Setting Up Unity: Part 1 — Unity and VS Code

Install Unity Hub

First we need to download Unity Hub at https://store.unity.com/download?ref=personal .

Unity Hub is a launcher were we can open our projects and download many versions of Unity.

Unity Hub is a launcher were we can open our projects and download many versions of Unity.

Once its installation is finished, run the application and select the “Installs” Tab.

Unity 2020 LTS just released so make sure to get that one. LTS just means that future updates of this version won’t be too dramatic.

This is the only checkmark we need for now, click DONE.

Here it’s asking for modules, we aren’t doing mobile development yet so we’ll stick to Windows. You can add modules at any time in the future.
Don’t install Visual Studio Community, we’ll only download “Windows Build Support” for now.

Once it is finished installing, we need to create a Unity Account.

When you get an account. Go to the Gear icon on the top right and on the “License Management” Tab then click on “Activate New License” On the Options, select Unity Personal and your page should look like the image bellow.

Go back to the main page and we can finally create a project. For now just select 3D and give it a name.

Here we are, we got Unity running!

Install .NET

These two .NET installs are for Intellisense, you can find the .NET SDK from this site: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download

Then go to this site and download the Developer Pack: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=56119

Install Visual Studio Code

Now we need an application for writing code. We’ll be using Visual Studio Code. You can get it here: https://code.visualstudio.com

Open VS Code and go to the extensions tab, look for “C#” and pick the one shown bellow.

After installing Visual Studio Code you will need to restart your computer.

When you come back…Open your Unity Project and go to the “Edit” > “Preferences” and a New Window will come up. Click on “External Tools” and finally Click where it says “Open by File Extension” and select “Visual Studio Code”

Now both Unity and VS Code are connected, we’ll be working with them throughout the course.

We are done for now…here is a list of everything we did:

1. Download Unity Hub and Install Unity 2020 LTS.
2. Create a Unity Account and Create a License.
3. Create a Unity Project.
4. Install .NET SDK and .NET Framework Dev Pack.
5. Download Visual Studio Code.
6. Set the Unity Preferences and make Visual Studio Code the default editor.
7. Install C# Extension for Visual Studio Code.

that was a lot of stuff to install, but it will be worth it!

I know we got a lot of stuff set up today, but we still got some steps left. I’ll go over them in the next article. See ya next time!

Note: This is a series created for my programming mentoring job at a local after-school program. I am tasked with creating materials, delivering live lessons, and most importantly, inspire others to express themselves through computer programming and game development.