Industry veterans Rick Davidson & Tim Ruswick* are joined by Taryn McMillan as they talk about the benefits of Visual Scripting, why you want to learn it even if you already know C# and how Taryn’s new Unity Visual Scripting course can help!

Taryn started learning game development with GameDev.tv in 2020 and she hasn’t looked back!

Before learning Unity and C#, she studied Early Modern History as a doctoral student and was a freelance writer. She’d always dreamed of learning how to code, but never thought it was on the cards since she didn’t have a formal background in STEM.

She occasionally dabbled in HTML and CSS but never pursued coding seriously until she happened to stumble upon the Complete Unity 2D Developer course from GameDev.tv in 2020.

That course was Taryn’s first introduction to Unity and it started her on a whole new career path as a developer.

Now she's here with the GameDev.tv team making courses, and sharing her passion with the community.

(*Rick has more than 14 years experience in the game dev industry, working on IP's that include Mario, Transformers, Captain America and Mortal Kombat. He's done it all, from Game Designer, Producer, Creative Director and Executive Producer to GameDev.tv's very own Instructor extraordinaire. Tim Ruswick is a successful YouTuber and indie dev, who's created more than 30 games in the last 5 years (wow!), and joined GameDev.tv as our marketing monster).

Listen to the whole chat here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w4x3k1qMT4

Our 'AHA' moments

  • Taryn is our first female instructor!
  • Unity Visual Scripting used to be known as Bolt
  • There is no coding at all in our Unity Visual Scripting course
Image from Steam

Benefits Of Learning Visual Script (18:21 - 19:18)

You may be sitting there thinking I already know C# and I’m comfortable with it, why should I learn Unity Visual Scripting? Learning Unity Visual Scripting is an excellent way to cement the foundations of programming into your mind, and your understanding of Unity will become much stronger.

The more new ways you can practise an engine or programming language, the more likely you will retain the information,. Despite one being a programming language and the other being visual, they do share a lot of conceptual similarities.

What Is The Difference Between Bolt and Visual Scripting? (41:20 - 42:35)

Bolt used to be a separate package that you had to download and install. Unity acquired Bolt in May 2020 and since Unity 2021 there’s no need to download Bolt and mess around with the package manager. It’s built into the software and ready to go.

You can still download Bolt but it will be outdated. Just open Unity 2021 onwards and open a blank project and start building graphs right away!

Can You Mix Coding With Visual Scripting In The Project? (43:06 - 44:26)

Yes, you can. You can trigger different graphs and start working from the scripts. It’s not something we tackle during our Unity Visual Scripting course but it’s possible. Taryn prefers to stick with one or the other during a project to save any confusion. However, if working in a large team there may be circumstances where you will need to combine and manage them both.

We hope this Devology Livecast helps you understand how Unity Visual Scripting works and that our course helps you grow your skills.

Follow Taryn on social media

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TarynWritesCode
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tarynwritescode/

Check us out on social media

https://www.facebook.com/GameDevTV
https://twitter.com/GameDevTV
https://www.instagram.com/gamedev.tv/

Remember, we host live develogy livecasts every Tuesday at 10pm BST on our YouTube channel. You can catch all the recordings, including this episode, in the Devology Livecast course - it's free to join, and also on our YouTube Channel.

Until next time, happy dev'ing!