Unity 2.6 is out (and free!)

[David Helgason]

[xandeck]

[zumwalt]

[trthing]

[GI_JOEJK]

I for one am very happy for what unity has offered with the "free" indie version. I am currently teaching a Unity college class (I am also the academic director of the Game Art program) and am now encouraging all of my students to download the free version for use on their own computers.

Coincidentally we have licensed a full lab of the Pro (education) version of Unity.

Exciting times....

[Robz]

[langju]

We are 2 developpers a little disappointed because we bought in June 2009 :

2 Unity Indie version Licenses.
1 Unity iPhone Basic Licence.

Today, we learn that unity Indie 2.6 is now Free. This is something really interesting for new Unity Developpers but for the one who paid to get licenced this is quite unfair.

Is there something that can be done to don't think having been ripped off. (you can email me or PM me) ?

Thanks a lot for the time you'll accord to read my email and to contact us through private messages...

[OXYGEN]

In my view and as Higgy posted the whole launch was a bit of a mess and I personally believe it was wrapped up slightly in marketing Bullshit...however in saying that I really respect the fact that David took time out from counting the money he has got stashed under his mattress and tried to Explain the situation ..how Many Managing Directors do that...so Kudos to you David! and Higgy we love you man!

[Booger]

Thank you for free Unity Indie 2.6.0

I've been looking for a good 3D engine for a while and am not content with moddable FPS engines. I really want to make a 3rd person platform adventure. I'm still a total newbie though.

I understand the complaints of my countrymen since the several hundred dollars, the original price of the indie license, was still one-half of an average professional's monthly salary.

Anyways, you win some, you lose some. I got my Playstation 3 one week before the Slim came out.

Anyways, I don't have a portfolio yet, but I'll keep lurking and learning on these forums, and hope to surprise people after a couple of months with the tool.

[wadoman]

I honestly don't understand everyone getting upset about it going free. Sure it's a bummer you couldn't foresee into the future to know what would happen to save some money. It is the way things go. Things get cheaper or prices go up. If you buy something from a store and 3 months later its on sale do you go to the store and demand a refund of the discount?

I bet if instead of going free it went up $200 no one who paid for it would complain and with that would it be ok for UT to be upset and want you to pay the extra $200 that it went up?

Don't get me wrong I feel for everyone cause I'm one of those that paid for it as well, but oh well that's the way life goes.

[HiggyB]

[HiggyB]

[yellowlabrador]

[Jestertales]

[Denis Hart]

Just finished reading all 28 pages of this thread, in case someone else already asked this, but no.

I tried the demo version about a year ago, was impressed with the software and documentation, but one major problem it had made it a no-go for me (so I've been looking in the open-source direction so far). It came bundled with Pace copy protection (of which no mention was made on the download page, or anywhere else on your site). Anyway, Pace interfered with my virus scanner. The response I got from customer support was that they were not aware of this issue, and that I should contact Pace for a solution. Well, I downloaded a demo of Unity, not Pace (and never would have). A note to UT management: that's not much better from back in the days when LimeWire came bundled with hidden spyware. I can't remember if the demo came with an uninstaller or not, but there was no way to get all traces of Pace off my computer since it messes with hidden files in the OS, and possibly the file-system itself. I had to reformat my hard-drive, and re-install OS X and all my software to get rid of it completely. About 2 days of work, which I did not appreciate at all. So my question is: is the new Unity really free (as in, also free of any type of DRM)? Actually, I would have happily paid $200 for Indie a year ago if it hadn't been crippled by a restrictive activation scheme. That's one of the things I like about Cinema 4D. My work isn't shackled to Maxon's fate or whims. My serial numbers will always work, which is one of the reasons I've bought more than $4000 of software from them so far. The free unlimited edition of Cinema 4D GO (their "Indie" version) that was distributed a few years ago got me hooked too. So making the basic Unity free is a good idea.

On a totally different note, I also have a technical question. I'm working on a game concept based on my computer animated movie project (using Cinema 4D of course ). I want to put cut scene videos between level changes (while the level is loading, à la "Knights of the Old Republic"). Obviously this can be done with the Pro version using a video render to texture, but I don't need any of the other features of Pro (at least not for version 1.0)… and there's also the whole software activation nightmare (and likely Pace) which I don't want to get into. Can the basic version do this? I don't need videos playing inside the game, only fullscreen between levels. If not, could it be done using AppleScript and QuickTime? I don't mind if I'd have to compile each level as a separate app, as long as they could all reference a master variables file to be able to pass data from one level to the next.

One last thing… There's mention on the comparison page that the basic version has a splash screen and watermarks. I understand the splash screen bit, and don't mind it. But what's this about a watermark? I don't recall the demo watermarking any of the sample projects I compiled.