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Unity3D and Opensource Get Acquainted

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4 Oct 2019CPOL5 min read 26.2K   14  
Unity3D and Opensource get acquainted

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The Opensource movement is truly one of the great things of the current generation, almost bringing back the sharing and caring community of the 60s (not that I was around then, but I hear it was nice), well almost. The main idea being that everyone should share and help each other out building their projects.

Before bringing this post to focus on Unity3D, it’s important to understand what Opensource is all about and break down some myths. To explain this, a recent video got released which I feel is the best explanation of what Opensource is all about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8fHgx9mE5U

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Just remember, just because something is Opensource does NOT mean it’s FREE. At some point, someone has had to put a lot of hard effort, time or money into building something and is generous enough to share it. Recognize this and help them out, praise them or even contribute with time or even cash.

Don’t abuse Opensource contributors because it’s not what you wanted!

Opensource and Unity3D

Unity has certainly been slow to move when it comes to open source, most contributors are hard at work on their creations and have little time to clean things up and showcase how they achieved things. NOTE, putting up a video of your effort with no code based explanation of how you achieved it doesn’t count, that is just promotion.

Things are changing as of Unity 4 and we are seeing more and more content released and more developers publishing Opensource projects and contributing to others.

So I’ve put together a list of some of the best picks I’ve found out there (feel free to suggest more in comments and I’ll update this post).

http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php/Main_Page

First off, there is the Unity Wiki – granted this has been around for some time but doesn’t get as much attention as it should, a good first port of call.

https://github.com/nickgravelyn/UnityToolbag

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Nick Gravelyn is one of the XNA die hards and a big contributor for building and sharing helpful stuff, as he has moved to Unity, he has not stopped and pushed a selection of helper scripts to aid you on your development journey and you are encouraged to submit your own to make this an even bigger resource.

https://github.com/Unity-Technologies

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Unity themselves have several of their own Opensource projects published on GitHub with various license models on each.

Some of these include MonoDevelop (the dev tool) / Unity Test tools / Boo / Version Control plugins and Reference rewriters to name a few.

https://github.com/fholm/unityassets

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I was really impressed when Fredrik Holmström suddenly released no less than 19 of his own assets from the Unity Store on to GitHub under an MIT license, basically free to use so long as you include the license in the software you produce. Just be nice and shout if you use them, that’s all.

Fantastic effort, Fredrik.

https://github.com/StephanieRct/NieMath

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A new Math library project for Unity3D published by Stephanie, despite a huge public backlash when this Math library was released, I was impressed by this libraries humble creation. It is still in the early days but shows potential, I recommend rolling your sleeves up and digging in with this project and help make it even better.

https://github.com/ThirdPartyNinjas/GlitchAssets

https://github.com/ThirdPartyNinjas/GlitchAssets-Inhabitants

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A huge game project called Glitch got cancelled and rather than disappearing into the ether, the developers released all their assets free to the world (http://www.glitchthegame.com/public-domain-game-art/), however all the assets were made for Flash.

Seeing this and wanting to make it more accessible to game developers, Jesse from ThirdParty Ninja’s converted and extracted all the assets into more reusable formats. There are so many assets in this pack it took two whole GitHub projects to host it!

https://github.com/kimsama/Unity-GoogleData

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Another interesting project to hit the Opensource arena is a useful add-on for any expandable game, the ability in Unity to consume Google spreadsheets from within your Unity3D project. Not had the chance to use this fully myself yet but it holds promise. Kim’s other GitHub projects also spark interest as well, so check them out.

https://bitbucket.org/ikriz/unity-shaders

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Switching tracks, Kristen Schat from the Netherlands released a heap of GL shaders for Unity3D on Bitbucket for all to use, Fantastic!

(P.S. Although I personally don’t like it when devs don’t put at least some effort into their own public avatar :S)

https://gist.github.com/boj

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Opensourcing and sharing come in all shapes and forms, here Brian Jones has published several Gists (snippets / single scripts) in his Gist repository (like a mini GitHub for single files / code fragments). It’s an interesting collection of helper classes and shaders.

https://github.com/sploreg/goap

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Advertised as a Goal Oriented Action Planning AI in Unity, Brent Owens has published a very interesting project to help you out with your AI needs. One certainly worth jumping in and contributing to.

New for 2019

DevDog have released a few of their assets under opensource (grab them now)

https://devdog.io/blog/were-open-sourcing-lots-of-our-tools

A collection of reusable Modular systems for use in your projects, very handy

https://github.com/JusticeShultz/ModularSystems/tree/master/Assets

Notable Mentions

The above are just a cut from a heap of projects that have crossed my desk and browsing history, as I always keep on collecting such things.

Along with the headliners above, here are a few other repositories which are interesting but will take a bit more effort to unravel:

Did I Miss Anyone?

If you found something that should be shouted about or just want your name in lights, comment below and I’ll add it to the article.

Be bold, be brave and share!

I leave with my mantra when it comes to Opensource.

If you don’t like it, don’t use it, don’t abuse.

If you like it and have more ideas, then contribute.

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
Architect ZenithMoon Studios
United Kingdom United Kingdom
Long-time game developer / IT maniac.
By day I architect, design, build and deliver enriching Mixed Reality solutions to clients, bringing the work of AR/VR to light in new and interesting ways, by night I Masquerade as the Master Chief of ZenithMoon Studios, my own game development studio.

At heart, I am a community developer breaking down lots of fun and curious technologies and bringing them to the masses.

I'm also a contributor to several open-source projects, most notably, the Reality Toolkit and all the services provided by the Reality Collective, The Unity-UI-Extensions project, as well as in the past the AdRotator advertising rotator project for Windows and Windows Phone.

Currently, I spend my time fulfilling contracts in the Mixed Reality space (primarily for an XR experience firm called Ethar), writing books, technically reviewing tons of material and continuing my long tradition of contributing to open-source development, as well as delivering talks, but that goes without saying Big Grin | :-D

Mixed Reality MVP, Xbox Ambassador, MS GameDevelopment Ambassador & Best selling author:

[Accelerating Unity Through Automation](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Accelerating-Unity-Through-Automation-Offloading/dp/1484295072/ref=rvi_sccl_3/262-0817396-1418043)
[Mastering Unity 2D Game Development] (https://www.packtpub.com/game-development/mastering-unity-2d-game-development)
[Unity 3D UI Essentials] (https://www.packtpub.com/game-development/unity-3d-gui-essentials)

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