So..what is Unity good for in addition to games......

Experiencing quite a bit of pressure in the studio I work in to quickly master Unity. But the thing is, we rarely if ever, produce games. What we do mostly is installation type work, kiosks, interfacing with sensors(LEAP, Kinect, etc) and arduino devices as well as advertising combining video and text, all mostly 2D.

So my question to the experienced C# and Unity community is, what exactly does Unity bring to the table for this type of work, and, what are its advantages over other mostly 2D platforms, like say, Adobe AIR, which might arguably be quicker to deploy and have a better IDE for 2D designs combining video, images and text?

Ok 2 days now and not a single reply. So Unity is ONLY useful for games????

 

I'd say the general strengths beyond games are:
* Editor and workflow designed for rapid prototyping and iteration in 2D or 3D.
* Super simple build process that makes it easy to deploy and test on a range of targets.
* Tons high quality 3rd party integrations for hardware (Oculus, Leap, Kinect, etc).
* Enormous library of useful assets and extensions in the UAS.
* Super active community that's generally very helpful, especially with questions about specific problems.

Compared with AIR specifically, the main issues is that Adobe is gradually EOLing all of Flash, so it's not a great thing to invest in going forward. Also, the performance can be all over the map. The rules for what is and is not hardware/GPU accelerated in AIR are very complex, and you can find that subtle changes in the tool make the app take a very slow software path.

 

Thank you! First good response, what I was looking for although I question whether 2D prototyping would be a strength over Adobe AIR. In particular, if I want to focus on Unity for making interact type video walls, can you suggest specific features and or any good tutorials for a Unity C# novice? This is what I had in mind
http://www.decane.net/2014/01/massive-unity-interactive-installation-preview/

and

 

If media (video/audio/image) is your focus, I'd say stick with AIR until it is completely dead (on its last breath now).

If you are looking for "next-gen", 2D, 2.5D, 3D (think augmented reality, or oculus) application delivery to virtually any device, then you'll want to stick with Unity.

I consider myself an expert AS3 developer (damn, I dislike touting my skillz) and have only been working in Unity for 9 months. I have built quite a few desktop, web and mobile apps with AIR/Flash. The learning curve with Unity is greater because there is so much more you can do with it.

Currently, I am about to release a web application that is both 2D (circuitry, visual programming, e-learning) and 3D (virtual-to-physical autonomous robotics with Arduino, "gamified"). While this is certainly possible with AIR, the fluidity of development and "game-play" would pale in comparison (I have yet to see a very large textured 3D map with many functional objects in AIR that can be played through in the browser or mobile greater than 30 frames per second ... easily accomplished by Unity). In retrospect, the 2D development would have taken me much less time in AIR but the 3D and physics would have taken 3 times as long.

In addition, the plugins (read: asset store) will help ease development tremendously. With AS3, I always had to build everything from scratch, taking eons in comparison.

If you have any specific concerns, ask away and maybe I/we can help you find your path better.

 

Thanks. Other than a good C# book, and the official Unity tutorials, are there any other specific learning resources you would recommend to someone who is also an experienced AS3 dev?

 

Well, you say you are an experienced AS3 Dev so you must have had a blueprint ( thought and behavior wise ) that allowed you to become an experienced AS3 Dev so that blueprint worked perfectly. Go back to the blueprint and delete the AS3 bits and replace them with C# and Unity; and away you go...

 

Here are some examples of non game/installation type stuff with Unity

Well the last one is sort of a game, but it's super cool.

 

We make stuff for video walls, digital signage, and interactive experiences. Some are at trade shows or events/exibits, as well as augmented reality "stuff".


This company has a plugin for unity in the asset store and have some really awesome products including a blow up imax tent, 3d projectors, etc. http://www.elumenati.com/



I never used flash, can't say about it, but Unity lets you interface with just about anything from wii controllers to binaural audio to various depth sensors, augmented reality libraries, body tracking libraries, arduino, OpenCV, etc etc etc

 

With the new UI coming out, I think you'll see Unity being used in more diverse areas. Its prefab / component workflow is useful for lots of stuff outside games too.

 

I imagine Unity being perfect for kiosks, audio-visual (live) shows, art installments, museum interactive exhibits, etc... but I don't think it will take over the advertising banner world anytime soon.

 

interactive artworks...

scripted animations

 

Not at all. I work full-time in Unity and I spend almost none of that time making "games". Training tools, presentations, some simulation, some straight up visualisation.

To me a main strength of Unity is it's cross-platform nature.

As for considering it's 2D strength, I can't really speak to that. I thought it was perfectly fine at 2D before the 2D tools came along, so I clearly don't see things how dedicated 2D game developers do. What I can say is that picking up a brand new tool and only intending to do with it what you were already doing with your old tools seems... short sighted. If I were you I'd be looking at what new capability it gave me, rather than how I can use it to do what I was already doing.

If you already have 2D stuff nailed, why not experiment and see what the 3D capabilities of Unity bring to the table for your organisation? Or it's cross-platform flexibility. Or anything else that Unity has in ways that your other tools do not.

 

This is a great thread. Thanks for all the responses.

 

I am using it currently beyond game dev for interactive tables and kiosks, archviz and product previz. I have also coded an entire configuration application for a new kind of MIDI based musical percussion instrument/controller that interfaces with micro controllers, BlueTooth, accelerometer/gyro/compass and piezo trigger that is going into manufacture soon. There is not much you cannot do with Unity. With a honking enough computer you could run atomic bomb simulations with it. It has the tools and the ability to add most any library to it as plugins.

 

ippdev, out of curiosity: Why did you choose to do this configuration app in Unity? Just because you are familiar with it or any particular reason?

 

The city museum here in Galway has a standalone interactive display which flips between Galway in the 17th Century (from a 1651 map, if I recall correctly) and now. I'm pretty certain that it was built with Unity, mainly because I had an internship with the developers while they were working on it.

 

I used Unity to do a $1000 project for a professor at FDU to visualize some math he was doing. Various equations from his study had some relationship where they could be used as points to form a 3D region which was used for... something complicated. Unity was good for...

-making this 3D application within a few hours ($250/hour, woo!)
-make the application run pretty smoothly on all platforms from web to standalone and even mobile

I'm sure I could break that down into more points, but if you look at unity as a 3d/2d engine rather than just a game engine, it's got a ridiculously wide range of application. I'll probably use it when I go for my doctorate with a sixense stem & oculus (or other best available VR vision at the time).

Lol a doctorate in game design, this species

 

The first reason was..write once..compile to multiple platforms. Second I wanted a 3D representation of each one of the triggers affecting scaling, color and etcetras of objects representing the triggers based on the magnitude of the piezo return signal after being struck so users can see a visual representation of the energy involved. Third..it is a hand percussion based instrument meant to replace drum machines and allow the oldest method of creating beats, striking a surface with your hand in a rhythmic fashion, to be brought into the digital world and available for anybody's DAW to be incorporated as any other MIDI based musical instrument or controller. Fourth..because of the nature of hand percussion I want to set up a server where folks from anywhere can log on and join a drum circle like they could an MMO lobby. Fifth..I can rock Unity around the clock and no doubt saved myself hundreds of hours surfing StackExchange for hours trying to get the same functionality for Windows, OS X, Linux, iOS and Android.

 

Passive aggressive much? If you're worth your salt, then you'll already know that with over 3 MILLION developers, Unity is the most popular 2D and 3D rendering engine because of it's rapid development pipeline and the ability to port to almost any known platform. If that's not enough to entice you to learn something new, then just be honest to your co-workers as a professional and quit 'fishing'.

PS - I use Unity for serious games, for story apps, and for teaching. Examples in my sig. The rest is up to you.

Gigi

 

Here's a thing I used Unity for. It's almost done now. You can build your playset online, click a few buttons (pay them some money), and this company will drive over to your house and build your custom playset!



-Chilton