koobas.hobune.stream
Interactive Books for Tablets
Hi guys,
I've been searching for tools to create interactive books for tablets(iOS and Android), and the best tools I've found with GUI helpers were for HTML5 using CCS3 and javascript. None of them had 3D support though. All 2D and very limited tools. Looking at Unity and its tools available, looks like I could actually use it to create this interactive book.
What I plan for this book would be, flipping 3D pages with ilustrations mapped to it. Maybe some Lighting interaction and a few fx to complement the sotry narrative. I also intend to Use blender to create the contents that would get exported to Unity, then the game logic created on it. Everything would pretty basic. Animated sprites, deforming geometry, sound fx and sound track.
I would like to know if the Free version if Unity would suit me. Also when I buy the iOS and Android package to be able to export to the Tablets. Will I need to know any programming from iOS or Android language to fit my app to the tablets? Or can I export my game(interactive book)straight to from Unity to my tablets and they would work? I mean. How does the app wrap up would work?
Thanks a lot for your attention
Rodrigo Guimaraes
Hello,
You don't need to necessarily know any iOS or Android-specific programming, unless you need to write or deal with native plugins in some manner, however that is for Unity Pro only. You can just use C# or JS, and do a release for iOS or Android without using external languages. You will of course have to adjust some measurements and things depending on the device, but you can write your code to auto-detect some of that. Android should cover phones and tablets, as iOS does. (Someone can correct me if I'm wrong).
Basically, you just build your book in Unity and then it gets turned into a package appropriate for running on the specified platform. As I noted, there will be some things you need to account for, with varying device types.
Unity's built-in GUI is not that great but you can use a third-party package from the Asset Store like NGUI which is excellent (I know because I'm using it in my game) and easy to use and extend. Also, it would save you lots of time. You can make them event-based as well (some of the widgets are already set up like this) to trigger various things in your book. There are other GUI solutions on the asset store also, but I haven't used them so I can't vouch for them personally.
I think that the free version of Unity would probably be fine given what you're doing, but it's difficult to say with 100% certainty.
Hi AGameDesigner
Thanks for your reply and your tips in regards to creating the book. Where do you think I could find more info about how to put the game into a iOS or Android? I am confident that If i learn unity I can make the book, but I am not sure where to find enough information to put the app to work. using C# or JS.
Thank you very much
Rodrigo Guimaraes
Have you made the boo?. even i thinking of making similar book and couldn't find much information.
Hi Rodrigo, in the future you should reply as a comment, not with another answer. Anyway, the Unity documentation is here: http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation.html and here are the links for iOS and Android. I suggest you definitely have a look through the manual also: http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/$$anonymous$$anual/index.html
