Build a Living World with Unity AI (Terrain, NavMesh & Zombie Chase)

Overview

Unity’s new AI features can accelerate level prototyping and gameplay iteration, but it’s hard to see what’s truly valuable without building something end-to-end. In this intensive, fully hands-on session, award-winning educator Dr Penny de Byl guides you through a single through-line project: generate a terrain with Perlin noise, paint it with AI-generated layers, scatter trees with slope/altitude rules, bake a NavMesh, then spawn zombies that wander and chase the player.

By the end, you’ll walk away with:

• A playable prototype scene

• A repeatable prompt/workflow for Unity AI Assistant (/run, /code) and Generators

• Clean, commented scripts for terrain generation, tree scattering, NavMesh rebuild, and zombie AI

• A checklist for evaluating when to use AI vs conventional tooling

Who Should Attend

• Beginner & intermediate Unity developers who want practical AI productivity gains

• Game design students & hobbyists aiming to build portfolio-ready prototypes quickly

• Educators & technical artists exploring AI-assisted workflows for teaching or rapid look-dev

• Small teams/indies interested in fast worldbuilding and simple agent behaviors

Included in Your Ticket

• Official Certificate for All Participants from Packt
• Starter Unity project (URP) with folders, stubs, and scene scaffold
• Final scripts: TerrainGenerator, ScatterTrees, RebuildNavMeshOnStart, ZombieAI, ZombieSpawner, SimplePlayerMover
• Copy-paste Assistant and Generators prompt sheet
• Slide mini-deck (setup + workflow diagrams)
• Session recording + resource list
• Post-event Q&A thread on Discord for follow-ups

What You’ll Learn

✅ Using Unity AI Assistant to scaffold scripts and batch-edit scenes with /run and /code

✅ Generating placeholder terrain layers and quick SFX with Unity AI Generators

✅ Implementing procedural terrain (layered Perlin) with tunable parameters

✅ Rule-based tree scattering (height/slope filters) for believable placement.

✅ AI Navigation: baking a NavMesh and rebuilding it after terrain changes.

✅ Building a lightweight zombie AI (wander + chase) with NavMeshAgent

✅ Good practices for versioning, undo safety, and prompt reproducibility

What You’ll Need

Unity 6.2 (URP 3D template) installed

Why Now

Unity’s AI stack (Assistant, Generators, and Navigation tooling) makes it possible to go from empty scene to living prototype in a single sitting. Learning these workflows gives you faster worldbuilding, cleaner scaffolding, and a realistic sense of where AI saves time (and where it doesn’t).

Format

Live Online Workshop — highly interactive, screens-on build-along.

🎟️ Reserve your seat — limited spots for the live build-along. Ship a small world today, extend it into your next portfolio piece tomorrow.