Tony is a Geek

At some point or other, we've all thought about it..... "This game is so buggy, I could have done better", "I wonder if I could write this game?", "If only I had time to sit down and make a game, I'd make it like this, only better", "Wow, do you remember Doom, I bet that was millions of lines of Assembler - there's no way I could make something like that nowadays". Well, you may just be in luck.  Here a link to a FREE DOWNLOAD (yes, free, as in beer) to a book that takes you through how to build a First person shooter using Unity . Those that know, know that I've been a fan of Unity for the past, well, for a long time! I've built 3D digital human assistants, I've build mobile applications using it, I've even written the odd game using it.... but I've never really had the time (or patience, to be fair) to sit down and make a first person shooter. Well, as I say, click HERE to either download the free...

Hey, hang on....what?..... Unity is a games engine, isn't it?.... Well, yes.  Yes, it is.  It helps you to create 3D and 2D games... that deploy to Android phones, iOS phones and Tablets, Web (some limitations) and if you really want to (and have the licenses) to XBox and PS4.... as well as adding in some Augmented Reality (AR) if you want....and some Virtual Reality (VR) output to Samsung Gear / Oculus if you really want to also..... Whoa....sit back and think about that for a second or two.  We have an IDE that allows you to build a UI, really simply, that can be deployed out to multiple devices, can be "smart" in being responsive with the UI and have a single language scripting engine where you can basically write all manner of code in C# that can interface to any backend server based API (written in whatever flavour you want OR someone else's APIs), now we're starting to look promising. How long to setup and make a reasonable app?  Really? a couple of...

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm a little late to the game with this one...but....now most of the bugs have been ironed out, it's a good time to check it out! https://blogs.unity3d.com/2018/05/10/launching-3d-game-kit-explore-and-learn-unity-in-3d/ I was using an "old" version of Unity, I think it was 2018.2.xxx and when I added the 3D-Game-Kit asset, I received lots of errors about namespaces missing etc... after a bit of searching, I saw a load of workarounds and a variety of posts and I was about to give up and switch to using Unreal Engine, then I thought...I'll give it one last go.... That's when I decided to upgrade to Unity 2018.3.3f1 and then added the 3D-Game-Kit as an asset - and voila! it just worked.  I worked very well in fact and I'm using a 2013 Macbook Pro. Check it out and walk through the tutorial, I was very surprised at just how simple they've made this: https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/s/3d-game-kit admittedly it is hid...

Okay, so you may have noticed that recently, I made a 3D Avatar / Digital Human using the Unity 3D engine and connected it up to the IBM Watson SDK . Well, straight after doing that piece of work, I thought...hmmm... I also have the Unreal Engine installed on my laptop too, I wonder if there is an IBM Watson SDK sample app that could use that engine to do what I did above... A quick DuckDuckGo search later and yep, here is a gitHub . A quick 50,000ft difference check is - what are you more comfortable writing your code in? C# from Microsoft (Unity) or C/C++ (Unreal Engine) What have you had more experience in using? So, why am I pointing this out?  Well, I happened to stumble over a Digital Human that is created and controlled by the Unreal Engine....and well, it's pretty awesome! My Unity / "couple of days" effort project versus this (probably) quite a few £££££ effort doesn't really compare - but what it does show is that this level of technology and ef...

Totally, 100% selfish plug :-) https://developer.ibm.com/recipes/tutorials/create-a-3d-digital-human-with-ibm-watson-assistant-and-unity3d Have you ever thought to yourself: y'know, I want my own HOLLY ( from Red Dwarf ) I have "skills"..... I'm a computer software developer..... I have "stuff" on my laptop that I've installed / used a few times, but forgotten what it was for again.... .....and you have a spare 30-40 minutes?  (and $35) Then look no further, welcome to the world of Unity, UMA2, SALSA, IBM Watson SDK and the IBM Watson Assistant API service! I wrote an article that may be useful to follow if you want to do the above sort of thing on a rainy Saturday morning.... https://developer.ibm.com/recipes/tutorials/create-a-3d-digital-human-with-ibm-watson-assistant-and-unity3d (and yes, I know the TTS is not that accurate, I didn't give it much/if any training, so I'm surprised it did as well as it did!) ...

So, this happened today: Bristol Virtual Reality World Conference (VRWC) Expo. I attended (it would have been rude not to....) and took some photo's and had a wander around / chat. >CLICK HERE FOR MORE<