneously. There are also variations of Prefabs called Prefab Variants which act almost the same, but it allows your prefabs to have some differences while still keeping a link between the common components and features. Using Prefabs should be one of your most common tools. Get used to creating them and using them frequently.
Environment
At this point you might as well start sketching out your maps and environment. There's no need to have any assets ready yet. Simple cubes and Terrain will do the trick at this point. Just by using primitive shapes and basic colored materials, you can sketch out your environment with colliders ready for testing. You can add some light objects as well. When the sketch is done, you can start adding and replacing the placeholders with real or better assets if you have them at hand.
Player
Use one of our ready made Player Prefabs or make your own, but at this point you want to be able to test your map a bit and see how it feels to move in.
Interactables
If your player is working, you want to make your interactable objects. Usually you always want to make these Prefabs. Use Virtual Dawn's featured components to build your interactable objects or downlaod ready made ones from the Asset Library.
Unity Events Explanation
Unity Events Usage
VD Events
First tests
At this point you have your scenes, your map, your player and the items to fiddle with. Try making a build at this point to see if any errors pop up. At this point it's wise to check out your performance and framerates to see if there's already an issue there.
Polish
If your frame and skeleton of a game works so far. It's time to start out adding finalized assets. Some UI's and Menu's. Add lights, particles, music and sound effects.
Keep testing
Keep on testing your game and don't forget to make a build once in a while because some issues don't appear in editor.
Exporting
At this point you'd think the game is ready to be exported and distributed. But there's a lot of small things to remember. Such as in Project Settings, you need to set up your version number and app information in the Player -tab.