How would Unity Pro help me?

Hello all,

I've been working on my first game in Unity for a little bit now, and I've began to wonder if the Pro version would be beneficial for me. Currently I am using the free version of Unity, and I have not been hindered by it whatsoever. However, I am wondering if Unity Pro would facilitate things a bit more. Let me explain what I mean by that:

So, my strengths as a developer are mainly in coding, and coming up with gameplay ideas. I am an absolutely terrible artist/animator/modeler, etc. I realize that these things are an important part of the development process, and so far I have struggled with these tasks. So, that brings me to my question - would Unity Pro make these parts of the development process any easier? So, does Unity Pro have any significant advantages over the free version in terms of graphics, texturing, and animation, or am I just going to be hindered by my lack of skill in these areas either way?

My biggest concerns are about creating realistic textures and materials; for some reason, I can't make a decent texture for the life of me.

By the way, I am using Autodesk's Maya, as I was able to get a free student version from my school.

Any input at all would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

In case you haven't seen this yet, you can find a comparison of what's in Pro that is not in Free here: http://unity3d.com/unity/licenses Scroll down to the Graphics section.

If you're not doing some high end stuff that needs stuff like real time shadows and occlusion culling (to squeeze as much performance out of your game as possible) then absolutely not. There's nothing there that will help you. Pro features are exactly that. Pro.

Since you say your strengths in development is coding, then the one part of Pro that WILL help you is the use of the profiler (http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/Profiler.html) This will help you check which parts of your code is taking up the most processing power, so you can focus optimization on specific parts if required.

My advice is don't get too bogged down (like I do all the time) into thinking you've gotta have the greatest and best tools otherwise you can't do great work. When you get to a point where you need Unity Pro, you will probably know it.

 

I'm sorry mr. as much as I toot the importance of tech like post effects and lighting, it's only going to benefit when you have the underlying basis as good as it can be. So artwork has to be top knocker, it will benefit if you have large scenes and need OC and LOD also if you need plugins...

I must admit the profiler makes a big positive difference.

 

If you're working on your first game, the benefits from pro are minimal.

Well, except for that oh-so-cool dark skin

 

Unity Pro will allow you to add shadows which make your game go from rubbish to AAA. That's when the money rolls in.

 

You can get shadows in the free version, though they are limited to one directional light and can't be soft. But it still looks pretty good.

 

Thanks for all the replies.

I figured that Pro wouldn't necessarily help me unless I was already good at some of the art stuff. I was just wondering because I recently saw a video about Unreal Engine 4 that made it seem as though UE4 would allow a developer to create nicer textures, lighting, and the works. Again, I don't know how true that is, but I wanted to know if Unity Pro had similar capabilities.

As a hobbyist, it seems as though Pro wouldn't really be a huge help for me. I am just doing this in my spare time just to learn and have a little fun along the way.

Again, thanks for the information.

 

There are only three reasons for me choosing PRO:

- Profiler
- Remove Splash Screen
- Light Probes and Occlusion

exactly in that order!

Think about it, do you really expect to make some kind of AAA game? That is stupid.

 

The occlusion culling is like insanely good in Unity pro, I think the umbra is new in 4.3 but seriously OMG its like wow, I love it. I used to use free for everything and now that at school they have pro and gee wiz I didn't think that much of occlusion culling(I use a short far clipping plane) until I just built it in a last ditched attempt to get my scene running at a good frame rate on my phone and then I fell in love with this wonderful system. And the profiler is great.

And video textures I like but they don't support mobile for some dumb reason.

 

No, I'm a programmer like you. I tried at art many times and failed many times.

Stick with what you're good at and pay someone or collaborate with someone to make decent art for your game.
If you spend hundreds of hours working on a game, don't let your hard work get let down by crappy art.

So no pro won't help you with art, but it can make your game look better with lightmapping and image effects.