Enable dark mode in unity for free?

I just want to know is it possible to enable dark mode in unity for free? now that every program lets its' customer use the dark theme for free to save them from eye strain.. So is there any way we can do that in unity?

Thanks in Advance

 

If you're a student you can apply for a student plan: https://store.unity.com/academic/unity-student

Dark Theme is included.

 

Thanks Mate.. i will for sure.

 

In Unity 2019.3 and newer it is possible, see https://github.com/xeleh/enhancer

 

Was possible. Starting with Unity 2019.3.15+ the Dark Theme feature is disabled thanks to Unity deciding that they didn't want people to be able to alter it after all and removing the features that the asset was using to do so.

https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/issues/enhancer-package-bypasses-dark-theme-entitlement

Just be aware that the student license is non-commercial only. You will either have to lose the dark theme by downgrading to Unity Personal to sell your apps, or you will have to subscribe to Unity Plus/Pro to continue accessing the dark theme.

 

You only need pay $40 monthly.

 

$40/month for one minor feature is definitely not worth it.
(Yes, I know the plus/pro subscriptions have more than just the dark theme, but that's not the point.)

 

Unity Plus/Pro users are prioritized when reporting bugs, only reason to pay for license (other than making more than 100k). Cant understand why people care so much about dark theme.

 

Not having the Dark Theme doesn't effect me personally. It's the business decision to not offer the Dark Skin to all free users that I disagree with. The fact that you don't even get access to Unity's source code without paying an expensive fee. The fact that Unity is selling paid assets worth $250+ that doesn't even work properly with the most modern version of Unity with HDRP. The fact that Unity is still selling Bolt scripting after they acquired it, and they are also working on another visual scripting solution at the same time (and visual scripting assets like UNode actually have better features than Bolt 2 as well). The fact that good old HLSL shaders are going to be obsolete due to the new render pipelines, making thousands of assets unusable with the new pipelines. Just about every new feature Unity releases is destructive, therefore it demands the developers precious time to implement the feature (DOTS, HDRP/URP, UI Elements/Toolkit, new Input System).

The Premium Price for the Dark Skin is the cherry on top.

 

Why do you want dark theme in the first place?

White text on black background creates afterimages. At least in some people.

 

I get headache and go almost blind after 30mins reading on white background. Only solution for me is to set monitor and nvidia brightness to min but then dark areas are hard to distinguish what isn't good for general gamedev.

Tried flux but it makes screen brighter, tried many other things like matching background wall brightness to monitor brightness but nothing helps :/

 

You're in the minority though. Most people don't have an eye condition that requires them to use a dark theme to be able to do anything for a lengthy period of time, and for people who have normal vision using a dark theme can be worse as it can strain your eyes.

https://www.androidauthority.com/dark-mode-1046425/
https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/53264/dark-or-white-color-theme-is-better-for-the-eyes

 

It is possible that your monitor is too bright. For some reason modern day LCD manufacturers chase contrast, but install insane settings by default. Something like contrast 100 brightness 0, and with lamp strength sufficient to burn a hole in the wall behind you. Those need to be toned down. I usually dial contrast down when I get new display immediately.

 

I would recommend to get a calibration done, it's important for content creators that our monitors are calibrated to standard when doing color profiles, Lightmapping etc. As a bonus it also calibrate the correct brightness.

Edit: brightness is very important when doing Lightmapping

 

Did you read the links?
The top post on stack exchange/the mentioned study:

"This result seems to suggest that, even though performance in light mode may be better in the short term, there may be a long-term cost associated with it."

That alone should be reason enough to make dark mode an option.

You also got:
- While light mode performs better, those gain seem to be more short-term. Long-term exposure may be result in myopia

- Providing a dark mode though is still recommended though because of the potential long-term effects with light mode, some visual impairments perform better in dark mode, and some users simply prefer it.

-For applications which provide long-form reading (books, articles, even news sites), dark mode options are recommended.

 

Every single operating system and the major app got an update in recent years to include a dark mode. Also, there are browser plugins to "darkify" popular websites that are still purely white.
It's to reduce power usage and eye strain. Especially big screens are like huge lamps you stare in for hours - especially bad in the evening on darker months where we got sunset here around 4 pm. That's why "dark mode" is often called "night mode"

Not to mention emitting blue light which sends false information to our brain that thinks it's still midday and the organism is "updated" accordingly. This disturbs the sleep schedule. For this reason, it's also not recommended to stare at the phone in bed before sleep.

Hence we got help from f.lux (reducing blue light by changing color temperature) and dark modes reducing the amount of light generally emitted. I did start sleep better after switching to f.lux and dark mode wherever I could.

Once you switch your computer environment do dark mode, every single bright app or website annoys you. Especially if you can't use f.lux because your work is color-sensitive.

Unity is the only application known to me (and I have all systems, apps and frequently used websites set to dark) that charges money for a health-related feature...

 

Always funny to see people defend Unity and try to justify the absurd reason of not having an openly accessible editor theme for everyone.

 

Choosing to use the dark theme without having a condition is in my opinion no different than the president taking that unproven medicine for the pandemic. It's a very short sighted (pun intended) move that could very easily lead to more problems down the line.

I already have occasional wrist trouble. Last thing I want to do is add eyesight impairments to that list due to ignorance.

Speaking of ignorance if you can't tell the difference between someone trying to point out that the dark theme may not be the best feature to take advantage of and someone trying to defend a company then you may not want to take part in the thread for fear of making it obvious.

I'm always amused people choose the dark theme of all things to yell about when Unity is guilty of far worse than that.

 

I'm using minimal brightness and contrast settings also for monitor. Will try buying flicker-free LCD but cant find any with 27″ 1440p 240hz specs.

 

Which is why a dark skin is better.. Your mentioned study before literally mentions that dark theme might be better in the long run.. "This result seems to suggest that, even though performance in light mode may be better in the short term, there may be a long-term cost associated with it."

 

Can you live with only 144Hz?

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16824737008

 

I have 144hz currently (but not flicker-free), used 240hz on few tournaments and there's a difference in fast paced games.

240hz would make my life easier to playtest and balance the most difficult maps in my game. See this video https://twitter.com/TRACERFPS/status/1254909623452135425 to get idea what I'm talking about.

I guess Ill just buy 24in.

 

Way back in 2012 it was acceptable for the dark theme to be locked behind a paywall, though there were grumblings about it even back then. It wasn't that common to see it in other applications. These days, dark theme is prolific and I'd argue an expected feature of a modern development tool.

I see a user above (@Kamyker) describing how they have issues developing with the light theme as it causes them headaches and another user below quickly dismissing them as they're "in a minority". A minority should not be dismissed simply for being a minority. If the lack of colour themes is causing an accessibility issue for that developer, that is a serious problem and needs to be addressed by Unity. After all, one of those neglected "minority" of developers could go on to develop the next great thing. Accessibility is now a major design consideration for all software, especially within Microsoft. I hadn't touched Unity properly since 2016 but the recent situation has given me more time and I dived back into it for the past few weeks to see what has changed. The fact Unity still locks dark theme behind a paywall is just a small indicator of a bigger problem that they have not kept up with the times and seem to have completely lost touch with their customer base. I was excited to see what cool new things had been added over the past 5 years. Needless to say I am majorly disappointed with the current state of Unity.

 

Why would it be acceptable then but not acceptable now? It's not like people with conditions didn't exist back then. If it were truly acceptable back then there is no reason why it wouldn't be acceptable now.

 

I still suspect this is an display mis-configuration or lack of backlight.

The worst display I ever sat in front of could make my eyes bleed in 30 seconds (figuratively). High contrast, low brightness. 30 second from 0 to eye pain.

My first display was a CRT. Never had an issue with it, good colors, good brightness, and 1280x1024@75Hz was perfect.

Transition to LCD (when CRT died) caused very physical eye pain. That's how I discovered, why font antialiasing is a thing. And why you need backlighting Tiny details like that are important, and most modern displays require a lamp pointed at wall behind them and are too bright to use otherwise, unless you're using e-ink somehow.
---------

Regarding dark theme. Most of the time will be spent staring at a really bright scene view and not at side panels, so impact is not as high as, say, in code editor.

Also, rather than asking for Dark theme, you guys should be asking for user-configurable theme support in general. Blender does it, Visual Studio does it, many other programs do it as well.

P.S. It is amusing to see "Fixed" issue with 0 votes on it.

 

*user

My first display was a CRT: a small Junost, black and white television. Everything was light theme. And flickery. And blurry. But I could adjust the brightness at least and learned not to work in the dark.

 

Minimal brightness and contrast can still be too high for comfortable use even if they're both at zero. If you can't reduce them to acceptable level, you'll have to point a lamp at a wall behind it, and make your room as bright as the monitor. Otherwise you'll get eye strain and posisbly pain because of it.

For something I use long term, I'd prioritize comfort over refresh rate.

Given it is running at 240hz, it wouldn't be surprising they have an equivalent of military grade searchlight installed there in terms of brightness.

 

Well, first PROPER display I had was what I described.

First ever display was also black and white vacuum tube TV with a computer output soldered into it.

You could adjust brightness all the way to black screen there.

 

It wouldn't be a CRT if it wasn't flickering. I just found this fun collection of videos that show a CRT in slow motion and it's amusing how much of it is dark at any point in time.

https://imgur.com/t/staff_picks/5sYsb

 

I know, I was part of the demoscene back then, I have written raster effects for it in C64 assembly. Good old times when we counted the cathode-tube cycles and played the 'let's run an IRQ when the ray arrives to the place we wanted' game.

 

That's how more advanced lightguns worked, by the way. Doesn't work the same way with LCDs.

Also, this was a thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen

 

Not really sure I'm following your argument there Ryiah, plenty of things that were acceptable in the past are not acceptable anymore. Things have moved on tremendously in terms of software design and accessibility is an important consideration in the modern era, whereas it was previously overlooked. Having alternate or customisable colour schemes can really make a difference for developers with certain visual issues and IMO Unity have dropped the ball by not working this into the editor yet. Though it seems something along those lines may be progressing at the moment.

EDIT: Retracting my statement about Unity "dropping the ball". Seems like this is something the devs have been working on since last year and the editor themes are the result of some of that work.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/accessibility-and-inclusion.694477/page-2#post-4803467

I don't see how they'll enforce the dark mode paywall when custom editor themes are available so I'm guessing this will finally be the end of it sometime this year.

 

I disagree. Just because we lived with it doesn't mean it was acceptable.

To be blunt the best time to have made an issue of this would have been back when Unity first started their campaign about democratizing game development to attract new developers because they would have still been small enough that negative attention would have hurt them. We're no longer dealing with a small company with management that truly cares.

 

Well, "if custom theme widget color is dark enough, demand pro version upgrade".

How's that.

 

Clamp the maximum darkness of everything that is not a font.

 

Well, in the editor, the dark theme, in the build, the light theme (enlighten) is scarce. We achieved balance!

Meanwhile:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/feature-request-editor-start-up-with-light-theme-option.898793/
#pwhdtbdwi-problem
(People Who Have Dark Theme But Don't Want It)

 

"We know that dark theme has been causing issues to many of our users and to address that, in the next update we introduced an AI-based screen recognition software that detects if the user is running custom theme with dark appearance and then requessts subscription if no valid license is found...."

Spoiler

(/joke)

 

Already mentioned it:

 

Some people on this forum seem to enjoy trolling thread after thread. The end result is that users are afraid to post stuff and the community suffers from it.

 

I changed editor codes with x64dbg I know it is not cool but I dont have a any other choices at nights white screen burns my eyes too much, with dark theme everything is much more comfortable I hope unity will realese dark mode for standart versions for their users, like Unreal Engine.

 

Oh, I'm sorry, but some people, including me, can't take the 99th "why Unity doesn't give us free stuff, especially dark mode" thread seriously. It is boring and doesn't change anything.

Feel free to post something constructive and we're on board with you to actually discuss things.

(Maybe it's just me, but this is my opinion about these things)

 

This. Every argument in favor of the dark theme in this thread is merely a repeat of past arguments, and why would they make any adjustments to their business practices when it's very clear that the people who complain the loudest continue using their products in spite of all their complaining?

Like I mentioned earlier the best time to have complained would have been when they were just gaining traction, and the next time if it comes at all will be if and when people start migrating away to the competition en masse. But that requires the people who are complaining the loudest to put their money where their mouth is.

 

@Lurking-Ninja @Ryiah Have you considered not reading and contributing to the threads you feel you’ve read 98 times before? Does everyone else also need to read your identical reply 98 times? Just let people be. Let those threads die by themselves instead of prolonging them ceaselessly.

 

Have you considered searching to verify that any points you want to bring up concerning this topic haven't already been brought up in detail by someone else? Searching to see if a topic is already covered is standard policy for every other topic on these forums so it stands to reason that it should be policy for this topic too.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-community-code-of-conduct.743180/

 

The person that started 98th thread obviously didn't read previous 97 replies. Otherwise they wouldn't start a new thread.

Normal response in this case is to copy-paste previous response, direct them to earlier thread, or(/and?) report the topic as duplicate.

 

I don’t want to make this about toxic behaviour because that would be off-topic. But yes, my point is that you guys are not moderators. If you are that concerned about a duplicate thread, you can kindly point the poster to the original thread and or PM a moderator. @UnityMaru

 

That's bold after your thread about the gambling stuff the other day.

Edit:
Let me elaborate a bit, just because apparently you choose to get offended easily for some reason. I think you take this whole thing way too seriously.
I think and I expect others to hold me to it and if I go full retard tell me to not to go full retard ever (if you don't get the reference just google it).
This whole thread and ***some*** of others are way too harsh on Unity and don't appreciate enough the fact that we are the users (some of us even customers) of a great Game Engine. What you can use for free without paying anything and you can make money out of it if you bear the work.
And in my book one thread is enough about these problems (lacking of a theme).
Why? Because it is not the most urgent problem, and it's basically whining about a non-feature which was sold by a jerky company as a solution so you can use their devices late night without the lights on. Yes, I'm looking at you Apple.
And about this demand-culture. If shop "A" started to give out free toilet paper, and it would become the norm, I really think that I would never ever show up at shop "B" yelling that toilet paper is a human right and they have to hand out for free because otherwise I will stand in the parking lot all day and yelling that shop "A" hands out it for free.
Yes, you have the right to choose, you have the right to come to the forum and tell them if they're wrong, it's not about that. It's about all of us, with this demand-culture you're poisoning the fun for everyone. Just look at the General forum lately, nothing else but support questions, what Unity doesn't give you for free and threads about what Unity has done wrong.
What is it if not toxic behavior?

 

Just because we're not moderators doesn't mean the guidelines we quoted can be ignored.

 

You're also not a moderator and voicing opinions is allowed.

Report posts you find problematic, and let the moderators handle them, when they deem it necessary.

And yeah, customer vs user is on point. Unity Tech owns the engine, so they decide what features are available and on whom. You can accept or reject their offer, and should you choose to reject there are alternatives available.

Your voice carries more weight when you're a customer and not a user. To become a customer, you need to subscribe, but if you subscribed, you should have your dark theme anyway.

 

As you can see a lot have happened since 98th thread: student plan, enhancer that worked until 2019.3.15.

Maybe we will get something similar to enhancer soon, thread: