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Resolved Any plans to hire more devs?

Discussion in 'UI Toolkit' started by Onigiri, Aug 26, 2022.

  1. Onigiri

    Onigiri

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    Currently UIToolkit development is really slow. It would take at earliest 2-3 more years to have all the basic features so that we can call it production ready. Is there plans to expand UI team to make this a bit faster?
     
    Last edited: Aug 26, 2022
    Onigiri, Aug 26, 2022
    #1
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  2. etienne_unity

    etienne_unity

    Unity Technologies

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    There are no plans to expand the UI teams.

    I'll admit our development velocity is not ideal currently - Unity grew quite a lot in recent years, and this new scale puts a lot of pressure on the teams and on our infrastructure. There is significant investment happening to improve the situation, so I'm hopeful we'll be able to pick up pace soon (tm).

    This is the main reason why we decided to focus on the Editor use cases in 2022-23, and then resume work on Runtime UI in 2024.
     
    etienne_unity, Aug 26, 2022
    #2
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  3. optimise

    optimise

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    Can u elaborate more about Runtime UI in 2024? Do u mean UI Toolkit runtime UI won't get very significant improvement until 2024?
     
    optimise, Aug 26, 2022
    #3

  4. etienne_unity

    etienne_unity

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    See this answer for a bit more details.
     
    etienne_unity, Aug 26, 2022
    #4

  5. MaskedMouse

    MaskedMouse

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    How big is the current UI Toolkit team?
     
    MaskedMouse, Aug 26, 2022
    #5

  6. etienne_unity

    etienne_unity

    Unity Technologies

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    I'll take a risk here, and answer candidly. Currently, 17 engineers, spread across 3 development teams.

    We support these product areas (on all supported versions of Unity, platforms, rendering pipelines, and input systems) :
    We're also supporting many teams internally as they transition their workflows to UI Toolkit, or create new workflows. UI Toolkit is our main area of investment.
     
    etienne_unity, Aug 26, 2022
    #6
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  7. Neonlyte

    Neonlyte

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    I don't think the reason given actually explains why the focus had to be on Editor first. I would assume that letting the Editor stay on IMGUI would be fine because it only affect us devs, while Runtime support affects actual shipping and upcoming projects which is what, I assume, most of us here care much more about. Would you mind elaborate on the reasoning? A concrete example would be great.
     
    Neonlyte, Aug 26, 2022
    #7
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  8. Cakebox

    Cakebox

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    Just here to say that I appreciate the candour in this thread. With all the troubling stuff in the press recently, it's reassuring to get straight answers from the team. It's also a heartening sign if you're still able to do that without fear of misguided repercussions.
     
    Cakebox, Aug 26, 2022
    #8
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  9. doctorseus

    doctorseus

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    It's unfortunate it slowed so down. We decided to use UI Toolkit in an early project phase of a game port to Unity because we thought we will reach production in a similar timespan but with a shift away from runtime we are now in the situation that we lack features which we really would like to have in the final game.

    Apart of that, UI Toolkit and its possiblity to make UI by code really made it possible to build a UI heavy game in Unity in the first place so I am happy this exists. I would just wish we see a bit movement. In particular custom shaders.

    Anyway, thanks for all these straight answers, it helps with planning.
     
    doctorseus, Aug 26, 2022
    #9

  10. benoitd_unity

    benoitd_unity

    Unity Technologies

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    Hi Neonlyte, I believe my answer to your other question partially addresses this but let me try to expand on it and provide a better answer for you.

    The main reason we decided to focus on Editor use cases is to close the loop on that story. We initially released UI Toolkit (called UI Elements back then) for creating editor extensions. It was a signal for developers, both internally and externally, to start exploring its capabilities and consider using it for their next projects. It was overall well received by the community, and the biggest request was to make this toolset available at runtime to make game UI. We were well aware of the issues people were struggling with when using UGUI, and we were eager to provide a solution. So we decided to release a first version of runtime support to better understand the requirements and gather feedback.

    By doing so, we left UI Toolkit for editor UI in an incomplete state, and we felt like we were doing a disservice to UI developers heavily invested in it for making custom tools. Additionally, like I mentioned in the other thread, it allows us to provide systemic improvements to the Editor if the majority of its UI is using UI Toolkit. For that to happen, it needs to be at parity with IMGUI.

    So that was the focus for us in 2022, bringing UI Toolkit to a better place so it can be recommended for making Editor UI. During 2023, we are mainly focusing on improving the efficiency of UI Toolkit, both on a workflows and performance perspective. One thing to remember though, is most of what we've been working on provides the same benefits for both editor and runtime use cases, so we're not necessarily stopping all runtime related development.

    I hope this additional context helps understanding our prioritization.
     
    benoitd_unity, Aug 26, 2022
    #10
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  11. optimise

    optimise

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    One thing I want to confirm with u is that GraphTool Foundation (GTF) has been built on top of UI Toolkit and GTF will used across the board to migrate all the currently available editor tooling like Animator window to GTF?
     
    optimise, Aug 26, 2022
    #11

  12. antoine-unity

    antoine-unity

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    I can confirm GTF is using UI Toolkit.
     
    antoine-unity, Aug 26, 2022
    #12

  13. benoitd_unity

    benoitd_unity

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    Yes I confirm it's built on UI Toolkit. You can refer to this post for more information about the production vision.
     
    benoitd_unity, Aug 26, 2022
    #13