The Awesomeness of Unity

[wilco64256]

This qualifies as being gaming related and there's an ongoing discussion about it so I'm putting this thread here.

Unity is quite possibly the best development engine that has ever existing in the gaming industry.  To say that I've started to like it a bit is the understatement of the century.  I had my doubts about it at first, there's no denying that, but I honestly think that any company that isn't using this engine or something very similar within a couple of years is going to be regretting it.  Here's why I think that's the case:

1.  Unity ports native-run versions of games to PC, Mac, iOS systems (iPad, iPhone, etc.), Wii, 360, and PS3 with really minimal effort.  If I set up my code properly to begin with, I can build 6 different versions of the same game to run on 6 totally different platforms in less than half an hour.  Building the same game to run on different platforms usually takes a company a number of different people and all kinds of time for coding adjustments and so forth.

2.  The Unity development team is very open to suggestions for improvement and enhancements.  I spent a long while with these guys at GDC talking specifically about things we'd like to see their engine be capable of doing.  Super nice folks.

3.  If you make something that works with the Unity engine and want to share with other people you can sell it directly through the Unity Asset store and make money.  I plan to do this with a couple of things I'm currently working on for Phoenix.

4.  The total and utter simplicity of the thing.  At first this had me extremely nervous because it seemed far too simple.  Bad conclusion for me to draw - the simplicity of the engine setup actually enables Unity to handle extremely complex code on a really simplified level so it loads and processes things much faster.  The whole scripting setup is just brilliant and super straightforward.  There is a brief learning curve if you're used to coding things to death in other engines, but once you get used to it life gets so much easier.

5.  I'll stop at this one - best free version of a development engine I've ever seen.  The basic version of Unity is free forever and it does like 97% of the stuff that the Pro Version does.  If you're a really small developer you could totally make full games using just the basic version no problem.  And the basic version still builds PC and Mac versions of games totally and completely free.

[dark-daventry]

This is quite insightful to read. Having very minimal (and failing) knowledge of programming to begin with, I likely wouldn't be able to use the engine on the level that everyone else does, but it sounds powerful. I can't wait to see the results of Phoenix's work with the engine, be it through an internal showing or public showing. I'm very excited about the future now!

[drunkenmonkey]

I've picked up a few of the best Unity books and am working through the examples and tutorials. Some features are similar to torque and flash. It should be easy for me to get my head around it. Game companies are now looking for people who know how to use Unity. You can still do more advanced stuff with torque 3D, but it is true many people wont know how. The trend appears to be with unity. I'll let you know how I'm getting on.

[MusicallyInspired]

Never heard of it.







  

[wilco64256]

Yeah T3D is still a bit more powerful in some areas but Unity is catching up in a huge hurry and all kinds of companies are making the switch to Unity in a growing rush.  Every developer I talked to at GDC was either already in the process of learning Unity or was at least looking for people who knew how to use it.

No surprise that you haven't heard of it MI, it's still relatively new in the industry but it's taking everything by storm in a major hurry.

[dark-daventry]

Yeah T3D is still a bit more powerful in some areas but Unity is catching up in a huge hurry and all kinds of companies are making the switch to Unity in a growing rush.  Every developer I talked to at GDC was either already in the process of learning Unity or was at least looking for people who knew how to use it.

No surprise that you haven't heard of it MI, it's still relatively new in the industry but it's taking everything by storm in a major hurry.

Something like that only happens if it's good, too. People don't just switch engines because they can; they switch because the engine they're switching to is good. And from what Weldon's been saying, it seems like Unity is one powerful, yet easy to use, engine. I can't wait to see the stuff Phoenix cranks out for it!

[Blackthorne]

http://unity3d.com/

There's the website, for anyone who's interested.


Bt

[Sir Perceval of Daventry]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exy5vA22chs

I enjoy Unity myself. A classic tune and a rare tender moment from the infamously psychotic Rick James.

Unity,
Brothers and sister's there's got to be...Unity
Yeah
Unity
Unity's what missing in our lives....Can't you see?
We need love...A little word of confidance
A little honesty and trusty among us
A little love and harmony and there's so little
Unity

[darthkiwi]

I've picked up a few of the best Unity books

Ooh, ooh! Could you point me in the direction of these books? I wanted to learn Unity last summer but got turned off because I'd need to learn C and there didn't seem to be a comprehensive tutorial system. If there are books on how to learn it, I'd feel like I could just work my way through them and know that I'd have a lot of knowledge by the time I was done.

[drunkenmonkey]

I've picked up a few of the best Unity books

Ooh, ooh! Could you point me in the direction of these books? I wanted to learn Unity last summer but got turned off because I'd need to learn C and there didn't seem to be a comprehensive tutorial system. If there are books on how to learn it, I'd feel like I could just work my way through them and know that I'd have a lot of knowledge by the time I was done.

These are the books you want:

http://www.amazon.com/Game-Development-Unity-Michelle-Menard/dp/1435456580/
http://www.amazon.com/Unity-Game-Development-Essentials-Goldstone/dp/184719818X/
http://www.amazon.com/Unity-Development-Example-Beginners-Guide/dp/1849690545/
http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-3D-Game-Development-Unity/dp/1430234229/

[wilco64256]

You actually don't need to do any programming in C at all with Unity - you can use C# Boo or Javascript to do all your coding.  Most people use Javascript as it does all the porting the most nicely.  O'Reilly makes a good Unity tutorial book and the Unity website itself has some awesome tutorials too.

[dark-daventry]

I feel like I could learn javascript, but after my complete and utter failure at ActionScript, I'm not taking any chances... Is Javascript anything like ActionScript? If I had the right teacher with a decent amount of patience, perhaps I would have a decent shot at learning it. The only programming experience I have is with HTML and CSS, and that was the bare bone basics back like five or six years ago. In that time, both languages have changed significantly and gotten more and more complex. Perhaps you could teach me a little bit, Weldon. You're an expert on this stuff anyway.

[snabbott]

It sounds like JavaScript and ActionScript are similar. Can you still use JavaScript in iPhone applications? I was thinking those had to be written in C.

[drunkenmonkey]

It sounds like JavaScript and ActionScript are similar. Can you still use JavaScript in iPhone applications? I was thinking those had to be written in C.

Sorry, I think you guys need to learn the basics of coding before asking for help.

[wilco64256]

Well this is just a general discussion thread so it's alright here.

Applications for iOS devices can be written (from what I understand at least) in C, C++ or Javascript.  Javascript is accessed so widely on so many different devices that it's actually a very convenient coding language for multi-platform releases.

[Sslaxx]

Now Unity looks to be officially supporting Linux, you may have one more customer here!

[wilco64256]

Yeah they mentioned this to me when we were talking about where they see their engine going in the future at GDC, but it definitely isn't my place to be the spoiler on stuff like that.

[dark-daventry]

Well, now that Linux is supported, we may yet see a linux native version of some of our future games after all!

[drunkenmonkey]

When I said you need to be a good coder, that's not necessarily true with Unity. Programs like Torque and Unity are on the authoring tool side of things, meaning things can be accomplished with the user interface with minimum knowledge of coding. 3D modeling plays a greater role and placement of objects in 3D worlds are made simple. That's not to say there aren't things that need to be learned about the engine, but maybe the days of building something with code and classes from the ground up and running it to see how it looks visually are a thing of the past.

[dark-daventry]

When I said you need to be a good coder, that's not necessarily true with Unity. Programs like Torque and Unity are on the authoring tool side of things, meaning things can be accomplished with the user interface with minimum knowledge of coding. 3D modeling plays a greater role and placement of objects in 3D worlds are made simple. That's not to say there aren't things that need to be learned about the engine, but maybe the days of building something with code and classes from the ground up and running it to see how it looks visually are a thing of the past.

While that may be true, I imagine having a basic knowledge of coding (which I sadly lack) would greatly benefit coders and game-designers and anyone else who may be using the engines.