Other Been using unity for a bit, but don't know how to make an app. Need some tips please.

I have this idea for an app and since I know Unity has 2D and 3D mobile templates, I was hoping to use one of those to help develop it. A prominent app feature will hopefully show a map like Google Maps or Waze and your location with a profile picture or another identifier. However, it also needs to show other app users within a 5+ mile radius. Right now, I have a concept in my head and figured I'd get some of the visuals out of the way, then work on the code to make everything work. Essentially, it's supposed to function similarly to a dating app or social media, specifically Snapchat.

Are there any asset packages in Unity that could potentially be used?

Any tips, beginner or intermediate-level information, are welcome and appreciated. Thank you!!

 

Probably no complete kit because the problem space you describe is generally outside of what Unity is being used for. You may find integrations for the individual parts though such as maps and geolocation but you‘d also have to extend your search beyond the store to general (open source or commercial) libraries for these which may or may not have a Unity integration.

 

Not a Unity problem. There may be asset store packages to help you integrate one of these APIs, but most of the work will be between you and the company (Google or Waze)

Unity can expose device location services. See docs.

You can put pictures in Unity. Start with basic UI tutorials.

You can display anything in Unity. Start with basic UI tutorials.

That's gonna require a back-end server / service. You would need to develop that concurrently with this app, testing back and forth.

Great! Get busy because you have a LOT of work ahead.

As a new developer there's really no way to tell how long it will take you, but we do know that until you start, it will get no closer to reality than it is right now.

Personally, as a 23-year mobile app developer (I started mobile work on PalmOS but I've been developing since the early 1980s) this idea would roughly take me half a year working full time, assuming perfect initial design and assuming that 100% of what I wanted to do was possible with third-party APIs and tools. Otherwise, every part in between would need to be created.


Try this simple "Can I ...?" process:

Imphenzia: How Did I Learn To Make Games:

Tutorials and example code are great, but keep this in mind to maximize your success and minimize your frustration:

How to do tutorials properly, two (2) simple steps to success:

Step 1. Follow the tutorial and do every single step of the tutorial 100% precisely the way it is shown. Even the slightest deviation (even a single character!) generally ends in disaster. That's how software engineering works. Every step must be taken, every single letter must be spelled, capitalized, punctuated and spaced (or not spaced) properly, literally NOTHING can be omitted or skipped.

Fortunately this is the easiest part to get right: Be a robot. Don't make any mistakes.
BE PERFECT IN EVERYTHING YOU DO HERE!!

If you get any errors, learn how to read the error code and fix your error. Google is your friend here. Do NOT continue until you fix your error. Your error will probably be somewhere near the parenthesis numbers (line and character position) in the file. It is almost CERTAINLY your typo causing the error, so look again and fix it.

Step 2. Go back and work through every part of the tutorial again, and this time explain it to your doggie. See how I am doing that in my avatar picture? If you have no dog, explain it to your house plant. If you are unable to explain any part of it, STOP. DO NOT PROCEED. Now go learn how that part works. Read the documentation on the functions involved. Go back to the tutorial and try to figure out WHY they did that. This is the part that takes a LOT of time when you are new. It might take days or weeks to work through a single 5-minute tutorial. Stick with it. You will learn.

Step 2 is the part everybody seems to miss. Without Step 2 you are simply a code-typing monkey and outside of the specific tutorial you did, you will be completely lost. If you want to learn, you MUST do Step 2.

Of course, all this presupposes no errors in the tutorial. For certain tutorial makers (like Unity, Brackeys, Imphenzia, Sebastian Lague) this is usually the case. For some other less-well-known content creators, this is less true. Read the comments on the video: did anyone have issues like you did? If there's an error, you will NEVER be the first guy to find it.

Beyond that, Step 3, 4, 5 and 6 become easy because you already understand!

Finally, when you have errors, don't post here... just go fix your errors! Here's how:

Remember: NOBODY here memorizes error codes. That's not a thing. The error code is absolutely the least useful part of the error. It serves no purpose at all. Forget the error code. Put it out of your mind.

The complete error message contains everything you need to know to fix the error yourself.

The important parts of the error message are:

- the description of the error itself (google this; you are NEVER the first one!)
- the file it occurred in (critical!)
- the line number and character position (the two numbers in parentheses)
- also possibly useful is the stack trace (all the lines of text in the lower console window)

Always start with the FIRST error in the console window, as sometimes that error causes or compounds some or all of the subsequent errors. Often the error will be immediately prior to the indicated line, so make sure to check there as well.

Look in the documentation. Every API you attempt to use is probably documented somewhere. Are you using it correctly? Are you spelling it correctly? Are you structuring the syntax correctly? Look for examples!

All of that information is in the actual error message and you must pay attention to it. Learn how to identify it instantly so you don't have to stop your progress and fiddle around with the forum.

 

Thank you so much for all this information!