In my attempt to develop my first iPhone game, I thought I might use a game engine that will make the process as simple as possible. I started searching the internet for available iPhone game engines and stumbled upon Unity 3D. The games you can produce with Unity seem to look awesome.

I started the download of Unity 3D for the iPhone. Below you will find a link to download Unity 3D iPhone.

• Unity iPhone Download Link

For most of you, if you’ve come to this page you may have already downloaded Unity iPhone and are now looking for tutorials to get started developing with Unity. If you’ve already launched Unity and had a look at the interface then you may have already started to become discouraged as it appears very daunting at first look.

As I am developing my very first game I will be posting tutorials so that other people will have a chance to learn. In this first tutorial I will briefly cover the Unity iPhone interface as well as how to set up the correct settings for building for the iPhone so that hopefully you will not run into too much trouble getting started.

Unity iPhone: The Interface

The Unity iPhone interface has 7 sections. Starting with the very top is the toolbar and then on the left top is the scene view and below that you have the game view and below that are the play controls for the game view. To the left of the scene view is the Hierarchy view and below that is the project view. Next to those on the right is the Inspector view. I will be going over each of these views and explain what they are used for. Please also note that this is default layout for Unity iPhone and that you can move the views around as you want.

The Toolbar:

To the very left of the toolbar, you will see 4 controls. These are called transform tools. The transform tools are used to interact with game objects in the scene view. From left to right they are: The Hand Tool, The Move Tool, The Rotate Tool and the Scale Tool. Clicking on the individual tool activates that tool.

The next section of the toolbar are the Transform Gizmo Toggles. These controls affect the scene view display. You can toggle the handle position to either center or pivot. Center will position the Gizmo at the center of the object’s rendered bounds. Pivot will position the Gizmo at the actual pivot point of a Mesh.

The last control on the toolbar is the Layout control. With the layout control you can choose from a list of pre-designed layouts to use with Unity. They each have their own pros and cons, you will have to pick the one that most suits you. I like to use Tall. You can also create a new layout and save it.

That pretty much covers the toolbar. Hopefully I have explained it well enough for everyone to understand. If there is something I left out please feel free to ask questions. Now on to the Scene View

The Scene View:

The Scene View is used to select and position environments, the player, the camera, enemies and all other GameObjects. Maneuvering and manipulating objects is done via the transform tools on the main toolbar at the very top using the transform tools.

As you can see from the screen shot above and subsequent screen shots, all views have their own tool bar. The Scene View toolbar has 8 different items that can be manipulated they are as follows.

• View Selector – The View Selector as its name implies allows you to select the which view you would like within the current window. You would use this to switch the current window to any of the other available views.
• Draw Mode – Here you have a few options: Textured, Wireframe, Textured & Wireframe and Occlusion
• Render Mode – RGB and Alpha are your 2 options within Render Mode
• Lighting – Enabling Scene Lighting will override the default Scene View lighting with whatever lights you have positioned to create your final light setup.
• FX – Game Overlay will enable items like Skyboxes and GUI Elements in the Scene View.
• Ortho – I haven’t figured out what this control does yet… If anyone has any idea, let me know and I’ll add a description.
• Aspect – This control allows you to set your Scene View aspect ratio. There are some useful pre-defined aspect ratios for both the iPhone and the iPad.
• Layers – This control allows you to toggle on and off layers to show in the scene view.

That concludes the overview of the Scene View. As I said before I am still in the learning stages so I am doing the best I can to get the terminology right. You’ll have to excuse any obvious mistakes.

The Game View:

The Game View is rendered from the Camera(s) in your game. It is representative of your final, published game. You will need to use one or more Cameras to control what the player actually sees when they are playing your game.

The Game View has 5 controls. I will cover each of them below

• View Selector – Just as with the Scene View the View Selector allows you to select the which view you would like within the current window. You would use this to switch the current window to any of the other available views.
• Aspect Ratio – Allows you to preview how your game will look on the chosen device.
• Maximize on Play – This control will maximize the game view to full screen when you press the Play button on the Play controls.
• Gizmos – This will show the gizmos in the game view.
• Stats – This will show some game stats within the game view.

That’s it, all there is to the Game View. Hopefully I haven’t confused anyone too much just yet. We are almost done. Just 3 more views to cover and then I will go over the settings that are required to build your project for Xcode.

The Hierarchy View:

The Hierarchy contains every GameObject in the current Scene. Some of these are direct instances of asset files like 3D models, and others are instances of Prefabs — custom objects that will make up much of your game. You can select and Parent objects in the Hierarchy. As objects are added and removed from the scene, they will appear and disappear from the Hierarchy as well.

The Hierarchy View also has a View Selector that allows you to change the view within the current window as well as a Show Prefab toggle that allows you to show Prefabs.

The Project View:

This is where you store all the assets that make up your game, like scenes, scripts, 3D models, textures, audio files, and Prefabs. If you right-click on any asset in the Project View, you can choose Reveal in Finder to actually see the asset itself in your file system.

Important Note: You should never move project assets around using the OS since this will break any metadata associated with the asset. Always use the Project View to organize your assets.

To add assets to your project, you can drag any file from your OS into the Project View, or use Assets->Import New Asset. Your asset is now ready to be used in your game.

Scenes are also stored in the Project View. Think of these as individual levels. To create a new Scene, use Command-N. To save the current Scene into the Project View, use Command-S.

The Project View also has a View Selector and a Create drop-down that will allow you to Create assets from within Unity such as scripts, prefabs, animations, etc…

The Inspector View:

Games in Unity are made up of multiple GameObjects that contain meshes, scripts, sounds, or other graphical elements like Lights. The Inspector displays detailed information about your currently selected GameObject, including all attached Components and their properties. Here, you modify the functionality of GameObjects in your scene.

Any property that is displayed in the Inspector can be directly modified. Even script variables can be changed without modifying the script itself. You can use the Inspector to change variables at runtime to experiment and find the magic gameplay for your game. In a script, if you define a public variable of an object type (like GameObject or Transform), you can drag and drop a GameObject or Prefab into the Inspector to make the assignment.

Unity iPhone – Xcode Settings

Unity iPhone has some basic settings that need to be set in order for you to build your project properly. Unity will export all of your game content into code that Xcode can understand. When your project finishes building within Unity, a script will auto open Xcode and start the compiling process. For this reason we need to make sure that the information that we would usually put into the info.plist file within Xcode is properly setup within Unity. You can get to the settings by going to Edit -> Project Settings -> Player.

The settings will be available within the Inspector View on the right hand side of the Unity application.

You should at this point be familiar with the settings that need to be set for your Unity app to compile properly within Xcode. If you don’t know what to put into this section then I suggest you spend some time with Xcode and on the Apple Developer site. If anyone needs an explanation for the above settings I will be more then happy to add to this tutorial but I think they are mostly self explanatory.

Well, this concludes the first tutorial for Unity iPhone. I hope you found it useful and please bare with me as I learn my way around this awesome game engine.

So… you’ve installed the latest SDK and XCode from Apple’s developer site only to find out that the only base SDK’s you are left to develop with are 3.2 and 4.0. What about if you have an iPhone 2G as your only development device? The iPhone 2G only goes up to iOS 3.1.3 and if you are stuck with the lowest base SDK of 3.2, you will not be able to push your apps to your iPhone.

This is exactly what happened to me. I downloaded the beta SDK for the 4.0 iOS when it came out. Little did I know that when you install that, it removes all SDK’s prior to 3.2.

Luckily for us, Apple is kind enough to keep previous versions of Xcode and their SDK’s available for download. Here is a list of available downloads.

• iPhone SDK 2.2.1
• iPhone SDK 3.0 with Xcode 3.1.3 – Leopard
• iPhone SDK 3.0 with Xcode 3.2 – Snow Leopard
• iPhone SDK 3.1 with Xcode 3.1.4 – Leopard
• iPhone SDK 3.1 with Xcode 3.2.1 – Snow Leopard
• iPhone SDK 3.1.2 with Xcode 3.1.4 – Leopard
• iPhone SDK 3.1.2 with Xcode 3.2.1 – Snow Leopard
• iPhone SDK 3.1.3 with Xcode 3.1.4 – Leopard
• iPhone SDK 3.1.3 with Xcode 3.2.1 – Snow Leopard
• iPhone SDK 3.2 Beta 4 with Xcode 3.2.2 – Snow Leopard
• iPhone SDK 3.2 FInal with Xcode 3.2.2 – Snow Leopard

You have to be logged into the Apple developer site http://developer.apple.com to download the above listed SDK’s. I downloaded the 3.1.3 Snow Leopard SDK since I already have 3.2 and 4.0 and 3.1.3 includes all of the above mentioned SDK’s as well as 2.0 and 2.1.

Once you’ve downloaded the SDK of your choice it should be in the form of a DMG, go ahead and mount that and open up the resulting volume. You should get something that looks like the image below.

At this point you will need to open up the Packages folder rather then running the installer because all we want are the SDK’s. When you open up the Packages folder scroll down a bit until you see the SDK’s. You should see something similar to the screen shot below.

You’ll see that there are device SDK’s and simulator SDK’s. You don’t have to install the simulator SDK’s if you don’t want to because all we are really after here is to be able to push our apps to an iPhone with an iOS earlier then 3.2. Double click on one of the iPhone SDK’s and you will be presented with an installer screen like the one below.

Click on Continue and and you will get to the next screen similar to the one in the screen shot below

On this screen you need to click on the drive you want to install the SDK to. In most cases it will be your primary Hard Drive. If you have your Developer tools installed on a different drive then you should select that one instead. Next you need to click on Choose Folder and you will be presented with a Choose Folder dialog similar to the screen shot below.

If you are like me and installed Xcode in the default location then you should have a developer folder in the root of your Hard Drive. Click on the Developer folder and then click choose. You will see a screen similar to the one below.

You can verify on this screen that you’ve selected the proper folder. It should have a blue circle around the Hard Drive and if you’ve picked the Developer folder it should say the following on the bottom “You have chosen to install this software in the folder Developer on the disk Macintosh HD. Click Continue and you will be presented with a screen similar to the below screen shot.

This is just a confirmation screen, from here you just need to click on Install. You may be prompted with a password screen. Enter your password to continue with the installation. You should see a screen similar to the one below.

Depending on the SDK you are installing this part can take up to 5 minutes to complete. When the installation is done you will be presented with a screen similar to the one below.

Click on close. At this time your installation of the SDK is complete. You can verify that the SDK installed successfully by launching Xcode. Once Xcode is launched open an existing project or start a new one and go to Project -> Project Settings. You should see a screen similar to the below screen shot.

Click on the drop down towards the bottom where you can choose your base SDK and if all went well you should see a screen similar to the below depending on which SDK you installed.

Pick your SDK of choice and enjoy. Hopefully this tutorial has helped someone with their project. I spent many hours the other night researching how I could install older version SDK’s and once I found an easy method I thought I would share it with the rest of the world. If for some reason you don’t see your SDK listed here then it may have been installed in the wrong folder. If you can’t get it working feel free to ask me for help. I’m always willing to help out a fellow developer.

When Apple introduced the iPhone and the iPod Touch it changed the way we use the mobile phone and listen to music. When Apple introduced the iPad we were given another great device for listening to music and browsing the web as well as keeping us entertained with the thousands of applications that are available from the Apple App Store.

This post is aimed at comparing the iPhone, iPod Touch and the new iPad. I will be highlighting the features of each device and hopefully help someone make an educated decision as to which device to purchase. Of course there is nothing wrong with owning all 3 of them

What do you need?

• A Phone – Get an iPhone
• Want to listen to music – Get an iPod Touch
• Want to read books / listen to music / more power – Get an iPad

Only an iPhone can make phone calls. The iPod Touch and the iPad both have speakers but no microphone so even using the Skype app, you will not be able to make phone calls using either of these devices.

Wanna get an iPhone?

Since the release of the iPhone we have seen many variations of the original. The current models are:

• iPhone 2G (The original)
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4

If you don’t own an iPhone and you sign up for a new AT&T contract you will get the iPhone 4. The 16 GB model will set you back about $199.00 with the 32 GB model at $299.00 and at the time of this post you should still be able to get the 3GS 8 GB model for $99.00 (don’t get it unless you are strapped for cash and really really want an iPhone)

If you don’t want to get a contract with AT&T but still want an iPhone you should check eBay, craigslist, etc… You can get an iPhone 2G from eBay for about $120.00 and it will run up to version 3.1.3 and can be jail broken. If you want to get something better for a little more cash I recommend going with the 3GS as it has more capable hardware and can run the latest iOS 4 which supports multi-tasking.

However, if you like to tinker, you can get a 3G and jail break it and then run a modified version of iOS 4 which will allow you to enable multi tasking on your 3G iPhone.

So what are the major differences between the iPhone 2G, 3G, 3GS and 4?

Camera:

• iPhone 2G – 2 Megapixels / Rear Only / No Flash
• iPhone 3G – 2 Megapixels / Rear Only / No Flash
• iPhone 3GS – 3 Megapixels / Rear Only / No Flash
• iPhone 4 – 5 Megapixels Rear / .3 Megapixels Front / LED Flash

Talk / Standby Time:

• iPhone 2G – 2G 8 Hours Talk / 250 Hours Standby
• iPhone 3G – 2G 10 Hours Talk, 3G 5 Hours Talk / 300 Hours Standby
• iPhone 3GS – 2G 10 Hours Talk, 3G 5 Hours Talk / 300 Hours Standby
• iPhone 4 – 2G 14 Hours Talk, 3G 7 Hours Talk / 300 Hours Standby

Display Size / Resolution:

• iPhone 2G – 3.5 inch / 320 x 480
• iPhone 3G – 3.5 inch / 320 x 480
• iPhone 3GS – 3.5 inch / 320 x 480
• iPhone 4 – 3.5 inch / 960 x 640

Size Height / Width / Depth:

Note: Without being to specific all 4 versions have a height of 4.5 inches and a width of 2.4 inches. The depth however is slightly different

• iPhone 2G – .46 inch depth
• iPhone 3G – .48 inch depth
• iPhone 3GS – .48 inch depth
• iPhone 4 – .37 inch depth

One thing to note is that the iPhone 4 is superior in every way when comparing its earlier models. If you have the cash then you should go for it.

There are a few things to consider when deciding which device you should ultimately purchase. If you are strapped for cash and can only afford to purchase one of the 3 devices then think about what your needs are. If you really need a phone then you have to go with the iPhone but if all you want to do is listen to music, browse the web and enjoy all of the available iPod Touch apps from the app store then get an iPod touch.

If you need a device with a fairly decent sized screen and a high resolution that will make web browsing fun and reading documents online easy as well as allow you to send and receive e-mail either via wi-fi or 3G then the iPad is for you. Utilizing the new 1GHz Apple A4 processor makes the iPad a powerful mobile device that is perfect for people who have an on the go type of lifestyle.

If anyone has any questions or anything to add that I may have missed then please leave a comment…

So, I’m not sure how many of you have iPhones, I’m sure a lot of you have Mac’s and out of those of you that have Mac’s I’m not sure how many of you have had a chance to check out my Binary Watch Widget for Mac OS X.

Well, I recently started developing apps for the iPhone, so my first app that I submitted to the App Store for approval was a port of my Binary Watch Widget to the iPhone, which got approved about a week later and you can download that for free from the App Store. From your iPhone you just go to the App Store and search for Binary Watch.

The Binary Watch was my very first iPhone App and is pretty basic in design and functionality but it does as its title implies, it displays the current time in binary format. I wrote a tutorial here a few months ago on how to read a Binary Watch as well.

Given the basic design and lack of functionality of the Binary Watch iPhone App, I was inspired to develop a more robust Binary Watch App and so A Geek Clock was born. A Geek Clock displays binary time in a beautiful array of brightly colored LED’s taking up most of the iPhones screen real estate. A Geek Clock also has a few settings to choose from to allow for a more customized experience. For instance, you can select a color for the LED lights and you can also choose between a 12 and 24 hour time format.

A Geek Clock also allows you to enable or disable a learning mode feature which basically displays the current time on the screen and describes what the LED’s represent in a 10 base counting system. You also have the option to override the iPhones Auto Lock feature so that you can keep the clock on at all times.

You can check out more information and some screen shots of A Geek Clock on my new website Empoc Media. If you haven’t read about my new company yet, you can read about it in this blog post My New Company.

Also, for anyone willing to write a fair and honest review of A Geek Clock on the App Store, I will give a promotional code to, to download A Geek Clock for free, otherwise its $ .99 and I’m only charging so that I can further my development and come up with better applications that everyone will enjoy.

Just to keep all the readers informed, I thought I’d share with you that I’ve now started a software development company. The companies name is Empoc Media and will be primarily used to develop applications for Apple devices such as the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch, the upcoming iPad, Mac OS X, etc…

When I started developing applications and scripts, I would normally just post them on my blog here.  Lately, I’ve been moving more and more towards application development and I don’t want this blog to turn into a site to download apps, and therefore I decided to start a completely separate company that will be responsible for hosting applications.

The applications that are currently listed on the blog will remain on the blog, primarily because there are so many back links from numerous websites and it just wouldn’t be good practice to pull all the apps from the blog and let the back links go down the path towards a black hole. Instead, for each application that is listed on my blog, when the application is updated, I will have a link to the updated application from the original applications blog listing to the location of where the updated application is hosted.

One more thing I’d like to share. What I’m about to say was not an easy decision to make but was one that needed to be made. All of the applications I have developed to date have been available as freeware but because of the amount of effort and time that goes into each application and the limited amount of time that is available to me, I will have to charge for any new releases of current software as well as new applications that are developed, however, I will not be charging some ridiculous price of $39.95. Instead my applications will be priced within the $4.99 – $14.99 price range.

If you’d like to take some time and check out Empoc Media, here is a link that will get you there http://empoc.com

Well, I’m at it again, after developing the ISOx360 and Wii Tools, I thought about what else might be a useful tool for all of the fellow Mac OS X users out there. One thing that came to mind was that most of the HD content that can be found on the internet is usually in MKV format.

I wont cover the MKV format in-depth, just know that it is a container and not a codec, similar to how an AVI can be encoded as a divx or an xvid, an MKV file can use many different codecs. Most commonly MKV files contain the H.264 / X.264 codec for Video and the DTS / AC3 codec for audio.

The other thing you need to know about MKV files and HD content is that a typical 720P MKV file using an H.264 codec has a max bit-rate of about 9000, currently the AppleTV can only support 720P content with a Video bit-rate of up to 5000. If this limitation didn’t exist we could easily transcode the file to an MP4 / M4V container, but because of the Video limitation, we need to re-encode the file at a lower bit-rate. Don’t worry about quality, I haven’t seen any noticeable decrease in quality when re-encoding.

So, enough with the tech talk, you’re probably wondering, the title of the post is Convert MKV to MP4 on a Mac, so I’ll get on with it. The application that I’ve developed makes this an easy 1 step process. You load the MKV file, choose a save location for the new MP4 file, pick a few options and click convert. When its done, you can copy the MP4 file to your AppleTV / iTunes and enjoy great quality HD content.

Note: My application will also remove subtitles and convert any DTS audio track to AC3 so that you can keep all the surround sound. The thing is, to enjoy the surround sound, you’ll have to use the optical output on your AppleTV and have a receiver that can correctly decode the audio, along with a nice set of surround sound speakers.

You can download a trial of the application below, it will work exactly 10 times before it is rendered useless at which point you will have to purchase it, but don’t worry I kept the price cheap, only $14.95.

Download :

  Click to Download the MKV2AppleTV Trial (9.4 MiB, 338 hits)

Purchase:
Click to Purchase an MKV2AppleTV License

So, I went to the Apple website to check out new products, and the first thing that caught my attention after the big picture of the new 27″ iMac that is. I clicked on store and noticed something called the Nike+ iPod sensor, being the curious person that I am, I clicked on it just to find out what exactly a Nike + iPod sensor is.

I noticed after clicking on the Nike+ iPod sensor that on the left pane was a link for a Nike + iPod Sport Kit. What followed after the click on the Sport Kit was pure amazement.

It seems that Nike has developed a pair of Sneakers called “Nike+”. These special shoes come equipped with a built in pocket that will house a special sensor that Apple sells. This sensor will track your movement during your workout routine and communicate wirelessly with your iPod Touch, iPod Nano, iPhone, etc…

The information that is tracked is stored on your iPod and when you sync your iPod with your iTunes is uploaded to Nike which will track your workout routine, goals, etc…

According to the description you can share your results with other members and even challenge other members to a virtual race. I don’t know how much Nike charges for the shoes but Apple only charges $29.00 for the kit. I’m thinking about buying this kit to try it out.

Has anyone had the opportunity to try this yet? How well would you rate the product? Does it help keep you in shape?

A few of you might have noticed that the amount of posts have decreased drastically and may have wondered if I left my blog for dead.

Well I thought that I might owe an explanation for my lack of posts. Up until recently I’ve been working from home running my own business which fortunately left a lot of time for blogging. I recently took a position as an IT Manager and it is taking a lot of my personal time.

The job is great, I love it, it truly is rewarding to have a job to go to everyday that you enjoy, it doesn’t feel like work. Starting now I will try to have at least 3 to 4 new posts per week. I will also do my best in keeping up with responding to comments. If you leave a comment in the form of a question please be patient for an answer, I will try to get to it as quickly as I can.

Aside from all that, life is great, couldn’t be better, I hope that everyone has had safe and wonderful holiday’s and has had a great start in the new year.

Google just announced that they have released a beta version of Google Chrome for download for Mac OS X. Along with the announcement they have listed some fun facts:

• 73,804 lines of Mac-specific code written
• 29 developer builds
• 1,177 Mac-specific bugs fixed
• 12 external committers and bug editors to the Google Chrome for Mac code base, 48 external code contributors
• 64 Mac Minis doing continuous builds and tests
• 8,760 cups of soft drinks and coffee consumed
• 4,380 frosted mini-wheats eaten

From the sound of it, it appears that a lot of time and effort has been put into Google Chrome for Mac since its Alpha release about 6 months ago. I haven’t downloaded the beta release to test it yet, so I’ll leave that up to you guys. If anyone has had a chance to test Chrome yet please post your comments.

You can download the new beta release here http://www.google.com/chrome

… Wireless is faster than Wired, or at least this guy thinks so.