How did you discover and learn Unity?

Hi guys, the title of the thread reads it all. I think a similar thread like this has been made but I don't wanna check. Anyways How did you guys discover and learn unity?

Heres my story

I first discovered unity when I was just looking for video effects like explosions for my youtube channel, I ended up deep in the internet and found Unity (It was right when unity was at version 3.0). I was wondering what Unity was so I looked further in there site, found it was a game engine. I was like WOAH! I looked at the download section and saw it was for mac too, I was excited but at the same time curious. I downloaded unity and waited a few minutes. I did some online research and I got bored Immediately of those tutorials. I opened up unity and the angry bots demo popped up, I was like woah! what is this? I started fiddling around, moving objects and just getting used to unity. I had 2 - 3 years of 3d modeling so i was used to moving and rotating and scaling stuff in the scene for a few minutes. I looked up at the top of the Unity application and saw a play, pause, and that other button that I forgot the name of. I never use it anyways and idk what it is for. I hit play and the unity application darkened, and eventually I heard the rain sounds and I was then playing a game inside of unity! I was amazed at how simple that was. I played around and completed the level. After playing I would move things and just modify them because I was getting used to it. I did that over and over. The next day I decided to make a new project, I played with unitys terrain system, added textures and everything. Eventually I was wondering how I can play my scene. i hit the play button and nothing happened. So what I did is create a camera, and spended about a few minutes looking for a script. I added the character controller script and my character fell through the ground when i would play. I was searching for hours on What was the issue. Until finally I added a collider to the character Controller. And when I hit the play button I was filled with satistifaction. From there on I made some maps and got pretty used to Unity. I ended Up watching unity fps tutorials. I watched them constantly and I was looking for scripts because I didn't know how to code. I put in scripts and followed the tutorial, I did it over and over and over. My dad saw what I was doing and asked for a book about Javascript. I didn't read the book (I did but I ended up making 20 pages into the book, and that wasn't even close to the end at all). The book came with a CD with tutorials on it. I watched the videos and tried doing the code the man did. Did it constantly and I got used to it. I went back to the fps tutorial and kept following the dude, repeating the process over and over. Mainly the way I learned to code was to take scripts and try to understand them, then once I did I would copy paste each part into what I want, I would do this until I got smaller and smaller and smaller until I could write out the code by memory. So for the first year of Unity I constantly watched FPS tutorials and I ended up attempting to make several FPS games but never finished them. I kept going and going until I decided to do a 2d shooter, I got far with the shooter but again I didn't finish it, I made another 2d game but It was a runner game. Then i also made a prototype game, which was an infinte runner game. You can find it in the Amredunity forums and mabye in here? Idk if I posted the game on the unity website. The development stopped because I got an opportunity to build a navigation app for a company. And that there is where Im at right now.

So to summerize,

I discovered Unity by looking around for some video effects for my youtube videos.
I played with Angry bots by my self without no tutorials and gotten used to the editor.
I made a new project and played with the terrain system and got used to it.
I started to actually watch video tutorials on how to use unity.
I did some simple projects, mainly making maps but didn't make it far.
I went to armedunity and took some scripts from there and tried to use them.
i made sense of them and I put them in my scripts from big chunks, to small chunks, to statements, to one line of code, until i could write the code out by hand.
I watched FPS tutorials for a while
I made some FPS games but I never made it far.
I met a friend and I learned shaders with him.
When unity was released with there 2D system for the first time, I made an 2d game.
I made another 2D game which was a shooter I went far with but never finished.
I made a prototype runner game which I finished but its rough and kind of not nice.
I made another mobile 2d game which was a runner and I got far with, but its stalled right now.
And now Im working on an app for a company, and Ill tell you what I had learned so much more stuff so fast while working on this app.

The only drawback about not learning coding from books or learning coding the proper way is that you'll end up coding lousy scripts and performance intensive stuff. But overtime you'll get better.

So thats my story with unity, what about yours?

 

I googled "free game engine". Then I googled just about everyting I needed to learn.

 

Hahaha, google of course. BTW good luck at PAX!

 

Discovered it while looking for an easier alternative to UDK (UE3). I don't recall the exact way I found it.

 

initially on the traptcg site when tuts were first uploaded and thought the engine was stupid/too simple, (just checked it, about 5 yrs ago) then again with CookingWithUnity when searching for starfox style tuts(between parts 4 or 5 of uploading i beleive, also not realising it was the same engine)when udk scripting was too hard to understand and getting nowhere.

now its doing testing stuff for now.

 

An old coworker of mine went to work for Unity, he told me about it.

 

years ago, wanted to achieve a game project, got a few engines choice.....
quickly moved to Cryengine for it's power and beauty... kept Learning it for a while but i got really Pi...ed
whan it went to animation, character authoring and facial animations.
at that time , the new Cryengine with PBS moved to Steam as a monthly service
so, i chosed to give unity 5 a chance, givent that it has PBS lighting also.
and i must admit that Unity mis much more versatile than Cryengine and is way easier for animations, and Scripting.
the community is huge and offers lots of ressources, but is also more business oriented..

Just wondering if Unity community has not become too huge and too business oriented..

 

The Ancient GODS sent me here, and I thank them everyday!

 

Your thanks is appreciated and received with gladness. Now go pray a bit or I'll kick your ass.

 

I wanted to find the best solution to create a Call of Duty killer. UDK and CE were obviously fitted for that purpose but it was too expensive....for my potato computer.

That was 4 years ago. I am testing my luck with MMORPGs because they're popular nowadays

 

I was waiting for another very good SDK that got out of sync with cocos2d and waiting for it was taking a bit too long and holding me up. So while I was waiting I googled a statistical comparison of iOS developers and what tools they were using to make games and the different iOS game dev tools growth rate. Unity was off the charts so I gave it a go in the mean time and thus far it can do everything I want and more and I only have to code what I need to. I then ported over to it with ease and kept using it.

I learnt unity by online tutorials/documentation and blogs all over the net and reverse engineering examples.

 

I've been following the video game development industry for quite some time. So I found out about Unity fairly early on. I knew about it when it was still for-pay only and only available on the Mac. It managed to get some press back then by being one of the only middle-ware engines that really supported the Wii. I had already poked around it a little a few years before even that. Back then I worked in a small graphic arts studio that used Macs.

I kept an eye on the engine for years, but started learning how to program games in Actionscript 3.0, due to being able to compile it without purchasing anything. When Unity started supporting Windows, and then started providing a free version, I was very interested, and even installed it on my machine, but didn't devote too much time to learning it because of all the time and effort I had already put into AS3 and HAXE. A year or so after that it started becoming evident that Flash was beginning to lose traction, and I started working to port some of my current projects over to Unity.

Ever since then I've been pretty focsued on Unity development. And as far as the engine is concerned, things have just been getting better and better. (for me anyway) I learned through aggressive personal research, and a crap-ton of practice and testing.

 

From a background programming in C# I went on a Computer Science Degree. In late 2014 my lecturer in 3D Games shown the group Unity 4. I enjoyed it so much that I have spent all of my spare time using Unity. Now I have left (well, almost left) University I have decided that Game Development is for me, purchased Unity 5, assets, a snazzy logo amongst other things and will become self employed. I'm still learning what I can about Unity and probably will never stop learning.

 

Was looking how to make games, then eventually learned about game engines (it was a foreign concept in my country), then realized I've been using a game engine, Game Maker, when I was still in elementary school, and went on googling what other game engines are there. Then eventually found Unity 3, and it looked great but it wasn't free and I was just a poor kid with no more than 2$ total ever, so I went to UDK, messed around with it but it was too complicated for me, then a couple years later I joined an "indie team" which had 40 members, and made no games or progress apart from concept art (which I was doing) after a year.

Then a while later as a student with no money, I met my today's girlfriend, talked about it all, revisited my dream of making games, and we decided to start making games together. So I went through a bunch of game engine choices, and decided on Unity 4, since a free version was available by now (or it was before too but I didn't see it, but I think it wasn't). In my country legal minimal wage is 10x less than foreign countries (but ofc people work for less), so you can tell how impossible it was to pay for anything foreign. Unitycookie, google, unity answers, and youtube, especially @eteeski, taught me a lot in the beginning.

We published a few games as a learning process, unsuccessful if I might add, then it was time to get serious so we started primarily selling assets, and trying to develop games on the side.

EDIT: I also remember between messing in Game Maker trials, and UDK, I used some FPS maker engine, forgot the name, but it looked pretty good at the time. Sort of Quake III graphics. I'll always remember it, and spending time on it at 4am (as I did on everything productive), because I liked the tutorial document. The author suggested we get coffee before getting started, and I really like coffee.

Ah memories, and the path that led to Unity...

 

I found Unity completely by accident only a couple of months ago. In fact until then I had never heard of Unity; nor was I aware that game engines were easily available to the general public.

In my spare time I've been learning about both web development and coding, and 1 or 2 Google searches too many and I found myself here.
Ever since that fateful day, I've also been learning about game development.