Is this Unity 3 soldier absolutely necessary ?

If the idea is to promote Unity widely outside the world of war game addicts, I wonder if putting a warrior with a big gun on the Unity 3 "What's new" page is the best idea. The related demo game is of course truly amazing in terms of quality... but IMHO this kind of communication insists too much on a certain type of Unity applications.

Besides, I would have appreciated if this demo had included some "non military" customization options for the character : I would never allow my kid to use this game as is, for example.

I know people at Stonetrip have done much worse with their Shiva demo full of zombies and blood... but I'd be pretty deceived to see Unity follow that route, even at a highest level and keeping an undeniable touch of class when compared to many others.

 

What about a game where you raise, stuff, beat up, and roast a fat round chicken (all with love !) ?

No ?

 

I can see where you are coming from. I stopped playing intense shooters about two years ago because I realized how bad they are for your mind... There are simply too many of them in the industry at the moment. My friends don't take it too kindly!

However I can also see where UT are coming from by putting that kind of demo into Unity 3. Shooters are by far one of the most graphical types of games out there, and what better way to showcase the abilities of Unity 3?

While it may have a military theme, I don't see so much wrong in playing the demo - while your kids may not be prime targets, they are trying to impress the game designers of today and tomorrow. I chuckled at the thought of how many kids are going to try make a shooter now! It certainly impresses.

 

I think that most people associate high quality 3D game graphics with shoot-em-ups like Crysis, etc. and my guess is that's why they chose this. To be honest, although I choose not to play those types of games and I agree with you that there's much too much violence in the world, I personally am not offended by the splash screen nor the demo scene.

 

Yes, going with a military theme this time was definitely a departure for us , but for a lot of people Unity is looked at as the casual game engine for cartoony, simple games and we felt the need to contradict that perception a little bit. We could've made another peaceful walkthrough that was simply better looking than the 3 year old Island Demo, but we also wanted to make this demo have some gameplay so that people would spend more than 2-3 minutes with it. I understand your concern to some degree, especially letting your kid play it, but it's one demo in a string of demos and this one just happens to be a shooter. We also did "Dark Unity" this cycle, but again, that's just another good looking walkthrough and we wanted more gameplay this time for the default demo.

 

Uhm, 'customization'? Don't you have the best tool in the market for that right in front of you?
Take out the gun, and replace the military character model with something kid-friendly and you are good to go!

Oh.. and don't forget the take out the mission complete voice when you reach the house... that voice is just going to scare your son. :-0

 

Good points, everyone

 

Thats a very silly thing to be upset about....

 

I was talking of the demo webplayer of course, not the project... customizing the project is certainly the way to go !

A girl, actually

 

"Upset" is excessive : I just wonder if this is the right choice. And "very silly" is a bit... silly.

 

history
I made quite some odd experiences when introducing Unity to certain companies, which primary are doing serious stuff whilst those weird splash screens were showing up. I'm glad that they are gone now.

military fps
Personally i dislike these military training games, the more realistic they are, the less i enjoy them. I would have preferd a science fiction scenario just because it keeps things more abstract, still you can show off all you want. Beside of this i understand the need to get out of the cuty corner and making some waves on the more serious gaming front but another scenario would have worked as well. On the other side many, at least gamers, sadly are familiar with this type of killing games.

the new webplayer demo
I think it's easily the best of its kind in the web. The intro is kind of lame and i would have expected that i can steer through the clouds and land on the landscape on my own. I didn't like the game concept, the voices (i primary wanted to kill my instructor) or the colors but apart from this, it's an immersive experience.

The demo has its issues like it's stuttering a lot on my MacBookPro GT330 (at the end it's almost unsteerable, i for sure killed for framerates there), the menu felt clumsy (i also wasn't able to get into fullscreenmode easily), camera was too aggressive and slided through objects and walls, texture resolution is too low (but that certainly will be adressed with the new middleware), everything looked too square edged, cross-hair wasn't good to see, reduced quality resulted into glitches, too much blahblah in the beginning and terrain objects were plopping in and out.

On the bright side the clouds looked cool, some plants were really nice, good steering of the character and nice animations, nice physics intergation (blowing up some stuff was fun), as i already said an overall immersive experience if you're after this type of games, nice ambient atmosphere, good modelling of the weapon and well fitting sound effects.

Definately an improvement as an example, needs some fine tuning and i would have prefered a different scenario.

 

so you mean that more demos are coming? like Dark Unity ?

s

 

Congratulations to the release first of all!

I played the webdemo and as Taumel said there are good and bad things with it. I think overall it shows great skills from the guys who has made this. Some scenes are very nice, for instance when the helicopter lands. Great lighting and effects. Clouds looks great aswell.

What I am most concerned with is the performance compared to quality. The resolution is very low. So low that maybe you shouldn't even be able to to go into fullscreen mode (cause it just looks awful at that size). It looks okay when you are not in fullscreen even though the texture res is on the low range even for that size. The aliasing is very noticable. Are there any edgeblur effects on for this? If so is this what one should expect in aliasing when using deferred rendering?

The framerate also feels abit low especially as I said compared to the quailty we see. Maybe its just a matter of loads of effects eating up framerate that arn't so noticeable since you first and foremost look at texture resolution and aliasing to make a judgement of the quality.

 

Do we really care about this? Unity is a development tool. They give you a skinned character that's completely set-up for you to learn - that doesn't mean that you should go out and create your own military game and I don't think that it sends any kind of message.

Rock on Unity team, investing a little more into showing people what can be done with Unity is definitely a good thing. Unreal Engine wouldn't be that popular if it wouldn't be for Epic always showing how to use the engine. And that old Island demo... good riddance.

 

@stefano.cecere - yes, Dark Unity will be released as a standalone in the near future.

@Filto - try adjusting the quality in the menu. One of the reasons for the lower texture sizes is the download size itself. So it's a compromise and we were able to fit this entire demo in ~75MB which I think is pretty good.

 

Yeah, I've had a couple of issues with it.
In Webplayer:
*With ambient occlusion on, when I'm flying in the helicopter, looks like there's a weird code bar overlay on top of the forest.
*If I turn on ambient occlusion in the intro with clouds + heli, the clouds show up on front of the heli.

Inside unity:
*If I turn on the ambient occlusion, and then toggle other graphics features, I get a weird flickering. If "double toggle" the ambient occlusion it fixes.

Anyone else getting those bugs?

 

Yes, precisely : it's a development tool... which means much more than what the image of a soldier tends to suggest to potential developers (and clients of these developers) coming from outside the game industry.

 

Great news ! This "realtime cinema" scene will surely be convincing for some of our professional clients, who are still sticking with Flash and hesitating on jumping into realtime 3D for their communication.

 

Yes - I also got these bugs with SSAO.
The textures really seemed larger in the video - can't say anything negative about framerate, though, as I'm testing on my 3D workstation... so ... yeah ... 6core, 8GBRAM and 1GB ATI are not likely to decrease framearte.

The textures really do look a little smudgy compared to the overall graphic quality the rest of the demo achieved. I agree on that one.
Also I really REALLY missed AntiAlias ... there's about every effect in the monu but nothing for AA edges. Especially since the game is on the slower paced end of the spectrum of action games and if you're playing in a small window I find the edges to be very distracting.

Otherwise very cool, as the video preview already showed us

And for the record: I am not offended by a military demo despite the fact that I don't like war shooters at all. It's a tech demo and shows what else unity can do. There's no need to get upset about anything. Sheesh.

 

Neither offended, nor upset. Just wondering if the choice is right, regarding the objective of enlarging the user base beyond game development - and presenting Unity as an alternative to some leading (though less powerful) multimedia development platforms, not just as a concurrent to other game engines. I keep thinking that it is necessary to express such an opinion, which I believe reflects the thoughts of more than one person... and if nobody said it, who would say it ?

 

Great demo of course.

Although, on a sidenote, what's with this overall trend with FPS in the gaming industry ?
Don't make me wrong, I enjoy FPS too, but it's outstanding how the majority of gamers still glorify FPSes more than the other genres. Why I can't understand this trend is they're always the same view, same weapons, same scenario, same scripted actions, same controls, same gameplay (or very iterative changes) ...

So many iterations of the same 20-years old point-and-click Doom model ...

 

My guess is that its because FPS:s tend to be at the forefront in pushing graphics. And that along with the immersive perspective (you are in the world, not outside staring in) makes them appealing. But yeah some more innovation in the FPS or atleast FP games would be nice. But they are high budget games with high production value (another reason why being so popular of course) so the publishers will invest in stuff they know works. Just like blockbuster hollywood movies.

 

I haven't looked at the new demo, but I will now. Thanks for pointing that out.

Personally, I love the soldier. And at the same time (I can't find the link) there is another image put together by the Unity team that shows the Island demo across all the devices. Hats off to that group

My focus is going to be some intense military style gaming. However, I am concerned about some MMO comments that I've heard. Is 100 people too many?

 

Sorry but I honestly dont understand the point. What's so wrong about a Military Demo?

It's not meant for your kids to play with (and even if they did, whats the problem?), its meant to show what Unity can do, for Developers.

Don't know why you think there shouldn't show it in the web page, can't we make FPS with Unity? Can't people see that its possible with Unity?
Im working on one. So I guess its not cool?

Not trying to be ofensive, and dunno If you actually are being. But I just think your argument has no point. :/

 

I don't see the problem at all.

If a developer is going to be put off by Unity because a demo has a soldier in it, then they probably have bigger issues than just Unity.

 

????

How can you not understand?

I can see if you dont entirely agree, but he was pretty clear.

The demo serves its purpose well, and it demonstrates fairly what unity 3 is capable of. Was it absolutely necessary? Maybe not absolutely, I wouldn't have complained if they came up with a fresh idea. But the demo is great, so I'm happy!

 

Good points

 

I don't think anyone needed proof that unity is able to do FPS

It's pretty obvious it can... if anything people need proof of is that unity can do much more, and it can.

maybe because FPS is what's hot on the market resulted for a FPS to be a good choice for a main demo project.

 

no its because FPS is the main incarnation of visual sluttiness so if you want to show that you are even somewhere current you must please this "red district" or they will bash you as not current.

no matter if that part is all it offers while lacking seriously at the rest (torque)


will be interesting to see how far UT will let other pressure them there cause at the time the FPS demo is nice but it lacks a major aspect in which unity always fall short: dedicated server capability without deathstrike alike overhead to make an mp fps, not requiring pro, not requiring monster builds

 

Why complain about it? Why shouldn't it be nessesary?

 

My main objection is that there is way enough violence in our world to add some more, be it in games or reality (especially at a time where the frontier between both will likely move faster and faster). I came to Unity many years ago, by the time they were promoting great projects like Global Conflictalestine - and I hope they will continue in such a state of mind. To be frank, I'm pretty sure they will do... but you never know

I don't think there is a legal age to program with Unity, or is there ?

The fact that you ask such a question means we have really different educational values. I'm not pretending here that mine are superior to yours, and btw it's up to you to convince me if you like. But just saying things like "there's no point" or "what's the problem" won't help me to reconsider some principles I am experimenting every day as a father, as a citizen and also as a person who has been working in the communication field for long, measuring year after year the power of images... but again, I do my best to keep my mind open to different approaches.

No offense meant, definitely. I'm just expressing a personal opinion as a long-time faithful Unity user, who came here for some reasons that were more than technical.

For the moment, guess what ? I keep thinking it has...

 

I think Unity gets a lot of business from the military here in the US, for training simulations. They'd obviously be a target for a demo like this, and they have all the money in the world

 

Really ? in that case, it would illustrate my point about the blurring frontier between gaming and reality

 

Lets just be glad they didn't make it a 3d sex sim. Those things never catch on.

As for Dark Unity (is there a list of names that it could be called?), I hope we see it soon. Since it's going to be a standalone, does this mean it will replace the Avert Fate demo? And if not, will this mean the Avert Fate demo will be recompiled with 3.0 and given a graphics lift?

 

The military has been using game technology for simulations for a long time.

It's a lot cheaper and safer than practicing everything with live ammo.

 

It dosnt even have blood. And I don't know how old your daugther is, but Unity as a serious game developing tool is not aimed at kids. Normally people over 15 try this out, and probably people +18 actually go somewhere. And thouse are old enough to see simple computer generated violonce. There is more violonce in the TV, much more, than in a Soldier shooting around in a Unity game.

No, and thats exactly my point. Most people in this forum are grown up people, like you, and they shouldn't take things like this so seriously. What I meant is that your daugther should not be playing the Soldier game. If you don't want her to.

You are older than me, you have more experience than me and you were educated in a different time. Im not a father, so I can't really think that way. But, again, its just a simple Tech Project (not even a game). Read first reply

---
I would like to elaborate more, but I have to go now.

 

Well I don't think it has anything to do with Unity getting business from the military (haven't heard anything like that even though they might have some).

While I certainly respect the rights everyone has to there own opinion, I don't really see Unity switching there main demo project to a gun based game really is bad in any way. The world is filled with violence and no matter what you do, you can't prevent it from entering your world. If you take a look at a lot of video games today (especially PC based video games) a lot of them have violence in.

From Unity prospective, which you you think will make people say "I need to check this engine out", a pretty good looking FPS shooter or a game about the care bears? Unity wanted to create a demo project with more then just walking around and looking like the island demo and I think a that you can get a FPS working with gameplay functionality with a minimum amount of work compared to other genres like RPGs.

At least the demo does not have you shooting anyone and anything like that.

 

Thank goodness Unity cancelled their latest promotional campaign where they were going to play this in preschools around the world with a soundtrack of "kill kill kill" looping for added effect.

 

I tend to agree that the focus on military, soldiers, stuff blowing up, guns, ammo, war, is all very cliche and `easy` and in many ways `more of the same` and a real ego-fest, certainly not for kids (that would be poor parenting, mainly). I don't know why people get so obsessed about being able to murder and get away with it. There isn't a whole lot of difference between what we experience in the physical world and what we imagine is happening, whether it be on a screen or otherwise, and left unchecked this explosion of ever more lifelike violent games had got to have a negative impact on society. If we are looking to the future of society as the picture painted by these kind of games then it's going to be one hell of a place. I for one am quite tired of how everyone, in tv and movies also, keeps thinking that making stuff `darker` or `more evil` or `more murderous and bloody` will be better. It certainly appeals to the ego, which is insane, but it doesn't go to any lengths to keep us in a sane world. The world is going down the crapper and I can't wait for somoene to actually make something that is inspiring and uplifting and liberating, without having to first create a distaster in order to do so.

However I can certainly see that a lot of gamers, especially the more hardcore, don't give a crap about all that and just want to go explode some bodies or something. This kind of demo certainly will give Unity a stronger more cutting-edge kind of image, more of a AAA-title kind of feel rather than just a lot of cutesy pansy casual/safe kinda games. So I feel it's a mixed bag. The same message probably could have been done without such a war focus, but it is and will be a pretty strong advertisment for Unity's capabilities, particularly marketing to the big game development companies who will be looking for evidence of super ego-fest killing-spree game potential for their next upcoming `lets make it even darker` shindig. I concur I would've liked maybe more of a sci-fi theme than a warzone but probably less people would relate to it.

The unfortunate thing really isn't so much that Unity is doing the wrong thing, but that everyone is lately jumping onto the bandwagon of always pursuing whatever has `more impact`, or is more shocking, or more disturbing, or appeals to the ego more, or sells more (basically), and if we keep going down that path it is inevitable that all of these products will continue to get more and more violent and death-focussed. When and how will it end? If you think sex sells, you should consider that death probably sells even more. Why are we buying into death?

All that said, Unity is a great and generally inspiring company and besides the subject matter and approach of this new demo, the product is great and I'm pleased that Unity 3 is out!

 

the 1940 city would have been more stylish but the soldier is a mass market promo

 

@ImaginaryHuman : couldn't say better, including your conclusion

 

The Island demo is kool, and it is good to see a different use of the engine via the soldier.

Btw, my kids have been playing shoot-them-up games for over 15 years. They are Master Chief.

And another thing, I consider myself lucky. This being my first week really using Unity, and now I get an upgrade

 

Simple, because its entertaining. A person with no mental problems should be able to understand the diference betwen a game and real life.

I honestly don't like how this thread become a "Violent game haters" thread. :S

Makes me feel the effort im putting in my game is useless.

 

I think that the Boot Camp demo is a brilliant way to entice more customers. I had a friend who absolutely hated Unity, said it was too cartoony, non-realistic and said "that no one would even consider making a game with it" Then, about a month or two later I showed him the video of the Boot Camp demo, and Interstellar Marines and he fell in love with Unity.

So, I guess that, although some people think this demo isn't very suitable, it's a pretty good demonstration of what unity can do. I'm sure that more demos will be released very soon, including the city.

 

I respect people's opinions on this either way. And to be perfectly honest I'm not a big fan of shooters myself (I play a few though) - this type of demo just seemed to fit with what we needed to show off at this point in time.

 

Speaking of the city, what are the extremes of the draw call triangle count of it?

 

So the thread itself isn't useless... just kidding

I understand, Ethan. Just wanted to play a certain kind of melody in the concert, and I find the overall response pretty reassuring.

 

It averages out at around 750k vertices and 800 draw calls with Occlusion Culling. It still needs some optimizations which is why it didn't make it for the 3.0 launch

 

Ok, I have to rant about this.

<rant>
I really hate people who say that violence in computer games promoted violence in real life. Those people are just looking for another excuse to explain violence. I guarantee you that I can turn on the news are find something just as bad or worse that what is in video games. A normal person is not going to play GTA and then go outside, start stealing cars and running people down for no reason (I haven't). I have actually known a fewpeople that I seriously think would have snapped by now if not for video games. Video games are for entertainment value and some case, a release mechanism.

You don't like violence video games, don't play them but don't preach that these violent video games is going to bring the end of the civilized world. There are a lot of very evil dark people that have probably never played a video game ever (I don't know, maybe all North Korea needs to do is lay off the violence video games and they will start buddy up to everyone).
</rant>

 

agreed with ryanzec

but at the same time, my main point against shooters is that they promoted and still promote sub standard gameplay which in no other genre evolved as little over the past decade as in shooters, the longer the less content gameplay time wise and totally overdriven hardware requirements if you want to get the game they promote visualy, aside of massive installations for this short gameplay time (bf bc2 has like 10gb for about 3-5h gameplay time if you don't do MP which you can't due to the "level up to not be killed by anyone" unfairness in the matchmaking)

since their existance, FPS was the motor for selling overpriced gpu hardware. back then started by id, now kept alive by crytek and dice

if RTS would have progressed that little then total annihilation would have happened by now, if rpgs progressed that little, oblivion and fable wouldn't have happened till 2015 ...