Unity 4 Details

So much for "the best animation system in the world" as stated in the video... AngryAnt, you've been at the Paris AI Dev Conference (as I have; we had VIP dinner). What I've seen so far from Mecanim is still some levels away from what we have seen @ the Crytek Animation System presentation...

So... to pick up the problem that occured with 3.x releases: Hold it back until it does what it actually claims... being the best animation system...

 

Agree with everything you said. I'd also like to point out that indie developers and hobbyists for the most part can and should use the free version of Unity and only buy pro when it's critical to the progression of their product. I know that I'm currently working very hard on a project for the Asset Store to allow it to work in the free version when doing so is vastly more complicated that making it work in Pro. My point being that the free version still contains what's you needed to build most games and there are tons of great extensions that support it too.

 

The new GUI system wasn`t far away neither for 3.0. And for 3.5. Now it isn`t far away for 4.0, but again it doesn`t make it. How "Not" far away either will it be for 4.5? Or 5? Or 6?

I´m a bit biased here. As a developer i know how time consuming it can be to develop something. Especially the "easy" bits always turns out to be much more complicated as initially thought. As a user though i rely at the promise that the new GUI system will be in 3.5, because it hasn`t made it into 3.0. Form my angle of view it would be wise to wait with 4.0 until the for 3.5 promised GUI system is ready to ship. Broken promises means to loose faith in a product ...

Linux has a market of below 1% at the desktop (mostly as the second operating system and by a virtualization software), non commercial in most cases, because the open source folks are used and forced to use open source software instead of commercial software. Here is nothing to earn really. I wonder how such a small market could become a most requested feature? It was just a small minority that cried very loud.

On the other hand, it`s of course nice to have. And who knows, maybe this step helps Linux to jump above the 1% hurdle again

 

@geppetto, MattCarr:
Hah! Nice

 

So basically, if you bought 3.5 at the promise of a new GUI system, you have been scammed.

 

He's referring to the Unity Feedback where Linux support is by far the most voted on feature.

Linux support can be really beneficial. For example check out how Linux sales have gone for the Humble Bundles. To even be a part of typical Humble Bundles you need Linux support which is reason enough for many PC developers.

 

linux support is just unneeded even if alot here say it is .
you will see when time goes , no one with a real game going to think : i cant release my game without linux platform because my huge audince are there .

its a waste of unity dev team time.

 

Heh, well done.

 

You'd be surprised how much you miss by watching a video vs. actually working with a tool. Sounds like you need to re-watch the recordings of Cryteks talk. What I was impressed with was their production pipeline - not their tech.

 

As previously mentioned, I would like to see where that promise is in print. But I would definitely re-iterate what users have mentioned here: Hope for awesome stuff, but buy what is on the tin.

 

I actually think Linux support is great. The market might only be 1%, sure, but it's 1% that almost nobody else ever targets.

Plus, as the notes said, look at the Linux figures for things like the Humble Indie Bundle. They represent proportion of sales that's degrees of magnitude larger than the 1% would suggest. Why? I don't know, but probably because there are next to 0 games out there for them to buy otherwise.

And for an indie, that's awesome. It's a small market, but a low exposure one. And if you can find success there, you can leverage that to get exposure in other markets where it's far harder to come by.

 

And this thread does not exactly have 950k participants either. Which loud minority should we follow?

No. Wrong. The correct answer is neither. While we're obviously listening to what the community has to say, in the end we make product decisions based on:

A) What makes sense.
B) What is awesome.
C) Wait, did I mention awesome things?

 

Indeed. I also think that Linux is more a waste of time for the unity devs, and will not pay back. It`s a very small target platform. It`s not done with writing an exporter only. Unity for Linux needs to be maintained too. And with a Unity Linux editor the trouble surely doesn`t become smaller, heh. There is Ubuntu, Debian, Suse, Redhat ... . You have Unity desktop, Gnome, XFCE, KDE, LXDE ... . Linux is made of tons of derivates, which are not really compatible. And i can see lots of lots of trouble ahead.

That`s what i have meant with a minority cried very loud

The whole feedback system is a joke. I have no vote left. Since two years i cannot give any feedback.

EDIT: cross posting.

I have no doubt that you guys have your reasons. I just don`t share it when it comes to Linux. I hope you proof me wrong

 

Or do the exact opposite and talk MORE with your audience.

Not only are we [as a community] the ones using it, we are often the people who are capable of DOING IT.

We stopped wasting time on one of our projects because we got advanced word that the GUI system was going to be delayed... I have a feeling many of those who are upset didn't have that luxury.

 

If I had been working at Unity, I would certainly have suggested a different upgrade policy - especially in a period of world economic crisis, when so many people prefer to spend less money at a time.

Here's how I see it : the upgrades should be way more configurable, with many options that you would buy one per one in the Asset Store directly. Since this store already exists, why not boost it a bit and use it for Unity upgrades also - like Apple did with the Lion upgrade ?

Concrete example : although it looks really powerful and extremely cool to use, not everybody needs the new character animation system right now for his/her current projects. Same thing for Linux deployment, etc. I for one would like to be able to activate such options when I really need them and buy them in the Asset Store, as simple as that : this would be like downloading the OSX Lion Server extension on the MAS, which I did recently because I needed it for a new project.

IMHO, being forced to buy a surprisingly expensive upgrade for Pro with new features they won't necessarily use and that doesn't include in its first release some other long-awaited features like the new GUI (and what about the buggy MonoDevelop for Mac, btw ?) just to get a relatively small voucher isn't a good enough encouragement to upgrade.

 

$5Mn dollars [aka nothing - compare it to the billions of dollars Steam/iOS generates] and of that maybe 10% was linux?

It's nice to have, but that's not an addressable market.

 

1.With Dx11 do we get all the frazzle dazzle IE tessellation etc?
2.When will the $200 discount end?
3.How do i get this voucher?
4.How do i remove money from my disk drive?

A) What makes sense. == giving me it for free;
B) What is awesome. == lions, tigers and bears;
C) Wait, did I mention awesome things? == You are sending a free predator X with every copy?;

 

Well, maybe the problem is wrong expression but not expectations.

 

There's a Feedback system?

 

But that doesn`t make sense. You will surely not remove a vote from a suggestion that you have made by yourself. And what when i have more than 10 suggestions? And i am a lazy guy too. I don`t want to hunt through my old votings just to spend a hour to decide at which suggestions i should remove my points. I have no doubt that i am not the only one who has left the voting system alone because of this. Your current system doesn`t represent the masses, but the ones that haven`t given up at the voting system.

It would make sense when you would have one vote per feature request. And unlimited numbers to start a suggestion. Then you would really have a feedback from the masses. But even here just a feedback from the masses that voted.

I can of course see where this limits came from. You want to avoid that a user simply votes for every suggestion. But i think you have cut yourself by the current voting system. sorry

That for the masses, hehe. Yes, there is

http://feedback.unity3d.com/forums/15792-unity

 

Already done multiple projects that have reached and exceeded that level of success this year.

Next.

 

Will Unity be getting an input manager overhaul any time in the near future? The fact that I have to either write my own or buy a third party addon just so I can have users remap their keys is more than a little ridiculous.

 

True. Which is why I'm *still* holding of purchasing. Money is in the bank, I just need the features.

Only reason I'd want that to go is if the subscriptions matched or bettered it

 

What platform? On PC/Mac control remapping is built right in.

 

Upgrading Mono(improving performance) does not make sense "A) What makes sense."? I mean, its a major release and the 2.6 problems will still be there?! For me, mono should be a priority.

 

Not sure if people have ask this, What happen to scaleform?

 

So i guess a updated Gui doesn't make sense and is not awesome... GUI is the one thing that exist in most games. Unity will not be a AAA engine until the updated GUI is in place

 

We're aware of the limitations of the input manager and want to improve it. It is not happening for 4.0 though.

 

Nothing. They wanted to fill this gap with the upcoming GUI system - which doesn`t really come up, unfortunately

 

Realistically, the guy(s) that worked on the Linux build option for Unity 4 were not going to be working on GUI. What then should they have worked on instead? The other areas people are complaining about are most liekly being worked on by different people. So why then should people be anything but happy that they now can theoretically hit a button and reach another market? Especially one that has become a popular target amongst indie development in recent times.

I for one am very thankful for that magic button.

 

And for others it is other features. That we are not doing it for 4.0 does not mean we're not doing it in 4.x.

 

The Scaleform plugin is still available. You should contact them for details.

 

Who said that you need to work for free?
Personally I think Unity is a valuable product with a reasonable price tag. And my concerns where not aimed to the people that actually develop and manage Unity (Unity Ninja). It was about the investors and their influence.
Yeah maybe I'm just a conspiracy theorist

 

GUI makes a lot of sense and is very awesome indeed, but as mentioned many times over in this thread:

* We've gone through a bunch of iterations on the system. That takes time.
* We've had some unfortunate project management setbacks.
* We are not going to ship it before it is good and ready.

 

While we obviously work with our investors, they do not own the majority of the company. We make our own decisions.

 

http://gameware.autodesk.com/scaleform/usage/integration/unity There was never, ever a suggestion that it was going to be something done by UT. This idea floating around that it was came, I guess, from wishful thinking/trolling/or something.

It's completely closed to scripting though.

As for Linux, there are sound reasons for it which have already been discussed to death. I don't think going over that whole thing yet again is useful--if you're going to willfully ignore them, there's not much else that can be said. Personally I find it much more interesting than Flash publishing, plus it's not yet another license cost.

--Eric

 

This isn't historically correct with unity. They haven't gone back and fixed things in 2.6 have they? (mobile is now bugged thanks to apple changes) and nothing on asset store generally works on 2.x either. The only way to remain properly competitive with new devices coming out all the time (esp droid) is to remain current with unity.

You're living as a hobbyist or living a pipe dream if you don't upgrade. This isn't an attack on Tharsman but more of an observation springing out of his comment.

Likewise this is not an attack on unity. It's not like microsoft support windows 98 any more is it? There comes a time when support stops, or trickles off, and this is generally with the release of a new product.

So everyone thinking they can stick with 3.5 can only do so for 6 months tops before 4.x is stable enough and 3.5 is lagging behind enough in support - not features - for people to be forced to switch if they are in the business of selling.

If you're in the business of selling you can probably afford it. If not, then I highly suggest anyone concerned get their asses in gear and sell stuff.

 

Since you bring it up... why not?

Obviously the group that was doing GUI stuffed it up - if unity had told the Linux team to build a parallel but completely separate implementation there's a chance it'd be released 6 months ago

I'm not against linux, but the suggestion that humble bundle is anything but evidence against such a platform is laughable IMO.

 

So how do i get the discount?

 

It took me hours to go trough all these pages. All i can say is that i feel sorry for the forum moderators. There are some really aggressive people here who only see things in black and white.

I upgraded to iOS pro 5 weeks ago. Do i feel ripped off? Definitely not.

Anyway keep up the good job

 

Ah... don't be so sure Wifes are real rounding machines

 

Eh? I haven't seen anything that needed moderating, and in 650(!) messages nobody hit the "report post" button.

--Eric

 

Sorry.

I meant angryAnt and AntennaTree. I guess they are not moderators

 

Merely concerned citizens of Unity Technologies. And avid forum-goers of-course.

 

Yeah, there's nothing to moderate here, just a lot to read ;-)

 

Sounds very nice . This will give me the mental boost I need for my game, since I was actually a bit frustrated with Unity 3.5, and what it doesn't have. Especially the animation system, DirectX 11 support and stuff really kicks ass. Linuy support is also great since especially Indie developers can profit from deploying to this platform.

About the price:

Please stop whining! If you can't afford the 100$ per seat per month for your primary tool as a developer, your business is screwed anyway. (This price comes by looking at the release cycle and also include other platforms already. If you only need PC you will get off even cheaper!)

 

Point to you on that The background tech was quite basic (I most strongly remember the diamond shaped blending setup), but the results were quite impressive. I've been working on the charisma animation system (used in Incubation (character animation and first available 3D video player) and "Game, Net Match"), so I know what amount of work actually lies behind a good animation system.

 

4.0 sounds pretty compelling. I get why nobody likes the increase in update costs, but look on the flip side, Unity's running costs are going up too... you can't help but notice they've been farming lots of talent this past year. Anyone here want to argue that talent's not worth paying for? Didn't think so...

As for the GUI, I'm disappointed too but hey, better to have it good than have it rushed.