The editor and your first scene

In the Unity Hub, click New project, choose the Universal 3D template, name it LanternRun and create it. The first import takes a few minutes.

Editor layout

• Hierarchy (left): every GameObject in the open scene, arranged as a tree.
• Scene view (centre): where you arrange objects. Right click and drag to look around, use WASD while holding the right mouse button to fly.
• Game view: what the player's camera sees when you press Play.
• Inspector (right): the components of the selected GameObject and their settings.
• Project window (bottom): all your files, called assets.
• Console: messages, warnings and errors.

Making a floor and a player

1. In the Hierarchy, right click, 3D Object, Plane. Rename it Ground. Set its scale to 5, 1, 5 in the Inspector.
2. Add a 3D Object, Capsule, rename it Player and set its position to 0, 1, 0 so it stands on the ground.
3. Select the Main Camera and move it back and up so you can see both.

Press Play. Nothing moves yet, but you are now looking through the game camera. Press Play again to stop.

Edit mode versus play mode

An important trap: changes you make in play mode are lost when you stop. Unity tints the editor while playing to remind you. Tweak values in play mode to experiment, write down what works, then apply them after stopping. You can set a stronger play mode tint colour in Preferences so you never forget.

Transforms

Every GameObject has a Transform with position, rotation and scale. Units are metres by convention, and Unity uses a left handed coordinate system with y up. A default capsule is 2 units tall, roughly the height of a person.

Child objects move with their parent. Drag a small cube onto the Player in the Hierarchy to make it a child, then move the player: the cube follows. We use this to attach a model, a light and effects to the player.

Materials

Right click in the Project window, Create, Material, name it PlayerMat, set its Base Map colour and drag it onto the capsule. Materials in the Universal Render Pipeline use the URP Lit shader by default, which reacts to lighting.

Save the scene as Scenes/Island and commit your project to version control if you use Git, with a Unity specific .gitignore.