I fixed Unity's home page :P

I love Unity but I couldn't help it when I saw this

 

Deterministic physics is literally the only thing missing from that list and is not considered standard.

 

I guess they should add "... If you're willing to pay for plugins." then

 

It can completely destroy destroy client side movement predictions, anything to do with physics driven creatures, etc. So this is literally a show stopper for some projects. I've also seen a whole bunch of other people complaining about it so that's why i threw it in there

 

I find the most limiting aspect of Unity is its physics. It's so hard to make simple things such as a user-generated 2D rope. Also, isn't Unity multiplayer server/client networking?

 

For me it's also the physics and the fact that you have to buy plugins to complete the editor which always has the risk of being abandoned or outmatched by a new plugin.
As far as I know forge networking is the way to go if you want proper server/client networking without any limitations... And even that was a bit iffy when I used it a year ago, hopefully it's better now.

Anyways didn't mean for it to be a hate thread, there's a lot of stuff about Unity that I think is excellent

 

I'm pretty sure the most important thing by far missing from Unity is a 3d modeler, not any of the more obscure things in your edit.

 

Obscure? I think you'll find that at least material editors exist in all the major engines and I know at least 3 of the major ones have a proper particle editor too. While none of them have a 3D modeler. There is a 3D modeler plugin for Unity btw, can't remember what it's called but it seemed pretty nice.

If you don't come from a AAA background and you're more into small indie games though then I can better understand your reasoning

 

Is a user-generated rope with physics really a simple thing in games? Is there some other commercial engine that makes this easy?

 

My first thought was towards CryEngine and what do you know it does have a rope tool...

http://docs.cryengine.com/display/SDKDOC2/Rope+Setup
http://docs.cryengine.com/display/SDKDOC2/Rope+Tool

 

You can't actually say all the major engines. By whatever standard you measure it, Unity is a major engine. By some standards, Unity is the major engine.

 

Why would you include a 3D modeler? A pretty basic modeler for quick level prototyping, sure, but we have great 3D modelling software already and it's just Unity's job to make the exporting/importing pipeline as easy as possible.

 

If they add a 3d modeller they would need to add a skinning + rigging system, joint creation tools, uv unwrapping tools, mesh boolean tools, texture painting tools, etc, etc, that would bloat too much the engine, I think this is better suited for a separated program.

Now for a material editor.....

 

You can make ropes in the editor, which is more than unity has built-in, but now we also need to make sure ropes can be generated at run-time by the user. My point was I really don't think the example given was a "simple" thing. It seems like more of a garry's mod type specific feature.

 

What about things like a built in day/night cycle system, a weather system, decals,... those are things that most games need but should Unity really put effort into making such things? I think it's a wonderful thing that those 'gaps' get filled by the asset store's editor extensions.

 

I agree wholeheartedly.

However, the statement the OP "corrected," "Everything you need to succeed in games," is most wrong (by far) in its omission of a 3d modeler. Not a physics system. Or material editor.

 

I think a member of the staff previously mentioned particle system editor. There's apparently a button on the particle system component to open it.

See:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-ParticleSystem.html

 

ah, I got it now! haha, true, true. In this case we would also need audio tools, you can't create audio effects or music with what unity provides.

But I think we would be taking the headline too literally..

 

"You can't actually say all the major engines. By whatever standard you measure it, Unity is a major engine. By some standards, Unity is the major engine."

I never said Unity isn't a major engine? I think saying any engine is THE engine is maybe not the best idea? They all have their strengths and weakness, it's all about finding the right engine for your project.

 

Lets add audio to that. While some games get away without 3D models by using 2D sprites, I know of very few games that don't use sound.

 

The worst thing is that there IS a day/night system that can be implemented in like 5 minutes of coding, it just requires you to use the half-assed and completely pointless procedural skybox.

 

"I think a member of the staff previously mentioned particle system editor. There's apparently a button on the particle system component to open it."

Good one I guess if that counts as an editor, then unity does have a material editor.. As in there's materials you can edit. What I obviously meant was a visual editor, like cascade... Which is pretty damn good. But again there's Unity plugins for that.

 

Actually you did. You said all major engines have a material editor. Then you said Unity does not have a material editor. If both of these statements are true, then Unity cannot be a major engine.

It would have been better to say 'other major engines have a material editor'.

Why not? Its certainly accurate to say Unity is the major engine for mobile games. At a stretch one could say that mobile games are the major market segment (a lot of this depends on how you define market segments). So Unity could easily be the major engine. You will also likely to come to the same conclusion if you look at revenue share, or number of developers, or a bunch of other metrics. (Of course I've picked stats to show my point. You can easily choose a completely different set of metrics to disprove the claim.)

I'm normally not this pedantic. But you did start off this conversation with a fairly pedantic stance on what basically amounts to marketing puffery. Plenty of developers have succeeded in games with Unity. Which clearly indicates that there is substance to the marketing claim.

 

@Kiwasi:
Oh wow okay, well in that case you are completely correct. I was/am careless with my choice of words I guess
And such a programmer way of thinking btw, well thought out reply, I appreciate that

I don't think any of the things i mentioned is pedantic, they have been major issues in the projects I have worked on. So to me those were pretty severe problems and some of them were project killers directly. But I guess it all depends on what stuff you work on. I can only judge it from the projects and the environment I come from, and judging from that, these things are missing in a pretty major way.

I just felt that it was a bit of a silly statement to have on their website when it clearly doesn't cover all games unless you are willing to spend the cash... And even then you can always think of something that Unity won't be able to do even with plugins. No engine is gonna cover all games right out of the box regardless of whether it is AAA or mobile. "succeed in games" - that covers all games, which was the only part I was trying to make fun of

But then again it was only meant as a S***ty joke, it was not meant as hate, otherwise I wouldn't have used Unity nearly every day for the past 5 years
Something I feel the need to point out since people seem to reply way too seriously

 

A day/night system can be implemented in 5 minutes. A good one can take a lot longer

 

You know times have changed when a joke doesn't include the dark UI.

 

I am absolutely certain I have seen a plugin where you could model and unwrap models that looked pretty complete, if only I could remember what it was called. I prefer maya/zbrush for modeling myself, but I guess it would save time switching from maya and unity if you could make it directly in Unity.

 

It's in the etc. part i swear!

 

Yeah, programmer thinking doesn't always lend itself to getting jokes first time around. Especially on the internet.

So in the spirit of the OP, I do think the scripting reference deserves the same treatment every time it refers to JavaScript.

 

People still use JavaScript?

 

No.

But occasionally beginners use 'that language that is nothing like JavaScript but is called JavaScript by marketing because they don't think programmers will be smart enough to notice the difference'.

 

I think you're talking about pro builder, it's a very nice plugin. Now someone is doing something a bit like substance painter, Surforge. Lol, there's a whole world inside of Unity... and I'm suprised there's no audio plugins to create sound effects and music inside of unity, I think it's a matter of time.

So after all, even though these tools are not made by UT, I think it makes sense to say that we have everything we need to succeed then.

 

Note the word before "obscure."

I suspect any AAA studio, as well as any indie, deems having actual 3d models as more important than the more specialized tools you mention.

I'm not saying they aren't used. I'm saying a 3d modeler is used moreso.

 

If you can't succeed without those, it's kind of on you.

 

Yeah I guess missing features that kill certain projects is on me, you're right I mean who really makes online multiplayers in 2017? Also read the rest of the thread and you'll see it was a light hearted S***ty joke

 

I literally cannot think of one AAA studio that has a modeler inside their engine and doesn't have a visual material editor. Not even the in-house AAA engines where I've worked. So I guess we have two very different definitions of AAA. Or do you mean bsp brushes? Because that's not really modeling in the most commonly used sense :S

 

You could also read the rest of my post and notice the grin emoticon, whuch is what I used to indicate my sarcasm. But I guess that's too much to ask

 

That is too much to ask! How DARE you!

 

It wouldn't bloat the engine. If you want to call it bloat, it would bloat the editor. Creation tools should no effect on the engine performance.

 

It's simple. There's already plenty of software to make 3D models (Blender, Maya, Sketchup, even Microsoft's Paint3D). Why does Unity need to make a worse copy of something that thousands of developers already know how to use? Unity's focus should be the IMPORTING process of 3D models and animations. I use Unity because it's an engine that can make software (usually games, but I've used it for other applications (ahem, cheating on physics quiz questions)). Unity does not need to be a game engine + 3D modeling software + Photoshop replacement + music maker + AI-assisted meme maker + whatever other non-engine related crap you want included. Just learn software that works for you to make models, animations and music, then import that into Unity.

Simply put, I don't think Unity needs to waste time creating worse copies of software that already exists just so they have a right to brag "Look, we have a worse built-in version of something you already had!". What Unity needs to do is to improve existing features (such as the physics engine) and add features that aren't replacements for existing software, but rather additions that help the game development process.

 

Yes, I meant the editor, not the engine. Sorry. But still, it could be optional like the build platforms in the editor installer.

 

That said, an LOD creation tool in-editor would be pretty keen, even if there are tools that do that outside of the editor.

 

I find it funny that developers who are serious and focused on their projects never even bother to complain about the features missing from a free engine....

 

Unity has a few million registered developers but only a small percentage bother with the forums.

Regardless of how many people are complaining though the engine isn't free for everyone.

 

What a ridiculous strawman.

 

Better integrations with DCC's and guidance from large engine developers would be a massive time saver, I've had so many issues with export pipelines over the years (plus a slurry of other issues) and every engine expects you to do something X way. Especially UE / LY / CE, if you've ever used the bridge between Maya LT and Stingray it's a beautiful thing, I didn't even comprehend how much time it saves.. Plus it already has things like a material editor inside it..

Also to say these DCC's are what we specifically use for games, turning them into an actual level building solution (as opposed to an ad hoc single mesh pusher) of any worth is quite the task. Houdini has to be the closest to an actual "game" solution. Yes massive games over many years have been made the old fashioned way (well actually most of them were custom builds of Max / Maya in which AAA developers got discounts for re-selling tech back to them, AD then slowly leak the features back into the DCC)..

Even then many complain (even AAA) that the workflow pipeline is slow, seen platitudes of "endorsements" saying procedural / well integrated software (like Houdini) is the way to go.. But for us mere mortal dev's even Houdini has still isn't quite there yet as a complete solution. So I bet engine developers in some ways could do it better, although they already have their hands full.. It would be better to work together and get some cohesion in the industry.

I'm pretty sure creating a live link bridge is far easier to create than maintaining a suite of tools (like a material editor) etc. Although Autodesk etc. want to push their own engine, so I'm not sure there's much chance of it happening. Which is a massive shame because I love Maya, it is the Unity of DCC's.. I watched a 10 hour video on somebody rigging a foot in Modo, with HumanIK I'd of rigged three characters by the time I'd watched the vid.. Baking things like NM's, no camera based dumbassery / selected one object / select another / twiddle some options / click bake and done.. Blendshapes / skinning (select one object, select another and transfer morph / bind) I mean the list goes on and it's as simple as it gets.

On top of that with live link there's no guessing, WYISWYG.. Engines are so simple to use and so powerful at this point I think it's the art pipeline which needs some attention, but I agree I'm sure there are better ways than internal integration.. Although the CryDesigner tools are pretty damn good TBH..

 

For the people that it isn't free for, they are ready to spend the money on the asset store where it is required. If they haven't done the research (by using the free full featured version) to know that it can't suit their needs, why pay?
I really don't know where people get the notion that game development is an easy turn key type thing.
It takes research and development specifically in the things you need to achieve for YOUR project.

Unity rightfully cannot cater to every project by itself but has provided many ways to extend for your specific needs (especially through the asset store).

What I don't get is that devs continuously complain about unity not having something another engine has. Those engines are not aiming to do the same thing unity is doing, therefore if that other engine has something you want, weigh both options before committing and then choose one.

 

Unity should be investing in content creation tools with these criteria:

- engine features depend on much more extra data (partitioning / terrain)
- a feature will make the engine run better (lod generation etc)
- a feature will make visuals better or easier (de-lighting tools, flipbook stuff etc)

These are about smoothing the process or bringing some content creation closer to the engine where it makes sense. It doesn't make sense to do zbrush in unity. It doesn't make sense to add blender to unity.

For modelling, it does make sense to have a bunch of prototyping tools you can quickly block out with... but that is not the same as a full major package with all the bugs that come with it

Just my 2p.

 

Complaining does nothing useful - it is a waste of time.

You got what you got in the engine right now. You have a project that needs to be completed yesterday.
Complaining will either result in nothing happening, or in heated discussion, or in the feature you want being implemented 7 years from now. None of the outcomes will result in feature being added right at this moment when you need it.

So, complaining will not improve your product. You can file a feature request, assume that it'll never be processed and meanwhile look for a workaround for a missing functionality.

Also, the engine isn't free. You're bound by a contract agreement.

 

In today's world, complaining is merely the same as unfiltered feedback. It's super valuable for all businesses that actually make money.

So you're wrong. Unity actually loves complaints. Complaints help the product become more successful. It lets Unity see where it needs to communicate better or improve the product.

Complaining is the new constructive feedback. You can't change the world, so you get with it instead. 10 years ago, it was complaining but now it's just unfiltered thoughts.