Unity Collaborate vs Git?

Hello,

I just started using Unity Collaborate in 5.5. Some parts of it seem quite similar to Git (for example, pushing changes or the history window). I haven't had much time to spend with it, and also I've never gotten Git to work (that's a fail). Its uses seem to be the same as Git: provide backups and have multiple people work on it at the same time. So this (and my lack of knowledge on source control) leads me to the question: What's the difference between Unity Collaborate and Git? Is one better than the other?

Sorry if I came off as a noob. I've always worked as a single dev as a hobby, so I've never really had a need for source control. However, this similarity intrigues me.

Thanks for your input!

 

I totally agree. I couldn't even revert anything in Git because of "Unable to revert commit" error messages. Unity Collaborate has been really easy, all I have to do is publish and click on the version I want in the history to revert. It's super easy and I love it

I hope Unity will keep it free (perhaps with some limitations for non plus/pro users), as it is a great tool on par with Unity Analytics and Unity Ads.

 

Hey @Gurg, I understand you want to make something very practical and easy to use, but I think most git users like myself are finding Collab a very poor versioning system.

It is indeed very practical, but I miss a lot of things I can get on git. Specially Github.
A PRO web interface giving the same functionalities as Github would be really helpful.
That's what most of us use, and that's what we expect when migrating to a new versioning system.

I don't know what you use internally, but if Collab was just an interface to Github, would be perfect! We would be able to commit easily, with all the power available behind it all.

I miss listing commits, see all the changes on the same place.
Listing current changes on my project. (not opening file by file on an external tool)
What about branches?
Pull requests?
Network graph?
Tags?
Releases?
Issue tickets?
Task assignment?
Commented issues, building a project history?
Integration with project management tools?
I really hope Collab grows to give us all that...

Team software development is a complex process, we already use tools that help a lot.
If you ignore this, people will not leave Github, and Collab will be used only by really small teams, or solo projects just for backup.
And these people will never know the wonders a full versioning system can do, stuck with the basics.

 

For what it's worth, I'm an artist (although I can code, but I'm not great at it), have never used git and I don't find "branching" a difficult concept to grasp. And I understand that "proper" branching is difficult to implement, because merging the branches is going to be a lot more complicated when art assets are involved, but right now we can't even keep a "release" branch around, while we keep adding stuff on the main game, so that we can do hotfixes in case it's needed.

The workaround we use now, is to keep a copy of the "release branch" on Dropbox. I think our needs are pretty basic, so I think needing to use another "versioning" system entirely just to fill those needs is a failure for Collaborate.

I understand that you want to pin down the basics first (I mean, until recently, there was no way to even "roll back" properly) and that we're still in the early days of collaborate as a service, but please don't think that neutering or dumbing down the feature-set is good for the service. (I understand that's not quite what you said, I'm exaggerating to make a point )

 

I think what @Gurg was trying to say was that Unity Collaborate is not full GitHub, but rather a very easy-to-use Git. If you want to use all of Git's features, you can go to GitHub. However, if you're someone with limited time like me, the ability to add builds and revert them quickly without having to spend hours on a learning curve is a nice feature. However, I see a problem here:

Let's say you have 3 people, the artist, programmer and designer. The Artist pushes his build which adds some models. The programmer updates some scripts, and the designer modifies those scripts. However (from what I see, please correct if I'm wrong!) there is no branching system. This means if the designer starts modifying scripts and the programmer updates them after, the designer has wasted time on an old version of the programmer's scripts. Then, the artist needs to download someone else's build save (which to choose, the programmer's or designer's?), and add his new models again. Since Collaborate only presents a timeline with people posting their versions of builds, it's not really "Collaborate", it's "Someone's Build History Backup". For teams with a multiple people, this is awful as all you're doing is downloading someone else's backup. If that's all that Collaborate offers, it's not much different than using regular cloud storage (OneDrive, DropBox) and just sharing links with each other.

For myself, Collaborate is perfect, as all I need is the ability to go back to older versions of my project when I screw something up. However, for teams with multiple people, Collaborate seems almost useless as it really allows for only 1 person working on a project at a time, without getting too far ahead of anyone else. It seems that the Git users want branching, and for small/large teams, it seems essential as with Collaborate all developers can do is revert to someone else's build backup.

I might not have understood something correctly, or not seen a Collaborate feature, so if I'm wrong on something here, let me know.

 

@Gurg I get it. I just wanted to underline, that *some* form of branching should make it into collaborate, since I consider it essential.

I get that if Collaborate stops being easy to use, it stops having a purpose (since I might as well use git), but at the same time, if it's missing too many features, it also stops having a purpose. So there's a fine line somewhere and getting there is going to be tough.

I don't pretend to have solutions, (I mean if I did, I would probably be working with you guys ), so I'm just being a typical Unity user and demanding more features (and they should be easy to use, and I want them by tomorrow! thanks! )

 

@Gurg, I'd love to see that vision come to life! Indeed, some team members don't need to know a lot about versioning, they just do their work and commit. But developers expect a lot more.

Now, if branching isn't still planned feature, that's bad. I can't imagine 2 developers working together without branches. Most of the times, one task takes several commits, just to be organized. Without branches, you'll be forcing the monster commits, and things will get really messy quickly. It will fail without branches. If the problem is how to make a branching interface, hire some top UX guy. It can be done, but without branching it will fail.

Usually at least one guy in the team need to know versioning, responsible for merging, solving conflicts and telling bad news. Your target audience can't be "nobody needs to understand git". That team will not sustain, it will fail and never know why.

Like in Dungeons & Dragons, the Game Master has his own manual that nobody else needs to read, while other players just need some briefing. Your target audience need a game master, with his own manual. And I think you can come up with some very simple manual. And a nice console, please.

As it is, it's only useful to backup solo projects. Its a handy Time Machine.

But hey, at least it has git underneath! So there's a chance it's full power will be available soon!

 

As someone who's run git, svn, perforce and asset server (before collaborate), I have to say collab is here to stay for us. We love it. Do you realise how many hours I've burned tending to perforce? far too many. Hours that can be spent working on the game.

 

But with Github you get green squares D:

 

Hey, sorry to reply on this somewhat old thread, but it looked like a good place to ask.

Is there a way to get email notifications from Unity/Collaborate when a collaborater commits something new to the project? I've looked a little bit and can't find anything so far, but I'm fairly new to Unity and very new to Collaborate. Even if it is something I have to rig up a little bit (script, etc) I would love notifications when my friends commits something new.

 

Will thuis cost money in the future? ...want to know to decide if continue or go back to Bitbucket.

 

Hi @alano999! We do not currently have any webhooks for commit triggered email notifications but we are looking to add them in the future.

 

Hi @pKallv! We are still finalizing pricing for when Collaborate gets out of beta. For now, we can say that there are 15 GB of cloud storage that you can use for free while in beta. We'll be sure to update everyone when we are closer to deciding the final pricing.

 

@ryanc-unity Can we take that as a confirmation that it won't be a free service after the beta phase?

 

@Paulprog16, no. There should be more details over the next few weeks. Sorry that I can't be more specific yet.

 

No worries, I totally understand. Thank you!

 

I don't understand why it would not be free, it does not offer much for teams of more than say five, even with branching. As there are many free versioning services such as GitHub.
Though with the fear of pricing, I would be using it at all for any actual projects with my team of two.
Now if there were free/pro versions of it, that would be all good.
There is also this: https://github.com/blog/2329-introducing-github-for-unity

 

Since we're not only making games, we already own a Team Foundation Server with unlimited repository space.

Currently, I guess Collaborate does not allow the use of TFS or any others well established repo services.

However this configuration is working great with Unity Cloud Build.

Do you plan to allow third party cloud services with Collaborate ?

 

Pricing is available on the https://unity3d.com/teams page.

Basically, cheap as chips. Should be lifetime free for moderators but you know I'm a cheeky hippo :/

 

Same question here. I don't see any future for developer without Git-like system.

If there is no such plan, how well that collaborate co-exist with a git system ?
It feels like Collaborate is ideal for Level Designer and Artist but for a developer it would be a pain to work on two system if his code requires changes in scenes or prefabs.

 

Welp there's no free version. Guess I've got to learn Git; it's past due anyways for me.

 

Thought it was free until October for teams. In any case I'm a major fan of Unity's Collab (now teams). It's so smooth that the staff who made it must slide to work on butter each day.

I guess you can tell I've got closeted version control issues.

 

There is. It's 1gb for personal users.

 

Stupid me, didn't read this:

Still have to learn Git though if I want to become serious in game development.

 

It seems like colaborate allow to work only with single version of the application.
If I need to have at the same time work with diferent versions of application (dev, stage, live) then colaborate doesn't allow this.

 

I love using Collaborate for my own personal use, but I've been to a number of hackathons where Git is required for the judges to review your team's work. Every time there's a huge learning curve that the entire team has to go through in order to have a functional project. Some people don't have Git. The files in Unity are way to large to upload into Git. We spent 4 hours with the mentors trying to get Git to work with Unity. The judges want to see that you made commits to your git repo throughout, and teams that can't demonstrate that get disqualified. Judges won't accept Unity's Collaborate to review code updates, they want everything on GitHub.

I know this is a minor use case, but I think it represents an issue that's larger than just hackathons. We need more accessibility. Unity has a great ecosystem, let's make it better!

 

guy's if you want good results, forget about collaborate, I have try using it since a year and the result is showing that this is not good.
50% of the time the updates are not really complete and I did test with two computer localy and it show that some files are lost while the update... It make you redoo and redoo your work allready done many many times.

If you are trying to do something and you don't have time for rework what you allready did when your coworkers push something just forget about collab.

That's a pity because it was looking like a simple and easy to handle system, but it's not serious it has make us lost day's of works. ( if you forget at the fact that sometimes it take one hour to check the updates )

 

A rather old thread, but still current.
I know Git well and lately I've also used Unity Collaborate.
Collaborate is a relatively young tool and certainly can be improved in future versions.
In the meantime I've written a Git beginner's guide (in my language: Italian) that doesn't need to use text commands.
Maybe it could be useful to someone.

 

Can I use both at the same time?

 

Is there support for code reviews in collab? Or do I have to use both git and collab if I need code reviews.

 

I have the same doubt.

 

Now I am using both, and no problem with it.

 

Could you create a guide for me? for now I am configuring git with biybucket and I have many problems with the Library and Temp folders, even though I add them in gitignore to ignore them they always mark me that they have modifications and they do not allow me to do a pull or push to my project.

 

I am using Github with https://github.com/github/gitignore/blob/master/Unity.gitignore
no other modifications

 

Thank you! It was indeed the gitignore's problem, I also found this page and it helped me a lot. thank you!