Unity: Prefabs

Name: Unity: Prefabs
Author: Ken Geary

Learn how to work with basic shapes, and then create a Prefab

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Course: On-Demand

Hello. My name is Ken Geary. In these lessons, you'll work with the built in Unity shapes grouped together to create a prefab. First, let's open our project. Double click on the unity hub. Icon or launch. From the Start menu. Select Projects, then double click Getting Started. If the Unity Hub is still open, you can men ##ize. It we'll create a new scene to start building our first prefab. Go to the top file menu. Select New scene. Click on Basic. Click create. Let's save our scene. Go to file save. As open your Scenes folder. We'll name this hovercraft. Add a Sphere game object either using the Top menu or right clicking. In the hierarchy, select 3d object sphere. We'll name this body when creating new objects that you want to place anywhere in your scene. It's good practice to have the object centered in the scene. We can enter zero for the X, Y, and Z position in the Inspector, or you can click the three dots to the right of Transform and select Reset with your mouse. In the Scene view, click the R key to enable the Scale tool and make the sphere bigger by clicking and dragging the center white cube. Then we'll scale it down on Y, the green cube, to flatten it out orbit by holding down alt left click and drag, and we'll scale it a bit in X, clicking and dragging the red cube. This is a way to visually get a rough feel for the object shape so you can follow along. We'll type in values for scale and even out the numbers. In the Inspector panel, set scale X to six, Y to two, and Z to eight. Next, we'll add a cylinder game object. We'll rename it Engine, reset the transforms in the Inspector, and we'll change the scale to 5. 5 in Y and five in Z. Move your mouse over the Scene window and tap the W key to enable the Move tool. Move the engine under the hovercraft. You can also duplicate objects to save time. In the Hierarchy panel, select the Body object. Press CTRL and D keys to duplicate or select duplicate. From the Edit menu, press F two and rename this cockpit. In the Scene panel, move the cockpit up. Because it's a duplicate, it'll be the same size. We want to scale it down and position it towards the front to match my values. In the Inspector window, type in for position x equals zero y equals zero five, and z 1.5 for scale values x two, y 1.5 and z four. Although this is not a highly detailed hovercraft, we were able to block it out entirely in Unity, which enables rapid prototyping of your game elements. The issue with this hovercraft is if we want to move it around our level and keep all the parts together, we would have to multi select using the select window. Instead, we can add an empty game object and use it to hold all of our shapes, create an empty game object and name it Hovercraft. Next, we will multi select objects in the Hierarchy window by clicking the body, then holding down the control key and clicking the engine and cockpit. All three objects should be highlighted. Now carefully click and hold your left mouse button down and drag until you see a faint outline above Hovercraft. Let go the mouse. And now all three shapes are a childhood apparent empty game object named Hovercraft. This is also a great technique for grouping elements and organizing the clutter in your Hierarchy panel. Click the small triangle next to Hovercraft and it will collapse that part of the list. Keeping things neat. Next, select Hovercraft mouse over to the scene panel and tap the W key. Now you can move all the shapes as one unit. Don't forget to save your scene. If you remember, we saved the scene as Hovercraft. We can click CTRL and Es key to save to the same name, or open file and select Save. In the next lesson, we're going to learn about creating materials in unity. Thanks for watching.

Beginner Provider : Ken Geary 4 Lessons · 25m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese

Course Description

In these lessons, you’ll work with the built-in Unity shapes grouped together to create a Prefab. Prefabs are pre-made game objects or collections that can be reused multiple times and even used in different scenes and projects. Prefabs can contain multiple components such as animations, sounds, meshes, materials, textures and C# scripts. First, you will learn how to add GameObjects into your scene, such as a Sphere and Cylinder. Then we’ll show you how to scale and place objects to create a simple Hovercraft and group all the shapes into a parent empty GameObject.

Later we’ll demonstrate how to create materials to create basic color and metallic surfaces. Then you will create a Prefab from the group and see how you can work with the Prefab instances in the scene. You will learn how Prefab instances can be globally changed by editing the main Prefab, making it easy to implement changes quickly.

What You'll Learn

Add GameObjects such as a Sphere and Cylinder into your Unity scene
Scale and place built-in Unity shapes to build a simple Hovercraft
Group shapes together under a parent empty GameObject
Create materials for basic color and metallic surfaces
Create a Prefab from a group of objects and work with Prefab instances
Apply global changes to Prefab instances by editing the main Prefab

Key Takeaways

Prefabs are pre-made game objects or collections that can be reused multiple times across different scenes and projects.
A Prefab can contain multiple components such as animations, sounds, meshes, materials, textures and C# scripts.
Multiple built-in Unity shapes can be grouped under a parent empty GameObject before being turned into a Prefab.
Editing the main Prefab globally changes its instances in the scene, making it easy to implement changes quickly.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I build in this course?

You will use built-in Unity shapes, such as a Sphere and Cylinder, scaling and placing them to create a simple Hovercraft, then group the shapes and turn them into a reusable Prefab.

What are Prefabs in Unity?

Prefabs are pre-made game objects or collections that can be reused multiple times and even used in different scenes and projects, and they can contain components such as animations, sounds, meshes, materials, textures and C# scripts.

Why use Prefab instances?

Prefab instances can be globally changed by editing the main Prefab, making it easy to implement changes quickly across the scene.

What lessons does this course include?

The course covers Working With GameObjects, Creating Materials, and Creating and Using Prefabs in two parts.

What skills does this course cover?

It covers working with custom objects, game programming, prefabrication, the Unity container, UnityScript, and the Unity engine.