Need a litle help on how unity works

Hello.I am gona start using unity when ver 5 comes out but since i come from unrel engine 3 i wanted to ask about some of the most important rules(call it transition terminology) that the unity engine uses.Im gona post some of the most precise things that i use un unreal and hope that someone explains to me if this thing are the same as for the unity pipeline or not necessary.

unreal
1-when i make a normal map i have to invert the green chanel for the normal map to displayd correctly in unreal
2-triangulating meshes before importing in to the engine
3-for static meshes i have to make a second uv map(in maya) which is used for the light map(skeletal meshes dont need a light map)
4-for static meshes i have to make a collision model and put a exact naming for it in order for the engine to recognize it as collision.Both statick mesh and collision object(which doesnt have uv map)have to be exported as one file.(there is a automatic collision tool in the engine too)
5-i can resize textures in the engine and use other limited properties
6-there are camera actor meshes which i can put in level and than use to trigger views(like classic re evil)
7-when i change something in the script i have to close the engine,recompile,and open it agaign for it to take effect
8-there is a limit to 65000(more ore less) triangles for a skeletal/rigged mesh
9-use fbx for both skeletal and statick mesh import
10-i can trigger scripted events by puting/using brush volumes


So can someone tell me if those rules apply here too?And what other important things i shoud know?
(i will go and see a few tutorials to get me started but for more precis things woud be helpful to know in advance)
Many,many thanks

 

I would suggest to install Unity3D and try it out one by one. Because some of of your questions are already answered when you try it out and look at the import options. From there, post what you can't find =)

 

I'm no expert, but I think I can answer a few:

1 - no, I don't think you have to invert the green channel
2 - nope, quad meshes import fine I think
3 - You can make a 2nd UV set yourself, or on the import options, unity can generate lightmap uvs for you
4 - nope, you can tell unity to generate a collision mesh from your mesh at import, or you can assign any other mesh to a mesh collider
5 - You can specify a maximum used resolution for a texture: eg. you create and import a 4096x4096 texture, but specify to use maximum 2048x2048
6 - Not quite sure what you're asking here: you can have multiple cameras in a scene, and switch between them no problem
7 - Nope! iterating on scripts in unity is really fast (compiles usually in 10s of seconds), and you can even do other stuff whilst it's compiling scripts.
8 - I think there's some kind of limit on triangle/vertex count for all types of meshes in unity. Can't remember what it is though, probably around 65k
9 - yup
10 - you can create trigger volumes using a collider and "OnTriggerEnter" etc. But there are no Bsp brushes in unity, unless you use an extension that adds them. Check the asset store for ProBuilder and the like.

I may be wrong for a few of these, best option is for you to read through the documentation and watch a few of the intro tutorials unity have published. And just give it a try

 

Great info and many thanks for the help.I suspected that some of the questions have been answered but searching one by one is very slow(i did find a few.)I think that unity developers shoud realy make a developers guide for people coming from ue3 and 4 to unity to get them started.(epic do have one in the works i see)but as i see people from unity moving to unreal(probably for the eye candy)i see other people switching from unreal to unity too.Adlest after 4 years i am.Thank to the forum members for the help and i hope that unity makes some offcial documentations for people who are switching and know the theory but are having a litle hard time with the naming.
Well i guess ill get started.Cant waight for that enlighten and was very surprised by marmosets contribution to the comunity

 

If you don't mind me asking, why did you decide to change to Unity?

 

Well i havent still moved but its 92% sure i will.Epic does have a very nice support(not existent for udk now) but in the last month there was a big fight thread where many people+me were trying to find out if we are going to get updates and critical fixes in the engine.After users spammed their support team with mail a representative finaly showed up and said that they are not gona support the engine anymore and invited us warmly to switch to ue4.Obviosly no one liked that because a good number of people have had games stared for ios and needed patches to fix a few critical bugs(like for example the vehicle system crashing the application,dx11 problems and such)in the end for all the years of contribution to the comunity to some of the biggest users receved that in return simply because epic most probably see udk as a chalenger to ue4(which is stupid) and want their users to change there.More ore less the forums of udk are close to dead now...

A great engine that didnt deserve that ending.Still on one thing epic is right.We shoud evolve with better tools and i support that.Everyone knows that in this buisness if you are left behind new tech you are doomed.You have to be prepared to move.But still,that was not the correct way of doing it.

So after seeng ue4 i see that its something you have to learn from skratch and previos skills wont be of help so i decided to see something diffrent.I know a few other people that are doing the same here.

Hope that answers the question and i hope that unity support doesnt drop bombs like that here.

O having the people from marmoset making applications for unity does help my choice.That team does have their own game engine(from which the toolbag viewer has come out as a separate application in the past)and i somehow strongly beleve that they will make great thing here.Unity shoud keep them close and not loose those people.

 

Most engines require you to learn something from scratch. Unreal 4 required learning Blueprint but otherwise most of it was similar enough to UE3 that I didn't have to relearn the entire thing.

Care to provide a link? I can't find where the statement was made.

 

Thanks for the answer O_and_N.

 

Care to provide a link? I can't find where the statement was made.[/QUOTE]


Here you are https://forums.epicgames.com/thread...eal-engine-4-udk-3-suits-all-your-needs/page3

The representative from epic is Chance Ivey in post 5 i think.There were other topics as well but lets call it done.My post was for understanding some things about unity and i dont want to bring external stuff like that here on the forum.

Thanks again for the above help from the users

 

I do want to mention one last thing. One of the main reasons Epic is able to get releases so fast is because they're A) willing to let a previous generation engine die and B) they are willing to drop backwards compatibility.

Unity's tactic is different but as a result they suffer from far slower release cycles.

 

Im really sorry for bumping my thread (but its better than making a new one)Im reading the unity documentation right now and(havent gotten to the end)but i cant get one thing clear.For ios development can i use windows to develop,test and play the game(preferebly with the iphone/pad conected to the pc) and use the mac only for submiting the aplication or do i have to go with a mac all the way thru the development of the ios game?Also does unity have any presets for diffrent devices?

I fell like im in first grade again...
Thanks.

 

Ive been reading threads for this(most of them from 2011)which say that for creating a ios game you need a mac.The threads from 2012-13 say that you can make as a alternative a android or pc game on pc and when finished port the files to mac(change texture compression and stuff)and from then the game can be compiled for ios/mac os.And more recent threads 2013-2014 ive seen that now you can create the ios game on the pc,test it there/deploy or make the final build and when satisfied you just have to lets say use a usb to transfer the final product to a mac in order to be able to submit it to the store.

I supose ive read the "evolution steps"of the engine made during the years.So is everything that im writing correct?

 

I can't believe that no one has answered you yet. Sorry O_and_N but I honestly don't know. I get a notification every time every time someone posts in this thread and both times I wanted to answer you. But I don't own any Apple devices so I'm not sure how they work with Unity.

I hope someone who knows answers you.

 

This really depends more on the source of the normal map. Some programs export normal maps where more green means the normal is facing "more upwards" while others do the opposite. It's been a while, but I vaguely recall UDK expecting inverted input from Unity, but I'm not sure about Unreal 4. Also, programs like ZBrush export maps with the UVs upside-down, so when you flip them, you also sometimes need to account for this by inverting the vertical (green) channel. It's all pretty situational, so the best way to get an answer is to just test it.

Unity will handle this (and if you use DX11, there's an option to keep quads... which I think only works with certain file formats, but I haven't played with that too much).

Unity has a per-file import option for auto-generating secondary lightmap UVs, but you can also keep that turned off and generate your own (sometimes this is preferable, since you'll know where to put the seams).

Unity can be set up to handle this kind of setup (using import post processors), but I prefer to just put custom low-res collision meshes in a separate file like "MyModel_Collision.format". Alternatively, Unity has the option to generate colliders from the actual visual geometry, and you can set the Mesh Collider component to "Convex" mode which will both simplify the geometry, and ensure that it has no "indentations", but I don't think the generated mesh will be instanced (each one becomes a unique mesh, even if they're identical) - could be wrong on that though.

You can resize textures in the import settings, along with a ton of other options. You can also use Photoshop (PSD) files directly with Unity; if you put your image data at full-size into Smart Objects, you can then resize the images in Photoshop to non power-of-two sizes without losing the full-res data if you want to size it back up later.

Unity has some preconfigured camera and character controller setups which cover the general bases, but not as many as I remember being in late UDK builds. However, this is a good thing in my opinion, as it encourages you to either build your controller to fit your custom needs, or to support other Unity developers by purchasing from the Asset Store.

Unity will recompile your code whenever you change it and switch application focus back to Unity, works quite well, but obviously takes longer the more code you have.

Yep - though I believe there are some tools for Unity/Maya that will allow you to directly import larger meshes directly from Maya (instead of the normal fbx-background-conversion Unity uses).

You can just put your Maya/Cinema4D/Etc files directly into the unity project and it will magically convert them in the background so that you can easily just go back and edit the original files without having to export each time. (Honestly my favorite part of Unity, hands down).

I have no idea what this means, sorry.

 

For iOS, you still need to use OSX (so a hackintosh could work, but it won't be supported by Apple, obviously). Basically, Unity builds an XCode project, which is then used to build/test the iOS app.

I recall seeing something about some tools that might let you build for iOS with Unity on Windows, but I don't remember what they are or if they're even still around.

 

Many thanks SolitudeSA and deram.Honestly in my opinion a forum like this one(and users) speaks a lot about the engine it represents.
Many thanks again.

By the way.Macs are expensive.Can i use a cheap macbook air to do the build?I make the game ot the pc,move the xcode folder to the macbook and there i do the final build.

 

You can build on Windows and the take it to a Mac for final compile with Xcode..any Mac running OS X that is fairly recent..like the last four or five years. You can get a new Mac Mini I think for around 600 bucks and a used one for..just a minute..319.00USD http://www.themacstore.com/preowned_macs/

Heck..you can build on either Windows, OS X platform and just set the Player setting to the next platform, including Linux , iOS, Android, Windows phone and a gaggle of console platforms (probably need some tweaking there) and it will reimport your assets accordingly for that platform. This is why Unity rocks.

 

One anyway...
http://www.pmbaty.com/iosbuildenv/

 

Yes.

 

I use a mac mini for the iOS stuff and it's fine. Usually I make it for android first, make a duplicate project and convert that to iOS. Often times there's nothing to do other than switch platform between android/ios and build, it just "works".

But always make a backup beforehand because I have had unity eat projects a couple times over the years and actually remove the entire project from the hard drive. Hasn't happened in a while now..

 

Yes, you can use Unity Remote to connect your ios device with the editor. But you need a mac to build xcode.