Official New e-book - Unity for technical artists: Key toolsets and workflows (21 LTS edition)

Hi Eduardo,
Thanks for putting the time and effort into this ebook - I had a review of it and it looks like a good introduction into a wide variety of Unity systems.

My feedback here is not on the content of the ebook, but on how it is presented - I really don't understand the logic behind putting all this effort into making Unity more accessible through this knowledge only to lock it away behind an unsearchable PDF file that's probably already gathering dust through lack of use. I understand that this stuff is now catalogued in the How-to Hub website, but again it'll never show up in a relevant google search which is where everyone starts. And surely the vast majority of developers utilize the Manual/API websites for understanding Unity systems.

It just seems to me like such a colossal waste of time. I can tell you that I had a vague recollection that I read some great info on detailed performance optimization a long time ago that I could've really used just recently, but I couldn't find it. It wasn't until I saw the blog post on this that I realized that this information was not in the Unity Manual, or API, or even the URP Package documentation. It was in fact nestled deep in a PDF referenced on an old blog entry linking to somewhere in the how-to hub.

I really wish there was a single source of truth for this stuff made available on the most accessible formats (IE not PDF).

 

Viewership must surely pale in comparison to the hits the manuals pages get, which is where most developers most dearly seek good deep information. For example, look how utterly desolate the URP Manual looks on optimisation. The ebook on optimisation or even some of the stuff in this new one far outstrips what's there, and yet it is in the most inaccessible format possible.

I'm glad this is starting some discussion internally with your team, but unfortunately I really doubt some extra links will help. If all that great information was present on a Unity Manual website somewhere, and you'd exported and dressed it up into a PDF as part of some other form of getting it to users I'd understand. But currently the _only_ place to get the information is the PDF.

As a further question: What happens when the information in these PDFs inevitably goes out of date? Do they get updated? Will you remove them from the How-To Hub when they start providing bad or wrong information?

 

It is good to hear you plan to keep your eBooks up to date.

I'm afraid to say that none of them will ever be very discoverable because Google doesn't index PDFs, and the majority of devs use the online manual website for daily driving. I suppose I'm primarily just sad that the manuals are so poor in information compared to some of these eBooks. You've done a good job with them and I'm sad for you that you're not really enriching the Unity dev community much with it. Simply taking the PDF and exporting it on to a web searchable article somewhere on unity.com would expose it to orders of magnitude more devs.

Oh well. Hopefully this discussion will help me remember to try to dig out one of these eBooks in the future.

 

I really like the e-books Unity are producing, whilst I agree they should not replace or substitute other resources, they do have a place and have read/browsed a few on mobile when I had limited online access.

However there are a few problems.

1. Appears to be no central resource that lists and provides links to download all the e-books.
2. Frequently come across e-books and constantly asked to provide my email address to access
I hate this, and frankly Unity should not be doing it! But what is worse is that it appears to;

• ignore the fact I've already provided my email address previously.
• ignore the fact I'm logged in with a Unity ID ( and hence already has my email address )
• sometimes doesn't even support being logged in via Unity ID!

e.g. https://resources.unity.com/games/sable-case-study

Requests email, has no Unity ID sign-in support on the page, and I cannot even find where this page lives - none of the menus/sub-menus reference 'resources'. It also has the 'pre-register' link for UI toolkit e-book, which again asks for email address!

I don't want to keep giving my email address as I no longer have much faith in Unity to not simply be adding it to a mailing list without double checking that it doesn't already exist, nor that I can remember which email address I've used in the past ( which is why it should be using Unity ID sign-in instead! ) so I really don't want to get a dozen of the same emails from Unity every time a new ebook or resource is released!

It pains me to think that the hard work of Unity developers to author these ebooks is being squandered through predatory email collection practices and lack of discoverability, where it seems most books I discover by chance of being in a forum sub-channel like this.

Whilst I'd like to see a dedicated e-book section in the learning, support or community menu of Unity.com, the fact that i've had to list 3 places they could possibly reside illustrates the poor organisation structure Unity has. So much so that i'd almost rather they were listed in my services dashboard instead, as at least then i'd know 100% where to look for them.

 

Thanks for the link and looking into this.

Alas whilst trying to download some more ebooks the very first one I tried sent me to a full on registration page
https://create.unity.com/optimize-mobile-game-eBook
from
https://blog.unity.com/technology/o...ips-on-profiling-memory-and-code-architecture

However I realised afterwards that the page you linked to had a dedicated e-book section, but there is no shortcut ( that I could see on mobile/tablet) and you have to scroll a long way to reach it. Wouldn’t be surprised if most people miss it completely especially on mobile where you don’t have a constant scroll bar to show your progress down the page.

The dedicated e-book section did thankfully take me to the pdf which could be downloaded without registering.

So yeah, really needs someone to go through and sort out all the site links and create a proper page for these great resources.

 

Thanks again - also sorry for dragging you into this, not sure if there is a more appropriate person I should be dumping this stuff on. Anyway this should be my last comment on the subject.

So double checked and yeah the sub-menu/headers on that page simply do not appear on mobile/tablet devices.

Finally may I suggest whomever is in charge of producing/editing the e-books look into making them align to publishing standards. By which I mean;

• The pdf should include Title, Author, Subject and Keyword fields completed ( maybe others like publisher etc, not sure ). These details will then be used by book libraries to organise them ( e.g. Calibre E-Book Management, though I'd expect say Apple Books would work too ) . This means I could add these e-books to my library and easily find them, transfer to devices etc.
• Split the books into series, based on readership, category etc. Whilst they are kind of split between Artists and Programmers, the books themselves don't really confirm to a unified title standard, or any standard really, some are under a banner of Unity for games, others Unity for Developers etc ( Important this is partly based to the web pages titles not being in sync with the book names ). Cover design is also inconsistent and doesn't seem to have any meaning denoted by the colours used. The HDRP 2020 listed book is still using its old generic title on its page and the e-book, but we now have a 2021 LTS edition too, plus i'd argue the title is overly long. Naming is a bit inconsistent too e.g. 'Introduction to URP for advanced users' - not sure why it bothers to have 'advanced users' as there isn't a beginners version and it would just read better as 'Introduction to URP'. So in summary I think an editor could go through all your available books ( and upcoming ones ) and restructure everything from name, cover design, putting them into series, consistent use of unity LTS editions etc.
• Consider adding these books to official mobile stores, you could still harvest emails via the pre-release ones on the website, but getting them on official stores would be cool, useful, easier to discover, and would probably help enforce publishing standards.
• Fix inconsistent file names. Mostly this is that half the books have replaced 'space' with 'minus' symbol whilst the others haven't.

Regarding book titles, whilst having things like 'Ultimate' makes it sound cool its hard to find the 'profiling' book when looking at the file names of these download e-books as its not the first word. There are several 'optimize' books and i'd probably read those filenames first while trying to find 'profiling'. This wouldn't be so bad in a book library as I could search , but I do feel it highlights potential poor naming structure for the books.

Regarding book series I would be tempted off the top of my head to have something like

Best Practice

• Style Guide for C-Sharp
• Game Programming Patterns
• Version Control & Project Organisation

Definitive Guide to

• Lighting in High Definition Render Pipeline - 2020 LTS Edition
• Lighting in High Definition Render Pipeline - 2021 LTS Edition
  
• Universal Render Pipeline - 2021 LTS Edition

Technical Artists

• Key Toolsets & Workflows ...

Optimization

• PC & Console Game Performance
• Mobile Game Performance
• Profiling Guide

Case Studies

• Sable: A Modular Design Approach

Where all series share the same book cover layout, but each series has a specific cover colour or motif and each book has a unique image/illustration etc.

I know all this sounds like a lot of work, but honestly to have developers invest the amount of time it takes to write these books, I think its only fair Unity do them justice and treat them more as a publisher would.

Edit:

These two links on that pge both go to the same e-book ( console version )

• Optimize your game performance for mobile
• Optimize your console and PC game performance

 

That's absolutely not true at all. Google indeed is indexing PDFs when they are linked properly on reachable pages and they aren't password protected or encrypted. Unfortunately being behind email registration doesn't help though.

 

What is an ideal resource for learning Cinemachine and Timeline (for a non-videographer) ? I seriously cannot get any that explains concepts in a structured manner. Also, is there a legit reason for this gap in the market ?

 

Thank you for posting this. Unity is brand new to me so this will be really helpful. I am most interested in looking into the making of the players from The Heretic and Enemies. Most of the concepts you mentioned are in the book I have not yet learned about so, hopefully this guide provides some good information! Any specific section I should focus on, being a beginner in Unity?