Unity 3D Pointers for a beginner! (Sphere, textures, coding languages, pop up boxes)

Hi Unity community!

I've watched the getting into unity series, and I have a project I'd love to work on. But as all of us beginners it can feel a bit overwhelming at first, the basic functions seemed easy. Reminds me of any adobe ui which is nice, since it's familiar. Anyway I'll cut to the case!

I'd like to create a sphere/skysphere which would act as a background, and everything happens inside of this sphere, with the ground/bottom cutting the middle of the sphere. Which would lead to a similar experience as standing on a flat ground on earth with half a sphere above you. This is the exact perspective I have to achieve.

And which coding languages would be great to pick up, I'm used to webdev so I have dabbled in coding quite a bit. The goal would to create the box in a message window on a phone which pops up when certain objects are activated in the sky dome. Think of it like a planetarium which is interactive. This project won't feature any kind of gameplay.

Can anyone point me in the right direction and I'll be on my way, or does anyone have great references I could use to achieve this? I'll pay for your morning coffee on paypal / buy you a humble bundle.

Thanks in advance!
-Tommi

 

Unity normally uses a sky box rather than a sky sphere, but of course you can do the latter if you want. An easy way to get started might be to get this free SkySphere asset, and study how the demo scene works.

As for the ground, just add a Plane to your scene and size it appropriately.

Finally, as for language, learn C#. No question about it. Some people still use UnityScript (which is a sort of custom JavaScript variant), but it's clearly on the decline.

 

Hello! Thank you for your pointers will definitely look into C#, I have the ability though to create sort of a half globe, with the plane beneath the camera? I wish to sort of simulate an empty space this way, and the confusion for me is that the skysphere seems all too big and far away, I'd like to get it closer to the view point, and make it as if the viewer is inside a bubble?

You want an illustration of what I mean to clarify this?

Thank you very much for taking your time, would you like a coffee on me or humble bundle for helping me out mate?

 

Try to think of it more as an example of how you can do what you're trying to do. It's rare that you'll find code samples that detail how to do something exactly the way you want to do it, so instead, study what you can find that's similar and then tweak things to fit your needs.

It's rare enough to find new people who even thank us for our time, but something like this is unheard of!

I imagine I speak for most people here, though, when I say that you really don't need to offer something this generous in return for a bit of advice. We help because we like to help!

 

If you really want it to look like sky, then you would keep it centered on the camera. And in that case it really doesn't matter how big it is — it looks exactly the same regardless, unless it intercepts some other object.

Download that free asset and play with it. Pay attention to both what it looks like in the Game view (which is what the end-user will see), and what you see in the Scene view (which is a different viewpoint, so you can see how it's actually put together).

As @Schneider21 said, there's no need for that — just go make something awesome!

 

Yeah this is a process i'm used to in webdev, I've noticed C# seems a bit more obvious though which is a nice break!

Well the end result shouldn't be a sky per se, more of a 360 video stitched together in after effects. This is why I mentioned creating a "bubble" since it will be more of a simulation/virtual experience rather than a game. Yeah makes sense that the magic to create this is all in the camera ;P But I'll put some time into this and see how it goes. Perhaps my vision will adapt according to my progress.

And lastly you two are awesome! Thank you.