This post covers the first steps of creating my game in unity, namely setting up the unity project and creating the scene and background for the game. This follows on from part 1, where I set out the goals for the project.
To create the space background I made 3 large transparent images with white dots of different sizes for the stars. This gave me enough to layer them over a large area without obvious repetition of patterns.
To give the background a bit more character I downloaded some images from the Hubble site. Their copyright notice seems to allow usage of their images but I will confirm this before the game is actually released. The images I used are linked below.
http://hubblesite.org/image/3535/gallery
http://hubblesite.org/image/3435/gallery
http://hubblesite.org/image/1494/news_release/2004-10
http://hubblesite.org/image/3295/gallery
With some help from a designer friend I made some minor colour corrections to the images in order for them to blend well with the black background. Below is an image of the result.
Using a few permutations of these elements the background can be expanded indefinitely, catering for whatever size of game space I end up needing.
The next post will cover the setup of the player object and basic player controls.