Unity 5 release date?

If anything, economics graduates should know better too - they'd know it as the law of dimishing returns amongst other labels:

 

"12. The purple balloon cat model."​

I'm pretty sure this one is ready to ship.

 

I think it's like this.

We all see the existence of Unity (especially the free version) as a bonus not something that we depend on.

If Unity didn't exist we'd all be making our games in some other game engine. Or writing our own engines. Or writing our games in native code.

Whether or not Unity improves or not is entirely inconsequential to most of us. If it improves then we will make better games but so will our competitors.

BUT. Here's thing thing. When you're trying to make a career out of making apps or games you need to plan ahead. So if a feature is promised for such-and-such a time you will get ANNOYED if such a feature is not there. Because you could have saved time making it with something else.

Therefor it is not the engines that are necessarily the best or have the most features that we will tend to use. But the ones that give the most accurate information about which features will be available when.

So in conclusion. It doesn't matter a diddly-squat to us if the new Unity has super-duper-reflective materials. What DOES matter is if super-duper-reflective materials are promised by a certain date and you plan to use them and they are not there.

Which I think is where Unity is going wrong a bit. By trying to please people by promising this and that. Because people are planning using this information and then getting annoyed.

Better to promise super-duper-reflective materials for April 2016 and then deliver them early in March 2015 to everyone's surprise and delight rather say they "might" be available in December 2014 and make everyone annoyed.

Thanks. That's the end of my essay 4 2day.

 

But you can apply this to anything, including home-grown engines. Many Unity users are already deep into their careers and are used to things taking longer than anticipated in game development (and other types of activities...buses run late too ). And if any industry is reliably unreliable for meeting dates and expectations, this one is.

Sometimes it's as simple as, "Computer says no."

 

We'll get it when we get it. Until then you can still build all the art assets that you need regaurdless of the features currently in there. Beleive me, the fact that they are realtime GI or beast lightmapping wont effect the work that you still have to put in. The maps for different kind of shaders, sure, but to be honest you can still model high and low poly models and create normal maps and color maps and some sort of specularity until then. Or be prepared with photoshop layers until then. Or say screw unity 5 and use marmoset skyshops.

I hate waiting like anyone else, but at this point i just hope unity5 isnt something that wasn't worth waiting for. I would be awfully disappointed with it if blending between probes isnt in there.

 

Me too. That would render them basically unusable. But I remember seeing someone say they were working on that so I think we'll be ok.

 

What, who, where???

 

FrakkleRogg, on the previous page of this thread.

 

Uhh that's how cubemap reflection work btw, even with parallax correction it will works for reflecting the outer wall of the scene/room you will never get a correct reflection for object in the middle of the room with cubemap, and i'm speaking for the floor reflection btw

Ah i see, i missed those post

 

So what you're saying is if the status quo is bad. Then we shouldn't try and change it? We should just put up with it?

 

And then, the same kind of people (if not even the same people ;-) ) will complain that the feature was delivered early and had they known it would have been released earlier, they would have done everything differently. And then they'll blame UT that their business is ruined.

You have what's available.

It's as simple as that.

And sometimes, we all make mistakes: I delayed a book about Unity for about two years waiting for the new Unity UI to become available (at that time, there was a prototype of a system available and I thought this would be it ... but then ... well ... other things happened ;-) ).

So I'm not saying it's only others that are making this mistake or even that making such mistakes is so terrible - but I certainly won't blame UT for my own mistake ... maybe that's the difference ;-)

 

Is Unity 5.0 beta out yet? How long do people think it will take them to release 5.0 after beta is out?

I know, no one really knows yet, but what are people's best guesses? Looking forward to 5.0. Although not having to transition my project to a new version series.

 

Tomorrow.

Check back tomorrow.

 

Soon........

 

But I want to know today! *throws fit and stomps out of room*

 

If you're working professionally, you know to only count on things that exist right now. You never rely on announcements, from anyone.

Where you and others are going wrong is thinking that Unity promises anything. They almost never do. You're making things up and then getting upset when the things you imagined don't happen, but you can't realistically hold Unity responsible for that. Max_Bol covered this nicely.

It is; that's been known for a while now. Just not yet for pre-order customers.

--Eric

 

Good to know. Thanks Eric. So I'm curious who actually is beta testing then? Just select people in a closed beta right now? Ya, I don't get out much. I rely on these forums for my information mostly lol.

I don't NEED 5.0 right now like some people might, but I am pretty excited about what new features and possibilities it could bring.

 

Yep.

--Eric

 

As someone who has waited all through the development of Duke Nukem Forever: When it's done.

 

If the Purple Balloon Cat is ready, then what's the holdup ??? I think most of us are mainly interested in the Purple Balloon Cat, so they ought to release just that item and forget the rest....

 

If I don't get the purple cat balloon soon, I'm moving to ue 4

 

don't worry, you'll get it.......soon

 

I hear they have purple cat balloon parades over there.

 

Can we pre order a yellow dog balloon ?

 

I'm sure they will announce preorders for the yellow dog balloon when they are ready.
But, be sure to keep them separate if you get both, no promise they will not fight.

 

You just anticipate market and try to have an edge on competition, isn't it ?
If you only build on what exist, you will probably die. You need to take some risk. Sometime taking risk is to trust Unity to do what they announce. For example why do people dev on Occulus ? The market is not there and may not be there one day. They bet it will work and they want to be first on it.

If Unity want to build trust and if Unity is not sure if they can deliver, they just don't talk about it. Isn't it fair ?
(no disclaimer don't work , just don't talk about it, and no one will be disappointed )
We perfectly understand that Unity promise more than they can deliver, because they what to keep people going to UE4.

I love Unity but their communication is bad. They try to improve, but it's still not ok.
I know that you want to defend Unity, but don't tell to people that their anger is not a legitimate, when you know it is.

 

Because they have Oculus DevKits. So that is stuff that exists right now. Even though it's not certain that this will also be a market (but for some people, whether there will be a "market" or not doesn't even matter because they're using VR for very specific client projects that don't even need a "market" - it's just the client and they sometimes pay well enough to cover all costs ;-) ).

 

Exactly my point Devkit...
And I hope dev anticipate what the consumer product will be based on annoucement made. (Good dev do this)
Occulus can't deliver a consumer product below what they announce without making devs angry, don't you think ?
Well they probably won't make this mistake..

PS: Client project is a market... B2B or B2C.

 

Of course people will be disappointed; they are very loud about being disappointed when Unity doesn't talk about their roadmap. We've seen it repeatedly. And yes the disclaimer does work. When they say upfront that "features in this roadmaps are not commitments", you absolutely cannot decide for yourself that it somehow constitutes a "promise".

It's not legitimate to make things up and then get angry about it, and you know it's not. It's fine to be annoyed at things that actually do exist, such as bugs or features that don't work well. It's not fine to invent things in your own mind and then get upset about them.

--Eric

 

Tell that to the leprechaun living in my shed that keeps making a mess..

 

Oh, I will. I will go over there and give that leprechaun a very stern talking-to. See if I don't. Freakin' leprechauns.

--Eric

 

Well, they already did. When I supported their Kickstarter and ordered their second devkit, they did not belong to Facebook. Now they do - and I'd rather not develop for a platform that belongs to Facebook (which Oculus now does). A lot people considered that "breaking a promise" and on a much larger scale than delivering a feature sooner or later.

Well, you were talking about developing something not knowing whether there's a market. That's a different thing compared to already having a customer that pays for the development. What you were talking about was taking a risk. Having a customer that pays the whole project is not a risk.

 

When you have insufficient data near screen edges you use the data available from reflection probes.

 

Surely the release date of 4.6 was "targeted" as "summer 2014" or is this something I "made up"? (http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/unity-4-6-release-date.258596/)

If a target is suggested to the community and then missed (it is now Autumn/Fall) what emotion should the community be feeling:

A) Sympathy
B) Empathy
C) Annoyance
D) Joy
E) Befuddlement
F) Inquisitiveness
G) Melancholy
H) Hubris
I) Fear
J) Zen like calm

I would just like to know as apparently some emotions are not "legitimate" for the community to feel. And of course we always make sure we only feel legitimate emotions.

 

Fortunately it was released as a public beta in the projected time frame, so you may feel euphoria and/or glee.

--Eric

 

So unity 5 is obviously not in open beta yet for pre-order customers. Is there any official info on the new time-frame for release? It is a little frustrating to have to skim through these forums to gather snippets of information after an official announcement was made at unite for a release window that now has now been missed (that 4-8 week quote). I'm patient and happy to wait, just some info would be nice.

 

You missed the point... no one said, when that 4-8 week window starts

 

We can feel annoyance, but I rather see something a bit later and work well, then something released and buggy. I would say, 'It's done, when it's done' It's good they released a beta, so we can play around with it. However people that pushed there projects forward for the 4.6 release, well... just never do that.

 

You can download the latest open beta build right now! So feelings of 'Joy', probably!

 

Open beta means nothing to me. It means that it is not really usable product yet

 

Of course it's usable.

--Eric

 

Not for final product, but it's useable for testing new features. I used the 4.6 beta for creating a mobile app with everything fancy turned off and only the GUI on screen. A test if I could develop standard apps with unity, and worked out really well. Can't wait for unity 5.x tho, where not used parts of the engine will be stripped on build, if I understood it right.

 

It's usable for the final product too. When 4.6 "final" is released it still won't be 100% perfect, like all other Unity releases (or else we wouldn't get patch releases), so if the current version doesn't have any show-stopping bugs in your project, go right ahead and use it.

--Eric

 

Really?

They say

4.6 Beta 21 is now ready for "testing!"

This beta has had "minimal QA testing."

I think I know the meaning what they say

Why should I use testing products? I will choose to wait the end of the beta testing

I'm not beta tester

 

I would recommend against using a beta version for final production work.
There's always the (bigger) risk of breaking changes or show stopper bugs.
Wiki: 'Software in the beta phase will generally have many more bugs in it than completed software, as well as speed/performance issues and may still cause crashes or data loss.'

 

I think it is relatively safe to say that people know what a beta is.

On the issue itself I side with Eric. After a certain point, the betas are usable for shipping product. Obviously they should be stable, feature complete and run your project well on the various target platforms.
Risks such as project/asset corruption etc. you should plan for anyway. Frequent backups, archiving and version control actually allows you to move to the betas with full confidence. If something goes awry you can always roll back, and with good version control rollback can be almost transparent.

(And yes, I speak from experience. )

 

Of course you are. There are no bug-free software products in existence.
As a developer, as long as you rely on libraries or tools developed by someone else, you are vulnerable to problems those may introduce. The only thing separating a beta from final release is that someone decided the beta was *good enough* to go.

 

If it was the first beta I would be more hesitant, but it's beta 21 now. It's quite stable. Yes there are a few bugs, but aren't there always....

--Eric