Best Courses for Unity’s User Artist Certification

Did you know the average salary of a game artist is $69,369 per year in the USA – but can reach six figures depending on your position and skill level?

The game industry is currently booming, projected to reach $372.00bn by 2023 and grow to $545.98 bn by 2028. For those interested in game art, now is a fantastic time to break into the industry with jobs galore available. However, even with a portfolio, game art is a super competitive field without some extra edge to bring you above the competition.

This is why having Unity’s User Artist Certification can give you a boost. It proves your skills, and proves your knowledge of the game engine itself (both highly valued skills for jobs). That said, how can you prepare for the exam?

In this article, we’re going to explore some fantastic courses (like Zenva’s certification pathways) available to help you master the art of game art and learn Unity – even if you have zero experience with the engine.

Let’s get started!

What is the Unity User Artist Certification?

Unity’s User Artist Certification showcases your core Unity skills to help you achieve a professional role as a Unity 2D and 3D artist. It will demonstrate that you can manage aspects of art assets, scene design, and use complex tools in Unity to make character creations.

To be eligible for this exam, you’ll need at least 150 hours of Unity experience and some basic knowledge of character creation, lighting, materials, and cameras. You’ll also need to undertake two to three semesters of Unity classwork or independent study and have a portfolio containing a range of completed Unity projects before applying.

Many holders of the Unity User Artist Certification will go on to become junior developers, junior artists, lighting and technical artists, content designers, or quality assurance testers.

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The Benefits of Unity’s User Artist Certification

Unity is the most popular game engine to date, powering half of all games worldwide. Making games using Unity will improve your chances of starting a game artist career.

Unity’s User Artist Certification is designed to showcase the professional knowledge of aspiring game artists to help them stand out against their competitors. Here are the benefits of receiving Unity’s User Artist Certification.

Boost your career chances

Having a Unity Certification will allow you to stand out in an incredibly competitive industry against hundreds of other applicants. It’s a rare credential in the game artistry industry and is used as proof that an individual has the skills needed to start a professional career. Alongside this, a Unity Certification proves dedication to being a game artist since it costs significant money and time to finish the exam.

Many Unity-based jobs list certification as a requirement, putting you in a great position to start your career in the gaming industry.

Improve your talents as an artist

You’ll need plenty of experience using Unity and C# to create game art before taking the Unity User Artist Certification, allowing you to improve your talents as a game artist. By spending at least 150 hours using Unity to create complicated characters and worlds, you’ll be more than ready to enter a professional career.

Showcase your technical skills

To obtain the Unity User Artist Certification, you need to have strong technical skills for games, apps, models, and simulations. You’ll be able to showcase your technical skills and proficiency in using Unity, one of the most popular game development programs.

What courses are best to prepare for Unity’s User Artist Certification?

To take Unity’s User Artist Certification, you need foundational knowledge of using Unity and C# for the purposes of game design. It is essential to study game artistry before applying to take the exam. Luckily, there are many online courses designed to help you improve your skills as a game designer so that you can take the Unity User Artist Certification.

Here are the best online courses you can take to prepare for Unity’s User Artist Certification.

Best Courses for Unity's User Artist Certification

Unity Game Development Mini-Degree

Passing the artist certification is as much about knowing Unity as it is about art. Zenva’s Unity Game Development Mini-Degree is a comprehensive curriculum designed around teaching you Unity from the ground up. You’ll work on everything from the foundations of Unity to building real-world projects that are perfectly suitable for bulking up any portfolio you might want to create.

Along the way, you’ll learn a ton of aspects relevant to the User Artist Certification – such as how the cameras work, how audio assets work, and even how to manage animations for your game projects (whether 2D or 3D).

Plus, all of Zenva’s courses offer tons of extra material to help with your learning process. This includes downloadable project files and text-based summaries so you can learn in whatever way suits you best!

With the Unity Game Development Mini-Degree, you’ll learn the following topics:

  • C# coding basics
  • UI systems
  • Audio effects
  • Cinematic cutscenes
  • Special effects
  • Procedural terrain
  • Animation

Skill level: Beginner. You don’t need prior experience in Unity or C#.

Duration: 36h 23m

How to access: Access the curriculum here.

Best Courses for Unity's User Artist Certification

Intro to Game Development with Unity

If you want to start off a bit smaller with your Unity journey, Intro to Game Development with Unity by Zenva is the perfect starter.

This short course is focused specifically on people who have never used Unity in their life. As such, rather than throwing to you the deep end of the pool, it takes a light, hand-holding approach. You’ll discover how to set up Unity, what windows in the engine mean, how to work in 3D space with objects, and more. Of course, you’ll also discover some fundamentals around C# as well – so when you’re ready to start building games, you’ll have the key skills you’ll need.

By the end, the course will also get you building your first interactive project!

If you’re unsure, Zenva does offer a free sample of this course via Unity 101 – Game Development Foundations.

As part of this course, you’ll cover key topics, including:

  • Installing and setting up Unity projects
  • manipulating object size, position, and rotation
  • How to change aesthetics with materials
  • Coding variables and operators with C#
  • Using various skills to create interactive games
  • Building and deploying your games

Skill level: Beginner. No prior knowledge is needed.

Duration: 2h 7m

How to access: Access the course here.

Unity Pixel Art Game Tutorial – Complete Starting Setup

2D games are still thriving, so learning how those sorts of assets work in Unity is a good skill to have as well – especially for certification.

Through Unity Pixel Art Game Tutorial – Complete Starting Setup by Restful Coder, you’ll explore how to take 2D pixel art assets and bring them into Unity for game projects. This includes how to paint tilemaps in the engine, how to import your assets properly, and even some idiosyncrasies when it comes to setting up cameras and collisions.  You’ll also learn a bit about the different ways in which creating pixel art levels through parts works.

You’ll cover key topics, including:

  • Unity overview
  • Player character and sprite
  • Player movement
  • Tilemaps and background
  • Obstacles and collisions
  • Prevent character spinning
  • Add a camera (Cinemachine) and follow player
  • Make the camera pixel perfect
  • Confine the camera to the background
  • Fix background collision bug
  • Tweak camera settings

Skill level: Novice. Some basic knowledge of Unity and C# is needed.

Duration: 51m

How to access: Access the course here.

Screenshot of action RPG made with Unity

Unity Associate Game Developer Certification Pathway

While a bit counter-intuitive, training yourself for the Associate-level exams – which are one level higher than the user exams – is an excellent way to prep for the User-level exams. This being the case, let’s take a look at Zenva’s Unity Associate Game Developer Certification Pathway.

In this comprehensive curriculum, you’ll focus on game development as a whole, covering everything from Unity Services to project-building – and all the way to game design. Importantly for the User Artist Certification, though, the curriculum also covers a ton about art and audio assets as they relate to Unity. This includes how to manage them in the engine, whether we’re speaking of 3D models or your characters or working with elements for your user interface.

What’s particularly great about this curriculum, besides it being project-based so you can work on your portfolio, is that it comes with a practice exam. This way, you can see how much Unity you actually know, and tailor your study sessions to help cover your weaknesses.

You’ll cover vital topics such as:

  • The game development process
  • How to work with audio and audio effects
  • Adding and managing in-game art assets
  • Overall game industry functionality
  • Working with Unity Services
  • Utilizing Unity systems (physics, lighting, etc.)

Skill level: Beginner. You don’t need prior experience in Unity or C#.

Duration: 13h 34m

How to access: Access the curriculum here.

Best Courses for Unity's User Artist Certification

Create your First 3D Game in Unity

One of the best ways to learn to work with game assets is to just build a game. Of course, you don’t want to start off too complicated, which is why Zenva’s Create Your First 3D Game in Unity is a great course.

Focusing specifically on 3D games, you’ll master a variety of platformer mechanics including how to work with character controllers, set up “enemies”, create coin collectibles, add UI systems, and more. Each element has its own asset requirements, of course, so you’ll learn a lot about how to manipulate art aesthetics using the tools Unity offers. Plus, by the end of the course, you’ll have a nifty entry for your portfolio and good skills to begin expanding into other relevant areas (such as lighting).

With this course, you’ll learn how to:

  • Create player and enemy objects
  • Construct a level with 3D models
  • Script the camera to follow the player
  • Set up the game-winning conditions
  • Add collectible coins
  • Build UI elements and menus

Skill level: Novice. You’ll need minimal knowledge of Unity and C#.

Duration: 2h 16m

How to access: Access the course here.

How to Make a Game – Unity Beginner Tutorial

In How to Make a Game – Unity Beginner Tutorial by Jason Weimann, viewers are taught the entire process of building a physics-based game using Unity. As mentioned many times before this is key to learning Unity in general, as it forces you to work with game assets in various ways.

What makes this course stand out is the fact it begins with a focus specifically on bringing and preparing your assets to actually be used in your game. So right up front, you know you’re learning about this aspect and how the basics work!

You’ll cover the following key topics:

  • Sprites
  • Importing Art
  • Animation
  • Background art
  • Physics
  • Coding
  • Dragging
  • Launching
  • Obstacles
  • Indicator
  • Camera Controller
  • Enemy
  • Particles
  • Prefabs
  • Levels

Skill level: Beginner. No prior knowledge is needed.

Duration: 3h 4m

How to access: Access the course here.

Best Courses for Unity's User Artist Certification

Create your First 2D Game in Unity

The Create Your First 2D Game in Unity course by Zenva is similar to another entry on this list. Rather than 3D assets, however, this one focuses on 2D.

Throughout the course, you’ll work through building a 2D platformer featuring collectibles, enemies, character movement, UI systems, and more. You’ll even learn how you can manage your levels so you can easily make a multiple-level game.

Along the way, of course, you’ll master a ton of tips and tricks specifically for working with basic 2D assets, which come with their own sets of rules in comparison. Nevertheless, these are essential for preparing for certification, since these differences will be important professionally as well.

This course will teach you key coding techniques, including:

  • Implementing player and enemy objects
  • Scripting platformer-style movements
  • Building levels with 2D tiles
  • Setting up collectibles and scoring
  • Controlling gameplay flow with goals
  • Creating UIs for scores and menus

Skill level: Intermediate. Some basic knowledge of Unity and C# is required.

Duration: 1h 55m

How to access: Access the course here.

How to do Character Customization!

If you’re interested in something a little more advanced at this point, look no further than How to do Character Customization! by Code Monkey! This free course shows you how to build the ever-popular feature of allowing users to have a custom character for their gameplay experience.

As you can imagine, this will cover a lot about how assets are managed, changed, and rendered – all core skills you’re going to want to master in your practice to pass the User Artist Certification!

Key topics:

  • Character Customization Unity Tutorial
  • Sponsor
  • 4 Methods to do Character Customization
  • Characters with 3 different setups
  • Change Material, Texture
  • Change Mesh, Avatar, Keep Animations
  • Add parts with SkinnedMeshRenderer
  • Issues with SkinnedMeshRenderer
  • Character Customization Unity Tutorial

Skill level: Novice. Some basic knowledge of Unity and C# is required.

Duration: 17m

How to access: Access the course here.

Unity User Artist Certification Wrap Up

This brings us to the end of our list of best courses for the User Artist Certification. We’ve covered a lot of ground here, and we just know these skills will open up new doors for you professionally and personally.

But… we’ve only been able to scratch the surface. There are thousands of courses out there, and what’s “best” may mean something different for you than it does for us. So, don’t be afraid to explore more Unity courses through platforms like Zenva – the more you learn, the better positioned you’ll be to pass the exam!

We wish you all the best of luck with the exam, and we hope we’ve made prepping for it just a little bit easier!

Did you come across any errors in this tutorial? Please let us know by completing this form and we’ll look into it!

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