Official 2017.1 released

Download | Torrent | Release Notes | Blog Post | Docs | Patch Releases​

Unity 2017.1 is now available on the download page (or as a torrent) and read the release notes.
Read the blog post for full details.

This release includes our new artist tools:

• Timeline - create cutscenes, create gameplay sequences, and much more, by orchestrating your game objects, animations, sounds and scenes
• Cinemachine - a suite of smart cameras that dynamically trigger the best shots at the best time based on scene composition and interaction
• Post-processing stack (beta) - use image post-processing effects to simulate physical camera and film properties

Productivity improvements to the editor include FBX import, animation workflows, 2D functionality, working with assets bundles and Visual Studio integration.


2D features & improvements:

• 2D Sprite Atlas - it comes with new and improved workflows that give you more control for packing sprites and using them at runtime
• Sprite masks - used to either hide or reveal parts of a Sprite or group of Sprites in world space
• Sprite Physics Shape - this has been added to the Sprite Editor and allows users to set a custom default shape on a Sprite for generating collider shapes with a PolygonCollider2D

Animation improvements:

• New keyframing workflow
• Statemachinebehaviour can now also be debugged in play mode in the editor
• GameObjectRecorder is a new experimental editor feature which allows you to record any properties on a GameObject and its children

Playables API:

• Provides a way to create tools, effects or other gameplay mechanisms by organizing and evaluating data sources in a tree-like structure known as the PlayableGraph
• PlayableGraph - allows you to mix, blend, and modify multiple data sources, and play them through a single output

Ambisonic audio:

• The full-sphere surround sound technique which also covers sound sources above and below the listener

Asset Bundle browser:

• Enables you to view and edit the configuration of Asset Bundles for your Unity project
• Intended to replace the current workflow of selecting assets and setting your Asset Bundle manually in the inspector so you now are able to view all Asset Bundle configurations in one centralized location

Scripting Runtime experimental upgrade:

• C#6 and .NET 4.6
• IL2CPP fully supports the new .NET 4.6 APIs, so you still get the benefits of writing in C# and getting performance of native C++

Model importer improvements:

• Digital Content Creation workflow has been made easier with the first set of significant improvements in the process of importing assets from popular DCC tools like Maya
• FBX import in Unity now supports Segment Scale compensation for models exported from Maya and the FBX SDK has been upgraded to 2016.1.2

Progressive lightmapper:

• Added support for baked LODs - it will now not be necessary to author Light Probes around the LODs to get bounced light on them
• Added support for double-sided materials in the Progressive Lightmapper by adding a new material setting that causes lighting to interact with backfaces

Realtime shadow improvements:

• Optimised the culling of shadows casters for cascaded directional light in stable mode
• Shadowmask and distance shadowmask light modes are now a Quality Setting and they can be changed at runtime without any cost
• Added the Custom Render Textures as an extension to Render Textures, which allows you to easily update said texture with a shader

Particle System improvements:

• Support for using Sprites in the Particle System via the Texture Sheet Animation Module
• Noise Module comes with new options to provide greater control over how the noise is applied to your particles
• New donut emission shape and edit modes for Particle system collision mode planes in the Shape Module
• Particles can now apply forces to the Colliders they hit using the Collision module

2017.1 also introduces Unity Teams (which includes Collaborate and Cloud Build), live-ops Analytics and more. Read about it all on the blog post.


Remember to back up your projects before downloading the latest version of Unity and check out the release notes. If you encounter any issues, please let us know by submitting a bug report so it can reach our developers. Future patch releases for fixes will be found here.

Thanks again to all the users who helped with testing and giving us feedback on 2017.1 while it was in beta! Notice that we’ve locked the 2017.1 beta forum, so please create your new threads in the appropriate sections of the Forum. We've also released the 2017.2 beta, so head over to the 2017.2 beta forum if you want to participate in the discussions.

 

annnd... no new terrain system

 

Great work on the new release, features and bugfixes!

 

Previously and at the Unite roadmap session it was implied that no new terrain system is coming for a long time. Based on them and in the general progress of these no detailed announcements there wont be even experimental versions until mid-late 2018.

 

Lets see what the community find with this release...
I hope some more clarity on things going forward and updated patch blog post..

 

I feel. However, I am quite impressed with the C# 6.0 and .NET 4.6. It took forever for a Scripting Run time upgrade.

About terrain though, I feel that should be like at the top of their priority list. You shouldn't have to buy a 3rd party asset to have a good terrain system.

 

Nice job. thanks. we are waiting for 2017.2.

 

Awesome features!

Any plan to include a new accelerator pack?

 

Amazing! As always, you are moving technologies forward! Great job, Unity! Thanks for your efforts!

 

Sweet, Well played guys. I'm so excited for the new C# 6.0 and .NET 4.6 upgrades, hopefully you guys can get this version out of the experimental phase and move onto C# 7.0, Rosyln, and .NET Core! Great work guys!

 

So much work done... yet nothing on the TrailRenderer

 

Unity Editor Test runner results not written in 2017.1?

 

Hi @SaraCecilia, just a heads up that the download archive page isn't yet listing all the download links for 2017.1.0, it is only listing the Torrent download links.

 

Good stuff... gonna wait a bit to see if assets like UFE will work with this... I plan on making use of features like timeline to animate stuff for my characters. Could I save out animation clips from Timeline and use them in the game? That ALONE is a powerful feature. And I am hoping that the overexposure issue I am running into is fixed with the PL

 

Trying to use C# 6 features by trying out the null operator, but Visual Studio is giving me error messages. It compiles fine in Unity though. It seems like the language version in the VS project is incorrectly set, and I can't find a way to set it. Bringing up the project properties, as suggested by the internet, doesn't seem to work. VS just flickers for a moment.

 

Great that it's out. Hope this release doesn't have massive regressions!

@SunnySunshine, don't actually do that on UnityEngine.Object stuff.
Deleting the .sln file and .csproj files generally fixes editors not understanding which C# version they're supposed to be using.

 

can not find this feather is so cool!
But,what i can do !please help!thanks.........

"Real-time shadow improvements"
https://blogs.unity3d.com/2017/07/11/introducing-unity-2017/?-1478807591.1495098831

We have optimised the culling of shadows casters for cascaded directional light in stable mode. "i can't find stable mode,help me!"

Meaning fewer draw calls are issued to generate shadow maps. The gain is scene and configuration-dependent. With four cascades, for example, we have seen the number of draw calls dropped by a significant amount. Based on the sun/camera direction, there could be 50% less shadow casters on your scene. An example in Viking village:

In Unity 5.6, there are 5718 shadows casters in the scene.

In Unity 2017.1, there are only 4807 shadows casters in the same scene.

Percentage Closer Filtering (PCF) for real-time shadows is also implemented in 2017.1. Depth value for each pixel is sampled from the shadow map around the current pixel and its depth is compared to all the samples. This allows a smoother line between light and shadow. You can see the comparison in the gif below:

 

Sweet

 

When will direct link be published?
I can only see Torrent references.
We can't install it from command line until than.

See https://github.com/sttz/install-unity/issues/9# for more.

 

As per https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/system-numerics-missing-in-2017-1f3.482727/ ... are there any other steps to getting 4.6 to 'work' ? System.Numerics was added in 4, seems to be awol still after selecting 4.6 in player settings.

 

It was integrated to the standard install over a year ago (IIRC)

 

does the newest version work with ar kit?

 

Hi.

I just built my game on Unity 2017.1 and apparently the compression is not as good as Unity 5.6.2 on Android.
But the scenes load much more faster.

Comparison:
Unity 5.6.2 = 88Mb - Loading Scene ~ 12 sec
Unity 2017.1 = 95Mb - Loading Scene ~ 4 sec

It is not a big difference for the size but on mobile it can be a problem later.

Anyone else has the same result ?
Is there a way to choose the compression algorithm for the APK ?

 

Hope we aren't rushing through things here. I reported two bugs under 2017.1 beta and as far as I know neither has actually been fixed.

 

Wow that's some significant loading improvement!

Are you loading a lot of prefabs? I noted some Android prefab loading performance improvements in the release notes!

 

"PCSS" shadow features?
"Percentage Closer Filtering (PCF) for real-time shadows is also implemented in 2017.1"

 

I tried deleting those files, and changing the code to this. Still the same issue.

 

I finally got 2017 running now I can't find the post processing stack... is it under something new?

 

Just a gentle reminder to everyone with issues: please file bug reports so it can reach our teams. Same goes for any queries that would be better suited as new threads in more specific forums - our devs are active in the forums within their areas.

 

cool to have PCF on a clunky terrain.

 

ya, in the times of full 3D games over various platforms, i'm sad unity seems to be good at 2D games mostly
just makes Unity awesome versatility completely useless

 

my feelings about unity with no decent terrain system

 

Yeah, I know how that feels (no terrains, no decent multiplayer, performance issues, bugs, no AAA quality with decent performance like other engines) but we need to have faith in Unity.

Well for maps you can try http://www.world-creator.com/ is very powerfull and the developers are very active.


Regards.-

 

Hello, I have a question about changes in display quality. I'm testing standalone app and I have lower resolution than is native display. Resolution is 1280x720 and you can see noticed difference. Previous version of unity make screen more smoother (bottom), new 2017.1.0f3 (on top) make it more pixelated. This is very
uncomfortable for eyes (pixel flickering) when camera is moving. How can i solve this please? This problem is in every project. Thank you very much!

 

I can't submit a bug reports as my project is too big (27gigs), but here is the issue that I have with the MatchTarget in unity 2017.1:
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/matchtarget-issue-with-unity-2017-1.483133/

 

I have a strange issue. I am using the PL and I noticed that my point light that I set to baked, well, didn't bake to lightmap (look at the blue talisman in the shrine), so I might be missing something. Does anyone run into that? I am using Mixed Directional lighting (Which works BEAUTIFULLY with the PL, but no glow on the point light. I am going to do another bake, I might have missed something.

 

You still have to download it as a separate package from the asset store or github.

 

I found it ... and while I love the new version from the Git, I can't use my older profiles. Which is cool... I will use the version on the asset store.

@KEngelstoft @Jesper-Mortensen Is there a way we can add more than 4 bounces for the PL? For me, a max of 20 bounces would be damn near photorealistic...

 

I'm not sure more bounces means more good data though...

 

True, but I am looking at this through an arch viz/ CG rendered viewpoint. The scene already looks DAMN good. I can't wait until the PL is FINALLY out of the preview stuff and I can actually use it. I hate waiting for Enlighten.

 

No, I don't load a lot of prefabs, but the structure of the files inside the APK is different between Unity 5.6.2 and 2017.1.
Even if the APK is larger with 2017.1, inside the APK, the files uncompressed take less space.

So I think Unity loads the scenes faster just because of that.

Check the screenshot below, you can see uncompressed files in Unity 5.6.2 is about 157Mb, but in Unity 2017.1 is only 86Mb.

 

Hey, guys... any particular reason why the Indirect Resolution is greyed out when I use the PL? Kinda strange to omit that.

 

It's the LZ4 asset compression doing wonders, maybe it's default in 2017.1? I'm using it through a build script in 5.6.

 

Thank you for letting us know, it's been fixed now.

 

When the patch releases expected?

 

If everything goes according to plan, starting next week (and weekly moving forward.)

 

Any plan to include a new accelerator pack?

 

The only big issue I see with actual terrain is the limited texture capability but with Mega Splat you can have more tan enough, so not that big issue. The only thing I'm like seriously interested from now on is PERFORMANCE. Like get the engine super solid, and have all the internal features needed so devs can implement third party tools for specifichigh end stuff like (true) realtime GI.