when unity3d comes to windows
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/when unity3d comes to windows
Should the rest just pack up and go home?
In my opinion it's the best thing out there and great to create games with. It has next gen graphics, great features ie gui, scripting, physics and the tools that also come with it are brilliant.
When comparing it to the other products out there nothing compares and i really think the gameobject and component system is great and the fact it's really simple once you get to grips with it.
I know their are tools out there that are similar but unity3d is in a league of its own in my opinion.
ps not trying to say it's perfect but having had a mess with it, it's a thing of beauty, now i need to wait for win version or get a mac :-(
Yep, indeed not perfect but it's the best you can get in this price range. I somehow wouldn't call the gfx engine next gen. It's more current gen. Maybe this feels next gen to a lot of people because most of the other tools still don't come with such a featureset. The nice and important thing is that, although you won't be able to get all the eye candy, you can still use it with pretty old hardware too and still get decent results. I guess in a mid term perspective they also have a promising future as they just take this more serious and professional than others and have a stable user base already.
If Unity's paradigm matches your paradigm then probably. There are still lots of games which - because they're 2d or perhaps something like a JRPG which has two quite distinct gameplay modes - where trying to force Unity into doing something it wasn't specifically designed for would be enough to drive you batty. For the more obvious genres like 3d platformers, third person shooters, possibly even adventure games, then I'm sure it's ideal.
As I said in a recent email conversation, I would have picked Unity in a heartbeat if it could have made the game I wanted to make. Unity is a lot like the 3D version of Torque GameBuilder. That too would be the ideal tool for a lot of 2D games, but if you wanted to make certain complex genres - let's say a 2D RPG like the old FF games - Torque would surely be the wrong choice.
Of course the other issue you have with tools like Unity and Torque GameBuilder is an issue more usually associated with Microsoft applications. You're locked in. Create a game with Unity or TGB and then decide you want to port to (for example) BlitzMax and Ogre and you're in a world of trouble because you're tied to a completely proprietary system, most of which is closed source. If Unity or TGB were to cease development, or to move into a new price bracket which is out of your reach, or just if they made some changes which made it hard for you, then suddenly you have to start again, almost from scratch, and that's a scary prospect if you've invested a long time in development.
EDIT: There was an engine I was reading about just a few weeks ago which shut down unexpectedly. I can't for the life of me remember what it was now. I remember thinking "thank god I didn't go with that". It'll probably come to me.
As i wrote it's not perfect and obviously due to this there are games which are harder to do with it than others but the overall experience is better than with any other tool i've used so far. They do progress and everytime there is a next version around with stuff you've been waiting for (and also stuff which is still missing! :O). For the majority of the features it feels like they are moving forward rather quickly.
2D is a genre which Unity isn't built for but whilst saying so it also depends on the specific case and the kind of 2D game you're trying to achive. Traditional 2D stuff for sure is easier done in BlitzMax, coding is more fun but as soon as you need physics, easy crossplatform publishing, 2.5D, maybe an IDE were you can build your levels in, the cards can change rather quickly and after some inital hurdles you'll have to jump over, you might progress faster. But my 2D heart is bouncing for BlitzMax, at least until the point were it would be serious more work getting something done in BlitzMax compared to Unity/Flash/Director or whatever.
In only rare cases it really pays out when you're writing engines or more complex additions on your own with an open but more limited system, mostly it's a waste of time and instead it's often easier learning something new and making usage of what's available in a certain tool. If one day you need to port this due to some reason, depending on what's available then it obviously is a time investment and redundant work but before this happens it's likely you already have spared a lot of time.
I guess this depends a lot on what you're doing and in which field you're working but for games i see this clearly as the better way. I prefer working on others people's work because i want to concentrate on my thing and not building the underlying technology or glueing different ones together.
In my opinion it's the best not to have your eggs just in one basket and according to the job use the tool which does it the best, also if that means that you can't always port things easily.
The one and only perfect tool is still missing and probably will forever, at least for the next years...
I think mark mentioned this is the way blitzmax3d will go, but as we haven't really heard anything on it for 2-3 years, and I, like many others, are looking for a next step to blitz3d for 3d stuff, I really have to consider looking at Unity3D.
If I knew BMax was coming out in 6-12 months then fine, i will learn Blitzmax and go onto that. but having no info means I have too assume its not coming out any time soon, and go learn something that is out now.
I wasn't really impressed with the Unity demo. The one thats a lot like Halo. The dynamic shadowing was poor, especially indoors, and if you removed the shaders that almost any DX9 GL engine can do. There wasn't really much there that stood out.
Of course, having a PC means I can't try the editors and make anything. But the demo didn't really stand out.
Just looked, I'm talking about the avert fate demo. But maybe there are other demos that show better lighting and shadows.
Yeah, I didn't think much of the Avert Fate demo either. Most of the other demos were good though, and I've played a few games and demos made by third parties. That velociraptor safari thingy is a pretty decent example.
I think it's rather impossible judging such a gamedev tool by looking at some demos as you never know how much time they put into it and how it is done. This only helps to see if something serious is wrong. If you really want to get an idea of it you'll have to try it out on your own.
Avert Fate is a small demo for the fps fanboys, empty, without a soul, ugly art, well it's a matter of personal taste thing but i guess you can get some better examples by surfing through the showcase forum, playing some content on shockwave.com or looking at what has been commercially released so far. But again this doesn't get you the same as if you would try it out on your own and especially the ease of use is one of the strengths you'll otherwise miss.
And you can take a look at the stuff i made for fun here but i guess that's not what you're looking for as this is all made just for running fine on my 1.25GHz G4 32MB 9200er Mini. Of course stuff like normals maps work here too, i'm just personally not so fond of them... :O)
->
http://spielwiese.marune.de/_uni/index.html ...Unity3D rocks...thats all..hear voice from someone who hated it before :)
and it's coming to windows when?
..well..dont expect it in next 2 years at least..
There is no official word on this but my unofficial private guess would be not this year but the next one sounds possible.
Not really. They are still searching a Windows UI programmers, so still the basics are not present, not even thinking about the refinement.
And I think for the moment there are more important things to do than to please an oversatisfied market like Windows Gamedevelopment. Shadows on Terrains for example and other effects that only work in particular situations.
as i said..next 2 years..
We'll see... :O)
I was looking at this a few weeks ago, it does seem very impressive and the "here's everything you need" approach is what's been missing from many other offerings. It really looks like you could get a small team together and use the out of the box tools to do whatever you wanted which is good.
I don't have a Mac though, I hope some people do develop some good games for the Mac with this though.
Darkheart
You can develop games for web and windows with it as well ...
But yes its internal handling, fallback, high compatibility etc make it a serious replacement for Blitz3D on the simplicity and compatibility level and even the standard features already more than you are capable to do with Blitz3D most likely. (and its cheaper given the fact it includes foliage systems, a realtime alpha splatting terrain system as well as physx integration ... )
It looks nice, but I wonder if all of this chat is a bit of "The grass is always greener on the other side".
Sometimes less in more in games development.
hehe ...
its not always greener but even more juicy in this case ^^
Naw blitz3d is a great language and if you want to program your app from 0 its definitely one of the best choices.
But at one point you are just sick of reinventing the wheel over and over again (or are not capable of it) and pay 200-400 USD for addon systems to Blitz3D (-> 300-500 USD alltogether) if you could have bought Unity3D, TGEA or whatelse at that price which is capable of all that + has editors + has many other features ...
Blitz3d was great some years ago when middleware was damned expensive. But in the todays market it is, as DBP, just totally overpriced for only beeing a little unflexible engine with its own enforced language and no flexibility / modularity to be extended (at least the last point is an issue that DBP does not have. Userlibs don't count as they can only "plug on top" but not expand existing capabilities especially visuals without ugly hacks)
Not even the "royality free" factor is working anymore, as neither Torque nor Unity have royalities.
I highly doubt that NF for example will really take of. If then potentially NB but only if it is priced reasonable for what you get -> <= 100 USD with an editor or <= 50-60USD just engine.
Editors are good in one respect, but they can also be a hinderance... especially if they've been written by someone else. In the case of them saving you time, that's great, but sometimes they limit a developer and extra time needs to be spent working out how to get around those limitations. And, any limitations of an editor can limit game design... meaning you wind up with a million games that are all slight variations on each other.
I like a well thought out rudimentary systems such as BlitzMax because they are less complex and it's fun building your own thing if the base is well designed, at least to a certain degree. In this respect there is light and shadow with Unity as there are still obvious commands missing and they sometimes do care more about features like shadows on terrain which is sexier to quite some users according to what they say. So hopefully cheeseholes will be filled as time goes by but you also shouldn't underestimate what's possible already. As said before i don't know a second single compareable tool...
What i can't understand is this argumentation about editors and why they should harm you at all, as you are free to go to use the IDE or code your whole way from a to z. So if i want to place some trees in a more comfortable way you use the IDE, if i want computated stuff like 100^3 cubes you write code or just mix both as you please. I don't see why this should lead to less unique games.
I prefer much more control over everything than what Unity gave, and if/when it does come out for the PC, I would like to see access to just the engine, so it can be used from languages like C and what-not.
The price would also have to come down a lot, to make it competitive.
Well, i guess i can assure you that you won't see this happening and more competitive compared with what please?
..im not sure that you going to see Unity with option to go straight to engine..hardly doubt that..
"I don't see why this should lead to less unique games."
Are you serious? I'm willing to bet the majority of what comes out of Unity will be built around including content created from their specific tools. Indies struggle to create unique games now (except for a rare few). Give them a bunch of cool tools to create pretty looking things and you'll hardly see people thinking of the game first, and content second.
People who want to 'code their way from a to z' won't even look at Unity. They'll just code the entire thing from scratch, and make their own tools.
I disagree, to me it's the usual nonsense, mostly coming from a few people who haven't used such a system before and don't know what they are talking about. It's kind of the same attitude as if you say i want to access everything, i want it at best for free and why isn't it bugfree yesterday already. Sorry...
Sorry, do you disagree with me? I know all about the pros and cons of a system, and I can see the results of what's being produced.
Well, if you say so...
I say so ;) Don't get me wrong- Unity looks great... I can just see a few issues cropping up from the use of it, that's all. People should start with the game, and then produce the assets. I can see a great deal of people who could be doing that, instead starting with the pretty assets they want to make and then trying to make a game out of it. Of course, this has happened with Blitz to a degree too, but I don't think it's to the same degree as what you'll see with Unity.
The indie game scene is already flooded with lame games produced because of that mindset. For those that aren't sold... that's fine of course, but many people want to be able to sell what they make. While something like Unity is an excellent product, it's a shame in some ways that what it pushes forward the most is all the pretty assets that can be produced. When you combine that with an editor that's based on producing games in a certain few genres (fps, 3rd person, etc) you start to see what most of the games produced will look like.
I should have stated that i was comparing it to other products that are similar ie torque, shiva, 3d gamestudio.
Unity is a totally different kettle of fish to products like blitzmax.
Coding your own game from scratch can't be compared to making stuff in editor type dev tools, especially if you know what your doing. You will always be limited by certain aspects of the tools. When coding it you have less limits.
ps then again i can't think of 3d genres unity3d couldn't do whic is why it is called unity'3D'.
UnityEngine will surely never be a standalone thing (just mentioned again on the board that they are not going to license parts of Unity). Wouldn't make much sense as 2 of unities strength are singleclick Webdeployment and singleclick iPhone deployment in the forseable future.
agree with you sinu on the less limits but lets face the fact: limits are often needed to make you really creative and productive. If you can do everything you tend to lose focus and try to do anything and everything. And in BM you will have to do a lot of everything before you have something. Or buy sswifts entity system + GA framework at which point you are nearly at the price of unity ... and I'm not sure how much simpler BM is than javascript or C# when it comes to program game logic.
And at least Unity3D is capable of running on european windows correctly unlike BM
Well, I’m in the easily-overwhelmed-by-complex-editors camp. I’d rather focus my efforts on learning programming concepts, techniques and algorithms than on how to manipulate a heavy-duty editor. That’s not a criticism of Unity, by the way, just a note that such an environment is not as productive for some of us.
..well..while I do respect approach fro 'a to z' , I have to say that I cant see what limits you see in Unity by using their editor?? What i see is that it saves me loads of time by placing objects on scene trough coding and compile/run every now and then to see are there any flaws...in Unity i setup scene in no time in comparison with code it all...and i cant see as a loss of any kind and im not feeling 'cool' to hardcode all that..its just waste..and last, can you tell me, what type of games unity is incapable of please?? Or im missing something...
A 2D game?
"And at least Unity3D is capable of running on european windows correctly unlike BM"
I know B3D has some issues in this area... what problems does BM have?
I don't know. I'm having difficulty trying to replicate my simple terrain viewer using the Unity trial.
I have a game 'launcher' written in BlitzMax that generates heightmap, texture and lightmap PNG files. My Blitz3d-coded viewer is then run and generates a terrain based on these PNG files.
I'm trying to replicate the viewer in Unity. Is this possible? If so, what tutorials / examples are relevant? I will also need to place objects AT RUNTIME (trees, foliage, rocks, ruins, settlements, etc), based on generated maps...
IDE = limited Engine
I don't know why some people are thinking this way because how much you can or can not access via an engine has nothing to do if there is an IDE or not involved. It only depends on the specific engine and what the developers want to expose. It might be that via the IDE not everything is available in a drag&drop way but you can still access everything which is exposed via scripting.
2D games
Are possible although as already said before you first have to take some hurdles to get the 3D properly into the 2D space but then depending on what you would like to do it can be easier with Unity. Little 2.5D jump&run tryout with physics is provided in the link i posted in the beginning of this thread (behind the "8bit.alt.t=0" entry).
Reactor
Well, yes you say so and your entiteled to your opinion but i still think that you don't know what you're talking about.
Assets still have to be produced outside Unity which means you can't draw textures in Unity, you can't compose sounds in Unity, you can't model 3d objects in Unity. All this asset work has to be done outside Unity as you're maybe used to from other tools already.
What you can do inside Unity is arranging things in a easy way (translations, prefabs) which otherwise you would have done in the modeler outside. Beeing able to do this inside gives you an advantage in flexibility and for fine tuning/testing purposes.
The only thing you can build inside Unity is the terrain (geometry, uv mapping (painting it), baked lightning) whilst you're still able to import and export heightmaps if you wish to and prefabs but you still have to build the base for those outside unity. So if you think that it's a downside that you do have out of the box support for a fast octree based LOD terrain engine like in FarCry, well that's your opinion. I think it's a clear advantage because i afterwards might have a chance selecting a game i enjoy between a couple of less jerking games. I don't know how old you are but if you have experienced the c64/amiga days then beside of obvious pearls and rubbish you often could witness the following situation with games:
a) Technically almost perfect games which weren't fun.
b) Technically bad games but with a great idea (actually you could take the whole pack of Cinemaware games on the Amiga).
Now if due to it's simplicity (not because you can create assets inside Unity) and the featurelist Unity can help that a b) type of game benefits from a) then this is an advancement.
We recapitulate, you primary do not create assets in Unity beside of the terrain, prefabs and arranging objects.
It's no secret that things are getting more and not less complex so if this helps saving time or getting better results in the same time, i think this is welcome! If an easy tool also is able to aggravate people (maybe with a more artistic mindset) who otherwise would have stayed away from making a game then i also see this as a plus. Of course you'll also see bad games beeing made but well as far as i know you're not forced playing them, so who cares. Even Sony stepped away from their snobby argumentation that they'll get good games because the PS3 is harder to code and only the best developers can handle it. This was marketing because their tools were not ready and as easy to use as those for the Xbox360, nothing more.
I agree that there are way to many games out there and that most of them are uninteresting but that's not the fault of tools which make it easier to develop as you can also see a lot of crap games coming from developers which write their own engines or licence some technology from others, a.o. this is a problem of a rising market. Is Flash bad because there are plenty of Flash games out there? Whilst a lot of them aren't good (also often due to financial reasons) there are also still some very good ones around which you otherwise wouldn't have seen. Things like Blitz3D have been praised for beeing effective and yet simple. Compared to Blitz3D, Unity is so much more powerful and if people would get such a tool from BRL here they surely would be more than happy.
I don't know but like with MrTAToad (and i'm still waiting for that list of those more competitive products) i haven't seen convincing stuff on your sites which gives me the impression that you would be limited in a way with the tool. What you say comes more along as some groundless turning down. Things as stating that there are no good developers using such tools is just so plain wrong as well as that they shoot for the assets instead of the game instead.
Anyway that was only about games and we haven't even talked about non games related work like serious 3D client work for instance were such simple rules exist like time=money.
I don't have problems with if people don't like something, regarding Unity i myself would prefer if some things would work different or if they could implement certain things better sooner than later but no matter if you like or dislike something there should be some substance behind the argumentation then.
Hey, maybe you're right (I'm open to being wrong)... but I was a tad confused by your examples there, especially the C64 ones. I get the point about asset creation outside of Unity, but when much of the website is dedicated to their level editor, terrain sculptor/painter, shader writer (etc) you know people are going to purchase with the intention of putting those to good use. Heck, why not get your monies worth? I know I would. Thus, you'll find many, many games built in Unity which share certain similarites.
Also, while games don't have to be unique, certain development environments tend to breed certain types of games, because they attract (and are developed for) certain types of developers. As a few of the guys have mentioned above- if you want total control, Unity isn't the best platform, even though someone like yourself (who seems to have focused more on effect creation than games creation) has already declared it, "so much more powerful" than Blitz3D.
At the end of the day, just use whatever allows you to create what you have in mind. There's no 'more or less powerful', only more or less features.
more competitive compared with what please?
Aside from the free engines (which all suffer from lack of an easy to use help system), there is also DBPro/GSDK, Truevision, Torque, C4, 3Impact etc etc
..none of listed renderers are multiplatform except C4 while C4 has no physics included(maybe its changed, i havent check long time)....Torque is 'multiplatform' but you have to pay for it and Im quite sure it will not be easy to make it work as you expecting since Torque itself is torture to work with..and on the top of this story as i said, all of them are graphics engines, not exactly game engines...so, if you trying to compare all of them with flexibility of Unity and its multiplatform nature..you wrong already..I have it all, except Truevision, so,I cant see easy of use with it as I see in Unity...and again as a nice multiplatform solution, none of them can match Unity..
Agree with NA. The simplicity and and the intuitive workflow and art pipeline of Unity are dream ... And there is not much control you might be missing with Unity3D. Sure people who never used it might think its just another trash incarnation of 3DGS, Torque or C4 but once you used it you will see that there is a world of a difference. Unity compares from the toolset and workflow more to 5000-50000 USD engines than it does to the half baked "indie solutions" and beside Truevision3D its the only engine with a fully working fully flexible 3d engine fallback system. This means that Unity3D is able to run on highest end machines using highest end features but still running great on GMA900 boxes while not looking like an ugly brick. It even offers graphics emulation so you can checkout how it would look like (till down to Dino whatever dino was ^^ Only know the next above it which is the GeForce 2.
The same type of emulation you can do for the networking by the way (supports RPC and state syncronization)
And deployment with unity definitive is the simplest of all as your whole game will be created with a single click and even offers streamed web player deployment for larger games for example so first the "first needed data" get downloaded and while you watch intro and play level 1 it downloads the rest and the like. (and works with any browser IE, FF, Safari, Opera).
To me webdeployment most likely is the next generation of demoes of a game and an expansion route for games that have some persistent online functionality like browsergames have today
something you won't find on any other of those mentioned most likely is a working art asset pipeline. Worst case is Torque with its guaranteed broken art pipeline as GG gives a shit on making one. The talk a lot about their new cool stuff etc but you can bet that it will have an as broken art pipeline and without getting art in its just worthless as an enduser engine.
But others are not much better by offering a converter from a strange format to their own and the like instead of supporting a broad range of starts formats they import and convert internally and the like.
If you want a working technology, crossplattform and have OSX -> Unity3D
If you do not have OSX and want a broad compatibility you might end with Torque unless you write your own with OGRE, as Torque itself is pretty damn stable, has working editors and a powerfull script backend which easily can be extended through the C++ code. OSX compilation is as simple as just building the OSX project. Linux is not officially supported by GG, only by the community but that shouldn't worry that much its third priority platform anyway, compilation of the dedicated server if that is your interest is no problem on it :)
@MrTAToad
The only entry i can't speak for out of your so called "competitive" list would be Truevision but as far as i know this is not a complete gamedev tool, it's primary a rendering engine plus physics (newton 1.x?), some external editors and windows only.
For the rest, do you really think that any of these tools even comes close to Unity in terms of publishing options, stability and fallbacks, art pipeline, easyness of use, documentation and feedback from the developers?
The indie version is available for a very attractive price, just make a list and see what's provided in there. The only bad thing is that due to that Unity isn't available for Windows yet the Indie version is missig here and so if you're after Windows at least in terms of publishing you'll have to go for Pro, which compared to a $100 region is a lot more expensive.
Unity never wanted to play in the $100 region. Actually they wouldn't be able to pay their bills with it. Featurewise they more play in the $1000-$5000 region, and that's were they wanted to compete, against tools like Director, Virtools, ... Feel free to compare the product with such tools and you'll notice why also here it's the best which you can get if you're interestd in 3D.
You once owned a version of Unity and weren't comfortable with it, although i don't know if you were using 1.x or a 2.x licence for the time you've invested into it, i doubt that you really got a feeling for it. I use this product since the very beginning and still there is new stuff to be encountered.
It's fine if you don't need all this and you for sure can also make nice things with other tools, like for instance BlitzMax, but for the 3D sector i'm happy that due to testing my stuff also works on other systems and when problems show up i can talk to the developers and broken stuff get's fixed. In the end you get what you pay for.
Most people wont care about publishing options nor whether its multi-platform or not, and will just release programs for Windows.
Well, i do but anyway you're still missing all the other points.
Well you can release programs for windows:
Web Games with Indie already
Standalone games with Pro
And well, many people actually care about the publishing option. The reaction to the announced iPhone deployment showed that somehow.
Only ignorant developers ignore OSX as platform, simply because the Windows market is oversatisfied with trash and clicky games and many dumb users assuming to get everything for free where as the OSX users are normally more willing to pay a little for good work if they like it. And there just is less concurrence on OSX. nearly any game gets in the top 5 of apple.com
show me a similar simple way to broad promote a game on Windows without paying 5-10 times what unity pro costs.
Oh and not to forget that more professional teams with a Nintendo License can use Unity to deploy to wii ...
I do think the other options (apart from the freeware engines and C4) do provide better documentation and in most cases easy of use.
Hunting around for information in Unity wasn't easy.
*lol* May i ask when and which version you have used?
I agree that the help system could be improved but whilst saying so it's also not bad compared to other tools. Just in case you ever run into troubles again, this might help:
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http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/ Look, on one hand I can see what you're saying. On the other hand, I'm wondering just how much is hype talk. Have you actually sat down with Unity and developed a full game? I'm not talking about a teeny graphical test game. I'm talking about a large game which pushes all of the areas you're trying to sell Unity to everyone on- fallbacks, pipelines, etc. Things can look all dreamy on paper, but full-on game development is a minefield of difficulties which often require as much flexibility as possible.
"Only ignorant developers ignore OSX as platform"
Check the sales stats for games on the Mac- they're very low. Many guys I know of have stopped selling their games on the Mac because compared to their Windows sales they're like a drop in the pond.
Not games but serious stuff. If you argue from that direction i would be more afraid of the other tools.
But if you want to see some examples i'm sure you can find various games (online (for instance on shockwave.com and various indie sites) as well as offline (freeverse comes to my mind) on your own. I do have one link here on my desktop which is Splume (a physics Puzzle Bobble).
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http://splume.flashbangstudios.com/ Your stuff is great (I'd love to be as skilled as you are) but I will bring up the point that full game development is a whole other ballgame. While Unity does look great, I'll wait and see what kind of full games are produced (and what comments people have to make about the process, both before and after completion) before I start riding the hype machine.
>>I do think the other options (apart from the freeware engines and C4) do provide better documentation and in most cases easy of use.<<
I think you should go to Unity web site and check it out again :) whole game done, platformer, with source code, all media animations and so on, open for you to explore, as well as FPS game type, same thing, and chack it again documents :) Im sure you missed that part in Unity... :)
@Reactor
I suspect you're speaking out of experience again...
Its all well having examples, but you need informative descriptions of the functions and variables, how to use them and what they do.
May i ask when and which version you have used?
V1.6 if I remember correctly. I'm not going back to it for many reasons, one of which is I'm trying to sell my Mac...
Well, a lot has changed since then...
No doubt, but its not an experience I want to repeat.
You had problems with getting your money back from them or was there something else?
The long drawn-out refund process didn't help, but overall, it wasn't enjoyable experience.
"I suspect you're speaking out of experience again..."
Sorry, can you let me in on what that comment means... is it sarcasm, or...?
perhaps you were one of the reasons it now clearly points out that you don't get refunds as you have 30 days to try it out and can even request a Pro trial
I'm always a bit weary of editors that do too much for you on the game design front. Object placement is really handy, but I prefer something that has a good art pipeline that lets you export scenes straight from 3dsmax with most of the common user defined render related properties intact.
And just use the editor for final adding of gameplay and AI elements.
Having said that you can't beat a good particle editor, UI UI editor and some kind of realtime physics adjustment for taking some of the tedium out of otherwise tedious tasks.
I still think some things controls, gameplay, AI are better designed and custom coded yourself rather than using generic off the shelf components. Otherwise you end up with something like torque which is only really good for generic tribes type games with oldschool controls, and camera combined with a weak art pipeline.
Unity does seem to have bested torque from what I have seen of the demos. Not that thats hard with decent collisions and physics out the box.
I'm curious to see how Flow will turn out once it's ready for the Mac. By the way doesn't it also come with one of those scary game play destroying editors? ;O)
perhaps you were one of the reasons it now clearly points out that you don't get refunds as you have 30 days to try it out and can even request a Pro trial
You never know :)
heh, its not gameplay destroying. You have to code most of what you want it to do. But you can load an entire static scene complete with lighting, cameras and various ogre native scenemanager settings. Build heirarchies etc. But for the most part you have to use it like B3D. It's just easier to layout a scene visualy with 3dsmax like controls.
It does let you store simple user defined string/value=string/value type scripts on a per entity basis that flow will keep track of for you. But you still have to code your own actions to make use of them.
So its not really like torque, and I assume Unity is like torque but hopefully much more designed.
heh nice, I'll have to try some windows ones out :)
Nope, Unity is more like Director.
Heh cool, does look like a nice alternative for browser based games. I've seen some of the flash 3d engines people are using and the ammount of game dev contract jobs out there for flash games. Seems like a nice alternative :)
>>Unity does seem to have bested torque from what I have seen of the demos.<<
..I pray you joking here..
@Evak
I don't know why you only see it as an alternative for online games as you can also publish for standalones unless you prefer writing a game twice in app a for online and in app b for offline. If you're making a comparison with browser based 3d games you should better not compare it with Flash, as it only comes with external third party software rendering engines like for instance papervision which you a) need to install additionally and b) a.o. is lacking speed and quality due to that it's not hardware accelerated. The best you can compare it with would be tools like Director (shockwave), Virtools, Shiva, ...
Check the sales stats for games on the Mac- they're very low. Many guys I know of have stopped selling their games on the Mac because compared to their Windows sales they're like a drop in the pond.
That is because you need a Mac Pro if you want decent performance for a game. Out of Mac users, those with a Pro are in the minority.
All I meant is that I get lots of offers for online flash game contracts. Some for as much as $5000 - $10,000 which I turn down because its just not fun and I have no interest in learning something as primitive as papervision.
So I'd be interested in something like the unity/shockwave samples as an alternative. So if those same people wanting flash games would accept Unity instead it would be worthwhile.
Wouldn't really be interested in Unity for standalone I don't think, but for quick simple games with nice graphics maybe.
@Duffer
Hmm i've heard quite the opposite from more than just one developer. They're making more money with the Mac than with the Win version. I guess it strongly depends on the type of game you're doing. For instance, most of the games i've provided above work without any problems even on a Mini and therefore the market is much bigger.
@taumel
I rarely see an AAA title released for Mac. The same with really comprehensive indie titles aimed at diehard gamers.
The casual genre seems to do good on Macs, but much of the genre could be made without DX or OpenGL and they would run just as good on Mac or Windows. Its not like these match-three or hidden object games are remotely "cutting edge".
If only Adobe had re-fit Director 11 with new ways to access the DirectX 9 3D capabilities, sadly they didnt.
IPete2.
That is because you need a Mac Pro if you want decent performance for a game.
Completely and utterly wrong. Anything that doesn't use an internal Intel graphics system produces a very good performance - so thats iMacs and Mac Pro's
@Duffer
Won't Spore be released for the Mac too? iD stuff will run on it too, but therefore of course you need more than just a Mini for. My feeling is that in the future we'll see more releases for the Mac also of big games whilst they won't come close to the amount released for Windows. Casual stuff already is working well but the interesting thing in my opinion is the space between simple casual games and big games as this comes closer to the games we were used to play on the Amiga and they for sure play well on the Mac too. Tools such as Unity and BlitzMax perfectly make sense for such games. By the way Neverwinter Nights is working here on My Mini well too. :O)
A thing which comes up to my mind when talking about this is that i find the desire and argumentation regarding AAA technology and big games really surprising when i'm looking at the majority of the releases here.
@IPete2
I think featurewise Dir11 is okayish (Ageia, OSX Intel support, the project enhancements in the IDE) but it really lacks in terms of quality, this is more a open beta and i'm dissapointed that they dare to release it in this state. Director still is a cool tool but for mainly 3D work i wouldn't recommend it when there is Unity as an alternative. Dir12 (after a bugfixed version of 11) could be interesting in respect of 3D again, fingers crossed.
The only thing is that Unity isn't standing still and whilst we're talking the next version is always winking and will come with lot's of further enhancements. That's why i often can't follow the argumentation of some people that Unity isn't a good tool and once there is a win version around more people will try it out and very likely will use it because it's just so much better than a lot of the rest.
Completely and utterly wrong.
Indeed it is. The new line of iMacs all have ATI chips :c) I need to keep up to date, huh ;c)
I've said this before, but I really dislike this 'best' term. If a matchstick and a potato is going to help you best make your dream game, then that is 'the best' for you. Some people just don't like Unity for one reason or another. It doesn't matter how many features it has- it's not going to be right for everyone, no matter how many awesum features it has. That's not so difficult to understand.
Of course there is nothing wrong with this, use whatever pleases you but it just can get a bit weird if people keep on stating things which are just wrong, may it be because they don't know it better or for whatever reason. Beside of everyone's else subjective views such tools also have objective and measureable components like for instance how many triangles they can push and so on, so something like what's best is quite vaild when you're looking at features of a certain technology. If this then also is the best for you is open up to you.
Fair enough...
No, not all Macs have ATI cards - some have nVidia ones.
need to keep up to date, huh ;c)
Yes, you do. :)
One problem for sure is that at least in my opinion Unity Technologies advertises it's product way too glorious, it's hard to find a passage without superlatives and sadly they also couldn't resist using this style sometimes in the docs. Some people get more suspicous about a product then but surprisingly the majority seems to buy it. So because of this it can get lost that the product is indeed good, not as good as they want you to believe but still good.
One problem for sure is that at least in my opinion Unity Technologies advertises it's product way too glorious
It does make you think twice doesn't it?
No, not all Macs have ATI cards
Didn't say they did. But iMacs listed on the Apple site were all ATI.
..yes..it does, so go for torque..
@Duffer
If you're after getting something done in 3d it's very likely that you won't regret using Unity. As for torque i rather would stop doing 3d before i must use it
I'm with taumel. Torque goes a long way to putting me off of game development entirely. Mainly because the art pipeline is incredibly weak, convoluted and limiting.
What modern engine with shaders only offers 1 UV channel!!! Only Torque Game Engine Advanced. So no way to use anything but CSG, BSP and get lightmaps etc.
Even though they have polysoup collisions for their regular geometry format now, you can't create anything that looks good because you can't do multitexturing with 2 UVmaps, so no tiling on structures and mesh based scenery. No lightmapping or ambient occlusion maps. So limited multitexturing even with shaders!!
Garage games seem to be a lot worse than unity at overstating the features and capabilities of their two 3D engines. Maybe Torque 2 will fix some of these engines. Seems like thay have about 5 or so seperate engines these day.
If they spent more time focusing on one and fixing the glaring issues like poor art pipeline, weak collisions, poor physics, basic non skinnable selection of UI Widgets and a buggy map to DIF compiler, along with a geometry format that is almost 10 years old with few improvements.
There is much better out there than torque unless you need a quick generic MP FPS game.
Garage Games does seem to be getting better slowly now that the founders have stepped asside and let new blood take hold of the reins somewhat.
As for a next Torque version i have no idea how their development ressources are split up but they for sure invest quite some effort into their gaming portal Instant Action (
http://www.instantaction.com/ ) and the underlying technology. As most of the time in the gaming industry they wanted this baby running already months ago.
GG not only seems to be a lot worse they are. They sold TGEA in 1.0 state with a long list of features where over 50% where not met and some of them are not even met with the 1.7. They naturally removed the original page so no refund claims could be made based on it, but at least I have a fully backup of the TGEA page from back then in case they don't get the problems solved soon. I've given them now nearly 15 months to get TGEA into the state it was advertised and sold at 1.0 and before and payed 145 USD EA Price for it which is actually the same price as now.
I own all Torque Engines actually and all work more or less as advertised (the less part is DX8 on TGE and TGB, as it is just a trashy call redirection wrapper for OpenGL) beside beside TGEA.
TGEA is a massive half baked solution. It has great potential but only if GG starts to focus on it instead of spreading their efforts on 3 technologies with their too restricted resources. (TX, TGEA, T2)
UT surely has a tendency for superlative-advertisement but in the end more or less everything is really similar to how advertised, not completely different!
And so far, just to mention that, nobody got ass kicked for advertisement claims that were never held, otherwise Josh wouldn't sell a single license of 3DWS (CS 5) or his engine, as he has the clear tendency to drop technology when he struggles over bugs which are complex to fix, he just redoes it (CS2 -> CS3 -> CS4 and it seams like his engine is continuing this way as he drops V1 of the engine for an even less compatible V2)
I would agree about 3D World Studio. It's one of the reasons I'm not considering the Leadwerks engine.
..whats actual problem with Leadverks system anyway??
Compatibility and unfinished. He does not continue to work on it but replace it with an engine thats an even worse system requirement wise than the old one.
He seems to have lost track for who the engine is meant ... because in the end its for no one.
Indie/Casual: Would need support low end systems, not present
AAA: Would need to scale upwards and fallback, not present
In the end its a tech demo for what can be done with todays systems but you most likely won't be able to develop anything for any potentially userbase as there is no userbase with 8600GT+ upwards only, not even EA and Ubisoft can afford that.
This engine would only have a right to exist when it would target PS3 and XBox 360, but not on PC
And to come back to the topic: this is one of the sectors in which Unity shines! It runs great as well on my 1.5Ghz P-M ULV with GMA 900 as it does on my C2D 2x3.2Ghz, 8800GTS, Raid 0
Only thing I was aware of was that it was pixel shader 3.0 only because he wanted to unify the lighting and shadows into one efficient next gen technology and cut out everything else. As a result cutting his source back to half the size and making the engine easier to work on.
I know he used to be primarily Nvidia, but saw he just recieved a big package from ATI presumably for free with a bunch of their new hardware in :).
I don't know if there's anything 'wrong' with the system (aside from a much needed undo in 3DWS, and some scalability to the engine) but my personal issue is with what Josh decides to work on and what he doesn't. I purchased 3DWS partly because I was led to believe there'd be an upgrade to version 6 made cheaper for those who owned version 5 fairly shortly afterwards, but it seems Josh has changed his mind and now... well, who knows? I have no idea when version 6 is due, but it certainly doesn't seem to be soon. Josh doesn't seem to want to comment, and from what I've heard, if Josh does decide to work on 3DWS 6, it'll mostly be designed for his engine and not much else.
My issue with the Leadwerks engine then is- who the heck would pay for something which has that kind of support? I certainly won't. An engine can be the most featured in the world, but without solid support, it's just not worth looking at... especially when for the most part it's untested.
As I said, there's nothing exactly wrong with Leadwerks and the associated products (3DWS works as advertised)- it's more than Josh just isn't the kind of guy I'd rely on to see development in the future, because he seems to change his mind and attitude too much. If Josh would like to correct or comment on what I've said here- awesome. If not, that's my take on it.
@Dreamora
Well, according their advertisement style partly it's a matter of taste and partly it's just not this true. The perfect vendor i would have in mind would deliver great technology i do need and can afford with just a little bit more understatement (the truth is between BRL and UT). I've seen that quite some long year experienced developers also were kind of supicious about Unity because everything just sounds too shiny and there are also examples were their advertisement doesn't fit into the reality like for instance calling the in Unity used physics engine the fastest one. Everyone who has used a more up to date version of Havok should know that it's more feature complete and faster than PhysX. Not that the physics inside Unity are slow or bad (beside of the lack of stuff like soft bodies, concave hull collisions, ...) but it's just a bit too much and when you're reading through the site this can add up quite a bit.
I guess you can compare this to cases which are a lot worse than Unity but you can also find cases were things are more discreet advertised. I do not come from these $100 one man show products, i'm more from the Adobe tool direction and so i might see it in a different light.
I generally see hard times for one man shows who want to write and sell their own general purpose 3d engines because it's just so much work and you need a lot of knowledge in certain areas to just get it right and beeing able coming up with a convincing solution which really works in a real world scenario. I can see this working for an engine which is written for a game but a general purpose engine is just something completely different.
So it either will take you ages or you'll end up writing kind of a wrapper and adding some on top functionality around an opensource engine. A clear advantage for a vendor whichs dev-team is not only one person as they can progress a lot faster.
But i'm still curious to see what Mark one day will come up with and how long it will take him to get it in a stable and pleasing state. One advantage he has is that he's doing these things since quite some time and for sure has a feeling for which features are important and which are not in order to restrict himself and still coming up with something useful which people can enjoy the next years.
I doubt that from the features, the performance, the fallbacks or the supported gfx chips it will play in the same league as Unity's 3d engine but as said before it still could be fun to work with, i somehow trust him on the features selection side. Unity is and in the future will be even more strong on the gfx side as they take the gfx serious. Personally i find that there is quite some stuff inside which i don't need whilst a few things i would love to see are still missing, so the balancing is not perfect for me but in the end as said already more than once before, it's the best you can get today.
Well I guess IF PhysX wouldn't be within the top level of the physics engines, UT3 wouldn't use it and NVIDIA wouldn't have put a whole team on porting PhysX to CUDA which then more or less will guarantee it is more than fast enough and its worlds cheaper than Havoc.
Havoc costs a little more than nothing for freeware and 50k per released title, not talking about HavocFX
The main problem with the UT advertisement to me is their missing precision on what it does, what not and what on Indie or only on Pro. It leaves quite some room for own interpretations. But as lacking as those part might be they are fast and helpfull on the board on answering such questions or if you ask them through mail and you can get fully working trials for both license types.
PhysX is okay but Havok is just better (and more expensive). I wonder how further development of PhysX will be handeled beside of CUDA implementation.