Unity Non-Programmer Survey - August 2016

Just saying thanks for this, so you get a bump.

 

I'm very much a programmer, but not always a great one. And things like shaders are just black magic to me. Would I be throwing off your demographics by answering the survey?

 

Thanks for taking the time to address the art side of unity. It's sorely in need of attention.

 

I program all the time with unity for our games, but also do leveldesign and gamedesign.
But 2 days ago we needed some 2D animations rendered for Adobee Premiere. And I made a .exe and captured the animations with OBS.

So I guess I will take the survey?

ps: Love it how you always try to improve Unity! Keep it up.

 

I'll agree with this. I'm not a great programmer and I have plenty to learn, but I haven't dared look into shaders yet. That being said, I try to do all the code I can myself and only use assets as a last resort.

 

I just left pretty brutal feedback about the baked lighting and bugs with small colliders. Hopefully I don't get banned lol

 

I am sure you won't get banned; honest feedback is what this survey exists for!

 

Buy Playmaker and integrate it!!!!!!

That asset has been a godsend for my development.

 

That's the same thing I suggested at the end.

If Unity had Playmaker built into the editor they would get a crazy amount of people coming back over from Unreal.

 

I opined in the survey soon after it was posted. I didn't mention this in the survey, though it might be useful to share.

From the number of comments here and throughout the forum in favor of a node based shader tool - if any visual node based editor beyond mecanim is considered in the future, incorporating shader manipulation/creation would be really welcomed by most of the community.
This topic is very relatable to any future node based visual scripting tool.

 

I am backing Vern_Shurtz 's point here.
I am a programmer and artist too. I also feel that Current version Unity (5.5) is bit more aligned for programmers. Any programmer can make a game, from start to publish (by purchasing few assets from assetstore ) but same is not true for artist. Artist would require either programming skill-set or programmer friend to manifest his ideas. So Unity must take care of this imp point. Playmaker (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/368) and Strumpy shader editor (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/456) and Rain AI (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/23569) may be a good option to fill the gap. Like Unity bought nGUI and integrated it in new UI, Similarly Unity should buy above mentioned assets and integrate it into editor.

 

Isn't Playmaker like Unreal's Blueprint system?

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Blueprints/index.html

I've never used any of them so this makes me curious...

 

If blueprints (Idk) are finite state machines - then they are similar.
Playmaker is a node based fsm. And it's awesome!

 

Yes and no. They both fill the same role but PlayMaker is merely a finite state machine masquerading as a visual scripting system whereas Blueprint is an actual scripting language given visual form.

 

My point is, make Unity more artist friendly and visual!
e.g. Writing shaders is a tough task but Strumpy shader editor make is simple and visual.

 

I filled it in for what it's worth, as I tend to wear many hat's.. Y'know what might be a good idea as you were asking about what users are doing now / next with engines. Have a UE4 vs. Unity thread.................

No seriously, list out every single component that makes sense from an artists position.. What UE has, why it's in there, what benefit that system has and get Unity dev's involved to try and take it the next level. An actual in depth technical discussion about it's pipeline / integration and toolsets, really get to meat of what's lacking. Then put a reasonable schedule together to get Unity on par.

Do you think many would use UE if Unity could do the exact same but with half the effort? I know I wouldn't..

 

While that's a great strategy, doing stuff with 1/2 as much effort as in UE is just not possible as they have smart guys over there too, and they look at Unity and probably take some ideas from Unity. Perhaps UE does some things better than Unity; I've never used UE but I'm getting more interested in it. Just assuming that Unity will be 1/2 as much work as UE is unrealistic, as UE is always improving (as is Unity, as is Cryengine etc...).

 

That's not really true, end of the day both engines have different purposes although a lot of overlap. UE was built from the ground up to be an end to end AAA solution and by the nature of it's design is extremely complex, compared to Unity where the scripting architecture and subsystems a lot of times only require a fundamental understanding of games development.

The artwork / VFX portion / toolsets of Unreal had to be as simple and effective as possible, because it was made for larger teams where not everyone has the skill (or the time) to be a technical artist. You have UI guys, VFX guys, artists, level designers and some lead roles. Hence the BP architecture etc.

As it stands right now, Unity (with the help of the asset store) is a far quicker solution to get stuff done as it is and always has been primarily aimed at indies. It's just the further you push the more it becomes counter intuitive, whereas Unreal is the exact opposite.. For simple projects it's counter intuitive and the more you push the more you understand why it exists.

I've been using Unity for four years?? I've also been using UE4 since it's inception, I actively develop in Unreal today.. I don't personally believe it's THAT complex (some things are even vastly quicker in UE due to the game framework etc.) but then again I've been using it a while.. When you've spent quite a bit of time with each you'll get what I'm saying.

 

That's a great point

Once I ship something with Unity, I'll probably get in UE just for the experience, but I can't imagine leaving Unity for more than a few days. Will see!