
Unity 4 is here - dysoco
http://unity3d.com/promo/unity4/
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ljmeijer
disclaimer: I spent the last three years making Unity.

You can share code between projects by having seperate visualstudio projects
that create a managed library. just put the managed library into your
assetsfolder. it live reloads as smoothly as when you edit just one script.

While I'll be the first to admit that we have some things that you can
consider basic that don't work as well as they could yet, the perspective from
inside the development team is that we have an enormous focus on improving
what we have, and do not do "jump on new feature, and quickly move on and
forget about it".

@reitzensteinm, We would love to fix your crash! If it happens in Unity4 as
well, it would be great if you could file a bug, or give us some way to
reproduce the problem. While we think using our serialization system makes a
lot of sense for most games, we will always support people wanting to do
things in their own way, and serializing your data with json should not be a
problem. obviously, you crash and there is a problem, so we'd love to get our
hands on that and fix it!

Bye, Lucas Meijer

~~~
acgourley
Is there a similar solution for mono develop / OSX? Common libraries remain
one of our largest pain points. We tried git repos but it broke down
constantly. Currently are using a series of scripts that copy files or create
symlinks when needed.

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reitzensteinm
Lots of impressive headline features. DirectX 11, detailed animation system,
Linux support.

The trouble is, these come at the expense of the basics. Not so impressive is
that the only supported method for sharing code between projects is _copy and
paste_.

The engine is six years old. I'm not kidding.

Unfortunately, frustrations like that are common. I adopted Unity expecting to
be there for the next few years at least; however my experience has been
lukewarm.

It's a shame, because it could be a _fantastic_ engine if they'd concentrate
on polishing what they've got. But I don't get the impression that's the
roadmap.

[http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/148393-Unity-4-removes-
supp...](http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/148393-Unity-4-removes-support-for-
symlinks-on-Windows-listed-as-quot-improvement-quot)

~~~
julius
On the other hand, Unity has implemented some basics, which are a real time
sink in other engines, outstandingly well.

Lets compare the coding workflow in Unreal Engine 3 and Unity 3:

In UE3 you play the game, find something you want to change. So you shutdown
the Game/Editor and go to the code. You code in some immature language called
UnrealScript (I think there is a complicated way to use C++ too). Then you
compile. Then you startup the Game/Editor again (this is slow).

In Unity you find something you want to change. Alt-Tab to your Code Editor.
Change C#/Javascript code. Alt-Tab back to the game, recompiling the code and
loading it into the currently running game is automatic and takes about 1-2
seconds.

Also the engine APIs are one of the best software designs I've seen in a long
time.

~~~
reitzensteinm
On the other, other hand, if you don't use their serialization system (I
prefer to stick with json), automatic reloading of the code causes a hard
crash as your objects have been incorrectly reloaded.

And, naturally, there's no way to turn it off. Strictly speaking there is but
it requires restart of _Unity_ , not just the game, to reload code. Which is
basically the UE3 workflow you describe.

You're right though; there are quite a lot of good parts of Unity - which is
why I'm sticking around for now.

But I stand by my assertion that their focus on headline features is
troubling.

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kayoone
I am an ex Web developer who got into game programming with Unity over the
last 3 years. Its been amazing, i have learned a ton by using C# and actually
needing to apply Math knowledge to a real world project. Unity is awesome but
also has some issues, but as i havent really worked with the other big
engines, i guess these have similar issues.

* Version control is a pain. We used Git (with Github) all the time but unitys meta files like to screw things up from time to time. Unity also uses alot of binary files (eg. prefabs) that could easily be replaced by some kind of JSON based format, making version control much easier

* its not cheap. If you want to use their killer multi platform features you will need licences for all platforms per seat, which adds up to quite a lot if you have several developers. When they release a new major version once a year, you will need to upgrade all your licenses (granted for a reduced price). Its a nice customer lock-in...

* its not very stable. At least under Windows it crashes alot on big projects

~~~
skittlebrau
Project Settings/Editor/Asset Serialization/Force Text. I think this might be
pro-only though.

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robbyishere
Ever since unbuntu ruined their desktop with the same brand name, I flinch a
little everytime I hear the word

~~~
Aardwolf
By the time Unity for Ubuntu reaches version 4, it will include the following
features:

-the ability to launch a command line will be gone, because the command line could allow accidental damage to your system

-it will not be possible to minimize or maximize windows (if you can still call what they have turned it into "windows"), those buttons will instead have been replaced by a shopping basket, and a helper assistant button, respectively

-because top left is not exotic enough, the window close button will now be in the bottom left

-launching more than one window of the same application will not work because this is confusing

-the menu of a program will be on the right side of the screen. You'll have to hover the mouse there first, then wait for a list of helpful suggestions to slide into view, scroll through it with an awesome fluent scrolling animation, and then finally at the end will be the menu options.

-the file system is abstracted away. Directories are confusing, so the concept of directories is hidden. Instead it presents the files as if they're in one large "basket". Extensions won't be shown because those, too, are not understood very well by most users.

-the scrollwheel, middle and right mouse button, and keyboard shortcuts, are ignored, to unify the desktop better with touch interfaces of mobile devices

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mixmastamyk
Looks like fun. I've heard game development (for an employer) is quite the
sweatshop though. What are the employment prospects and expected salary for
someone proficient in this software?

Also, wondering if there any competitive open source game engines to aide in
learning.

~~~
swivelmaster
I can definitively say that where I work, at EA All Play's Sacramento studio,
is not a sweatshop. We encourage eight hour days (plus lunch break, however
long that ends up being), and every Friday afternoon there is free beer and
fun presentations to end the week.

Right now, though, our only programming openings are for Java server
engineers. Sorry.

I do recommend learning Unity though, if that's what you're interested in. As
Unity improves, its easy cross-platform deployment becomes more and more
attractive to larger companies.

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dave1010uk
Anyone know if Unity has any plans to support WebGL?

~~~
dualogy
WebGL would be extremely tricky for them -- they'd first have to port their
OpenGL render pipeline to JavaScript, which would be "doable I guess"
especially since they could just port their GL ES (mobile) render paths,
that's mostly identical to WebGL. But they'd also have to port their entire
runtime library to JS, which would exceed a major rewrite in terms of effort I
believe. And then they're calling .NET / Mono APIs everywhere in their own
runtime/core code, I'm sure. And then there's the thousands of Unity projects
out there calling said APIs. And then, and then, and then...

Next, asset loading but since you're on the web, ideally you'd have smarter
on-demand streaming of compressed assets, rather than a 10-minute-long
"Loading Game Assets" splash-screen page...

Next, user code. Uh-oh... I give up.

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Ygg2
Does anyone know if they updated their default GUI elements (they were pretty
rudimental in v3), so you don't need to use custom GUI elements?

~~~
vignesh_vs_in
They are planning the GUI update for the later 4.x releases. At-least that's
what i could guess from the forums.

~~~
mjn
Here's a blog post on the upcoming GUI-system revamp, from earlier in the
year: <http://blogs.unity3d.com/2012/06/29/the-new-gui/>

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Yuioup
I just ran a 32-bit build of "Angry Bots" for Linux on my Windows machine. It
ran flawlessly on Linux machine (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS).

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BaconJuice
I love the scroll effect on the header of this website, gives it a depth
perspective. Very cool stuff...off topic I know, just wanted to mention it =P

~~~
dave5104
It's called parallax scrolling, just as an fyi. :) (I learned the term myself
not too long ago, so I get excited to use it when I can, haha.)

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rplnt
Anyone knows how much the upgrade costs? Can't find it without login which I
don't posses at the moment.

~~~
schnelle
$750 for pro license and $125 each for iOS / Android

~~~
matthew-wegner
$125 is for upgrading "basic" iOS/Android. Pro upgrade is $750 for each.
License comparison chart is here: <http://unity3d.com/unity/licenses>

Edit: Note that it _is_ possible to upgrade just your Unity 4 Pro license
_without_ upgrading the individual platforms. For instance, I have Pro
iPhone/Android licenses, but currently working on a PC/Mac game, so I upgraded
my Unity 4 Pro license and left the platforms for a later upgrade.

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JiPi
I would be curious to see how Ouya will fit in there, yes Android is
supported, but at what point will Ouya be supported or not by Unity 4?

~~~
potatolicious
Presumably after they show some signs of actually shipping the thing.

Yes, yes, I'm a curmudgeony and perennial Kickstarter skeptic - but what other
stance can you take when a team that has never shipped any consumer
electronics before promise to ship a profoundly game-changing piece of
hardware on an extraordinarily aggressive schedule, at a shockingly low price?

~~~
bryanlarsen
The price is realistic: [http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/pages/Low-End-
Google-N...](http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/pages/Low-End-Google-
Nexus-7-Carries-$157-BOM-Teardown-Reveals.aspx) gives a BOM cost for the Ouya
sans controller at around $75. Add a year's worth of deflation, and it should
be around $50. No, they're not making any profit at $99, but they hope to make
that up on game sales and later sales to those who missed the Kickstarter. The
point is that they're not losing money. A normal manufacturer would have to
spend millions in advertising to get the exposure Ouya did.

The only thing that's hard about the schedule is that they're a new
manufacturer and need to build relationships with all of their suppliers.
NVidia would have given them a reference design that they could almost use
unchanged.

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mtgx
No OpenGL support at all? Isn't Unity used for mobile games, too?

~~~
octopus
On Windows Unity uses DirectX.

On iOS and Android OpenGL ES.

On Linux and Mac OpenGL.

------
negativity
...and oh, how we wish it wasn't.

~~~
hayksaakian
This has got to be the lightest gray comment I've ever seen.

