Unity recently published The complete overview of Unity toolsets and workflows for technical artists, an ebook summarizing many Unity technologies and concepts directly relevant to creating animated videos. (This is not its sole focus, but its a fantastic introductory overview to get into all the concepts and terminology.)
It covers topics such as
- The basics, including prefabs, assets, importing from other tools
- Render pipelines and technical options/decisions you need to choose between (including HDRP, URP, rendering options)
- Shaders which allow all sorts of clever tricks
- Lighting, which is much harder than you might expect to do well
- Worldbuilding (locations, terrain, sky/fog/clouds)
- Animation including animation rigging, cinemachine, timelines, sequences, live capture)
- Visual effects
- Scripting, profiling, debugging
- Special call-outs for digital humans (eyes, hair, skin, clothing)
It is a great introductory ebook – I wish it was around when I started! It helps position all the technologies relative to each other. You still need to dig deeper to learn more, but it helps the reader understand the breadth of what is involved.
Extra Ordinary, the Series 