Unity: Technical Help and Troubleshooting

Information on installing and using Unity and Unity Hub with the CodeHS Game Design in Unity course

Gary Gould avatar
Written by Gary Gould
Updated over a week ago

Downloading and Setup FAQ

Unity Step-by-Step Setup Guide:

What are the requirements / Can students use Chromebooks?

Chromebooks are not recommended for this course. It's recommended that students and teachers use a desktop or laptop with enough RAM to run the Unity Application smoothly.

More information about system requirements for Unity can be found at: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/system-requirements.html

Will students need to download any other software?

Nope! The only software needed for this course is Unity Hub and Unity. Instructions on how to download these and set up the software are covered in Module 3, Lessons 1-3 of the course.

Which version of Unity will be used for the course?

Unity Hub is used to control the various Unity versions and Unity projects students will use in the course. All Unity Tutorials that are used in the course use Unity version 2020.3.12f1. So this is the version recommended for students.

What is Unity Hub?

Unity Hub is a standalone application that allows you to manage your account, editor licenses, different versions of Unity, and projects all in one place.

How do teachers grade student assignments?

There are two options for how students can share work with their teachers:

  1. Zipped Folder

    1. Students can zip the project folder and transfer it to a shared network drive, USB drive, or another cloud service. When zipping project folders, ensure to zip the root or top-level folder.

  2. Unity Plastic SCM

    1. Plastic SCM is like a Git tool for Unity game developers. It allows teams to collaborate on a single Unity project with version control. To use Unity Plastic SCM, you’ll need to create an additional Plastic SCM account with your Unity account

      Update 3/27/2023: Plastic SCM will be rebranded as Unity DevOps Version Control. This new service is a pay-as-you-go subscription. As a result, most references and instructions for using the Unity DevOps Version Control/Plastic SCM have been removed from the Game Design in Unity course (Bailey and Lawson flavors). If you are currently using Plastic SCM, you should be able to use the service until the end of this school year (SY 22/23).

Where will students complete their course work? What assignments will be done in Unity vs on CodeHS?

Lessons, examples, exercises, assessments and all study materials will be located on the CodeHS platform. Students will be given instructions on how to fulfill each activity on the Unity platform. Teachers can monitor class progress, review student written reflections, and mark grades for assignments on the CodeHS platform.

General Troubleshooting (version issues, missing files, etc)

Issues with adding or opening a downloaded Unity tutorial

If students have difficulty opening downloaded tutorials, make sure that they've unzipped the downloaded project folder in the correct spot. Check to see that they've added the unzipped project folder to the Unity folder located on their computer. The Unity folder is often found in the Documents folder. Unzipped tutorial project folders must be added to the Unity folder before they can be added/opened in Unity Hub.

Issues with tutorials when using a different version of Unity:

Students need to use Unity version 2020.3.12f1 in order to load and access the tutorials in the CodeHS course (note: this is not the most current version of Unity available). Students can potentially have multiple versions installed. Follow these steps to select the correct version to access the tutorials:

  1. Add the downloaded project folder to Unity Hub under the Projects tab.

  2. The list of projects you can open from Unity Hub should appear with the 2020.3.12f1 version listed as shown below.

    unity hub application with Unity Version column highlighted
  3. If the Unity version required to open a project isn't installed on the computer, the project list will appear with an alert

    triangular warning sign showing in Unity Hub
  4. Click on the alert and follow the on-screen prompts to install the correct version of Unity

  5. Once installed, you should be able to open the project from Unity Hub

Issues with student work disappearing between tutorials or assignments

Students need to save their Unity scene in their current project and submit it to their teacher after completing each assignment. If students don't save the scene, then they will lose progress when the next tutorial loads.

Save and Publish option highlighted in Unity application

Using Unity - Tips and Tricks

Finding Lost Tabs

Occasionally students and game developers move, add, and close windows in their Unity layout. The Unity in-editor tutorials created by CodeHS are presented inside a Tutorials window that can be closed and reopened. If students are suddenly missing the Tutorials window, they can reopen the window easily from the Unity menu toolbar. Simply select Tutorials > Show Tutorials and the Tutorials window will be added to the Unity layout.

Difficulty Panning inside of a Scene

Sometimes users may lock a selected frame or select a frame in the Scene editor. This can be done under the Edit menu or the shortcut keys F or Shift + F. This can disable the panning feature in Unity's scene editor. Use either F or Shift + F shortcut keys again to disable the lock or selection. This should reinstate the scene panning feature. If not, try double-clicking on a GameObject in the Scene editor.

Fix Falling GameObjects

While testing projects in Unity, students may experience unintended gameplay behaviors. Just like developing any program or code, sometimes a little tweaking and debugging is required to arrive at the intended functionality. Let’s take a look at a common gameplay anomaly that students may experience - falling GameObjects.

If a character or GameObject appears to fall through the ground, or any other surface, there may be an issue with how physics components were added to the character. Select the GameObject in the Hierarchy window and take a look at its properties in the Inspector window. All GameObjects that need to adhere to game physics need to have a Rigidbody component. Does your character have one? If so, is Use Gravity selected?

Another physics component that your character needs is a collider. This could be a Capsule Collider, Character Controller, Box Collider, or any other “collider” component. Make sure the collider is checked and enabled. Most of the default parameters for these two components will suffice for your character GameObject.

Lastly, select the surface GameObject. This might be a plane or a cube GameObject in your Hierarchy window. In the Inspector window, check to make sure this GameObject also has a collider. Typically the surface will have a Mesh Collider or Box Collider component added automatically when the object was added to the scene.

With those physics components in place, test the gameplay again to see if your character stops falling through the ground.

Still have questions? Contact our team at hello@codehs.com to learn more!

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