Scene Setup

To create a new scene, go to File->New Scene. By default Unity will start you in a new scene when you create a project.

Save the scene with a name like Main to your Scenes folder.

What other scenes will I want?

You'll definitely want another scene for your custom level. You may also want some additional scenes to test various enemies and features as well instead of spending up to 5 minutes playing to get to them.

Camera Configuration

The first thing we’ll want to do is setup the camera, Main Camera, that was included when we made the scene.

Set the Clear Flags to Solid Color

What are clear flags?

In the rendering process, elements are drawn on top of each other each frame. The clear flags determine the first layer that will be drawn, in other words it's the canvas that everything else is painted on top of.

In Metroid the background is a solid black, but in a 3D game you may want a skybox instead.

Set the Background to Black

Ensure the Projection is Orthographic

What is Projection?

Projection determines how the camera interperts objects in space.

For perspective, the camera trys to bend shapes with a Field of View and give an element of depth to the scene. This is most useful in 3D games

For orthographic, elements are rendered as is regardless of their depth. This is most useful in 2D games like Metroid.

Set the Size to 7.5

Why this size?

The size corresponds to half the vertical view. Since Metroid shows 15 tiles vertically, we want 15/2=7.5 as our size.

Set the Position to (39.5, 22, -10)

Why this position?

It's going to be where our player starts. It just helps to set it now.

Camera

Aspect Ratio Configuration

Our view isn’t quite ready yet. Right now our game is defaulting to a Free Aspect ratio, but we want it to display at the NES’s 256:240 Aspect Ratio.

Open your Game Tab. Click where it says Free Aspect and then click the plus near the bottom of the window that popped up.

Set the Label as NES.

Set the type as Aspect Ratio

And set the Width & Height to 16 & 15

NES

Conclusion

And that’s it for setting up our scene! Now we can finally get to adding content to the scene. When you’re ready, commit your changes and then head over to 03-Placing Tiles.