Free Thirdparty Unity Cloud Build Service for Gamedev Startups?

I recently gone out of high-school and I am starting a small game studio. I currently earn little selling game assets on TurboSquid so I cannot afford Unity Cloud Build Feature. I can wait and focus on building game assets until I earn enough fortune but I would like to get started with game development right away if there are free cloud build services.

 

I'm curious, if you're just starting a small studio why do you need cloud build? Sorry, I'm not aware of any free alternatives.

 

Yeah, I understand the value of Cloud Build, but I wouldn't let not having it stop me from making a game. In fact, as useful as it is I'm not using it right now.

Is it Cloud Build specifically that concerns you, or is it the team services in general? If it's the latter I strongly recommend looking into 3rd party alternatives such as Visual Studio Online. They're not as streamlined as the Unity versions and will require that you use some 3rd party tools, but they'll let you do all of the same stuff, and there are multiple free hosting providers for you to choose from.

 

Did the free tier of cloud build end? I must have been sleeping through that announcement.

Cloud build is nice to have. But its totally not needed to do anything. For the small projects you can do on your own, building locally is fine. Even if you manage to make something massive, you can always just hit the build button before bed.

 

Yes. You need to have Unity Teams Advanced to use Unity Cloud Build.

https://unity3d.com/get-teams

You didn't sleep through the announcement because it was never announced.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/subscription-collaborate-pro-teams-im-so-confused.520751/

 

Huh. That explains the lack of general complaining. I seldom ever read announcements directly. I just pick up on the general buzz from the forums.

I guess that's one less reason to reactivate my plus subscription.

 

I found some free cloud compute from Amazon. It is basically a remote desktop connection where anyone can access and work on the project. We can work on shifts since it only allows 1 user per session. So I do the environment and the other person do the characters and so on..

I will use Teams Advanced when I have enough fortune.

You might be curious why not just use my own PC? Well, I am still living in my parents' basement and I only have this lackluster netbook in hand!

Until then I am open to some suggestions

.

 

Cloud build makes absolutely zero sense for the kind of games you'd be making on a netbook. The build time decrease would be absolutely negligible.

 

Why not just use regular version control with git or the like? That's what everyone else does.

 

I have a feeling that this is specifically disallowed by the license, by the part that tells you not to make the software available to others via a network.

I definitely understand why you're looking to get more computing power at your disposal, then. That makes sense. However, I don't think the solutions you're looking at solve that particular problem.

What's the netbook you have? And in what way is it limiting your game development? If we know specifics we might be able to suggest specific solutions.

Personally, if I were developing on a netbook, here are the three main issues I think I would have:

1. Cramped screen space. In game dev I often want to be able to interact with multiple bits at once and I don't know that I'd have room on a, what, 7" screen? It's also likely to be a low res screen, which won't help either.
2. Poor IO devices. The keyboard and pointer device are unlikely to be the kind I'd want to use for more than a few minutes at a shot.
3. Slow hardware performance. It's just not going to do things like compile or import assets very quickly, which will damage productivity.

1 and 2 you can probably fix for under a hundred bucks, as long as your netbook has a video plug of some kind and a USB plug. Buy a cheap 1080p screen and an entry level keyboard and mouse. For simple games this might even already be enough to get you going!

3 is just going to require a better computer. Computers are cheap these days, but I understand that for someone just out of high school it might still be a challenge. I would suggest looking at second hand stuff. In my early days I equipped most of a studio with second hand gamer PCs. In your situation I would recommend looking at a laptop. Keep in mind that it doesn't have to be the latest and greatest - it just needs a reasonable screen (I would suggest 1080p), keyboard, and not-terrible performance bits. You don't need anything too fancy to start out.

 

My netbook is an old Acer Aspire 4310 with only 2GB RAM.

So far I am using the free cloud compute with no issues at all. Thank goodness I have an optimal internet speed. When I connect it to the netbook, it functions just like a decent PC.

Build times are not slow usually 3 to 7 minutes.

Until then I will save up for a proper workstation preferably as desktop so I can upgrade on-demand.

 

3 to 7 minutes on the netbook or on the cloud?

 

You can build for free using free tier on Azure or AWS

 

Its 3 years later. Please read the dates on threads before posting, to avoid pointless necros like this.

 

Yeah just noticed that, weird that I necro'd - I only looked at the new posts in /General section

 

We use our own build agent in azure dev ops. Works pretty decent.