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NoesisGUI : XAML-based User Interface [RELEASED]

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by sfernandez, Jul 23, 2013.

  1. jdesantos

    jdesantos

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    As soon as 2.3 is out, but you don't need to wait you can download from our website.
     
  2. atcarter714

    atcarter714

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    Most powerful XAML-based Unity UI? I'm gonna wager that this is the most powerful UI system for Unity, but it's not really gonna be good for beginners, to say the least, lol ... this is what I'd call a serious "professional" or "AAA" solution (even though I hate using the term "AAA" as a way of describing quality, lol), and a beginner will probably be stumped by it. I'm shocked that this isn't way more widely-known and popular, and I wanted to give my review and thoughts on it ...

    I integrated this into an existing project, took a bit of a gamble on it, and it really paid off. But I realized that day that this was not a very beginner friendly way to just get UI elements on the screen (and that wasn't what I wanted anyway, I needed something that can scale way up). This is for when you've built games at scale before, know what you're doing and understand all of the problems with getting Unity's UI to scale for large games and all the trouble it entails ... this is for when you work across multiple engines (or have your own engine) and you want to have portable designs and UI logic, or if you have experience at a job doing XAML-based UIs for applications in frameworks like WPF, WinUI, Xamarin, MAUI, etc. If you want to go way beyond Unity's built-in systems and that workflow, then this is the best solution I've ever tried, hands down. But if you only need simple UI stuff on your screen and if you're not comfortable using something powerful and sophisticated that doesn't have a lot of YouTube videos or tutorials, which requires reading documentation (assumes you have programming experience) and if you're daunted by programming all on your own without guidance and figuring stuff out yourself, then this probably won't suit you ... just didn't want to encourage beginners to shoot themselves in the foot with something a bit too much for them. If you're new and still struggling, I'd put this on my future "to-do" list and wait until you have more experience.

    If you're an experienced developer and understand graphics then this will blow your mind with how powerful it is. It almost feels too easy to get this to work in your own applications with DirectX, and I'm definitely going to fully integrate this into my own engine now, and use it in a UE5 project. Every time you think "It can't possibly do xyz, I'll probably have to do that part myself" you'll find out they already thought about that, implemented it and it's mentioned in the documentation, lol. If you work with other engines, write your own engines or "bare metal" applications, etc or have worked with XAML-based modern UIs outside Unity, then you'll probably love this system like I have thus far, and I highly recommend and support this.

    This pretty much sums up my experience with NoesisGUI perfectly, lol ...
     
  3. PanthenEye

    PanthenEye

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    It's sorta free for indies but no thanks:



    And the paid tiers are under Contact Us so it's certainly out of our price range.
     
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  4. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    To quote Linus Sebastian, "just because someone likes pancakes doesn't mean they hate waffles". Some people like knowing the cost upfront not after a project has been completed and the company can now quote any price they like. That doesn't mean they're hating on it.
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2024
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  5. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    And, unfortunately, this was a "recent" change and why I had to stop recommending noesis even though it's my preferred UI tool. I put that in quotes because it happened in 2021 I think, but it used to be that they had their per-seat costs up front and indie licenses were just free. If you made less than €100,000, you just downloaded it and (I think) went through the activation process.
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2024
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  6. bugfinders

    bugfinders

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    too late :p
    2023.3 alpha the text mesh pro has changed and any previous things barf and whine cos the mandatory stuff for TMP is no longer the right stuff, and then obviously starts unity in "safe mode" .. and .. oh TMP isnt even a package now...
     
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  7. PanthenEye

    PanthenEye

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    I think they merged TextMeshPro into UGUI. TextCore is the TextMeshPro replacement in the works.
     
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  8. SteveJ

    SteveJ

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    I'm all for the old naming/versioning standard. Made a lot more sense to me.
     
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  9. bugfinders

    bugfinders

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    I think they did too, but, it means your project has a bit of a fit when you try it :D
     
  10. jdesantos

    jdesantos

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    The price is fixed, you can contact our sales department and they will provide you with seats at 399€/year. The company have been working exclusively on NoesisGUI for more than 10 years, no hidden tricks, you pay the license, we give you the binaries and the support for your game (assistance given in less than 24h in many cases https://www.noesisengine.com/forums/). If people can't understand that we can't give this for free, then they probably don't understand how software industry works. Unity (engine) business is not sustainable and soon or later they will try again to increase costs and change SLAs.
     
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  11. AcidArrow

    AcidArrow

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    Why is that information not on the website?
     
  12. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    If the price is fixed why is it behind hidden behind a Contact Us?

    Unity's business model used to be sustainable back before they went down the venture capitalist route. Back when they were content with asking for a fixed price rather than try to obfuscate it in a similar manner to your company's Contact Us.

    I love the passive aggressiveness by the way. It says a great deal about a company when one of the co-founders and CTO comes to a forum and posts in this manner. If your support staff is anything like you I imagine it would be a very unpleasant experience dealing with them. You've successfully convinced me to never use your product.
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2024
  13. jdesantos

    jdesantos

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    And that's perfectly fine. Thank you
     
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  14. AcidArrow

    AcidArrow

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    I like how you dodged the actual questions being thrown at you.

    If you want to leave Noesis, you'll be a good fit at Unity for a managerial position.
     
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  15. stonstad

    stonstad

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    Plenty of studios use Noesis with great success. My personal experience is positive, but I'll admit I didn't try the approach of demanding it for free, or implying they are shady because it's a commercial product. By all means, continue using Unity if price is a more important consideration than features or performance.
     
  16. AcidArrow

    AcidArrow

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    Can I imply they are shady because their website doesn't talk about pricing and then we have someone from Noesis come here and say "It's 399euro / year, duh! are you guys idiots?" (I'm paraphrasing)
     
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  17. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    We haven't either. I'm perfectly fine paying. I just don't like the way that the co-founder and CTO treats people as it's an indication of how the company thinks of and treats their customers. One person's anecdotal experience with a product doesn't have the same weight as that.

    Same applies to Unity for many people. Yet I don't see you using or recommending their product.
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2024
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  18. Unifikation

    Unifikation

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    Is it?

    I've seen tonnes of positive, enthusiastic and seemingly sincere concern from Unity's key folks - yet that's not seemingly how they actually think of their customers, and it's definitely not how they treat their customers.

    I'd trust this guy as a CTO more than one that wanders off mid tech re-orientation with a budget of billions.
     
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  19. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    Individually? No. Company policy? Yes. Unity literally has a "you can't ask for a refund if you've downloaded an asset you've bought" in the Asset Store TOS. Because the risk that you might keep something is more valuable than the risk that you're getting scammed by a bad asset.

    Funny because the ex-CEO of Unity and the CTO of Noesis basically implied the same thing: that their customers are idiots for thinking in a way that doesn't align with their thoughts. You can disagree with someone in a way that isn't rude but neither of them did that.

    It's even worse in the case of Noesis as the CTO is a co-founder but the ex-CEO of Unity was simply the CEO. You can restrict the power of and remove the CEO much more easily than you can a co-founder. According to Linkedin they only have 9 employees so the CTO is likely putting in considerable work too. Removing him would be hard.

    Edit: I checked their forums and he's also helping with support questions so you may have to deal with him directly if you have problems.

    For the record I wouldn't have cared as much if the person making the statement had just been an employee. It's a different story for a person who has the power that this person does and they have to be closer scrutinized for it.
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2024
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  20. AcidArrow

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    The actual problem is still their licensing policy as presented on their website. Use the trial and contact us when you're done is pretty much: make your game rely on our tech and then we'll tell you whatever price we want since you'll have no choice but to pay.
     
  21. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    Here's the thing.

    Here's the thing: I know this. I know this because I'm a paying customer and have been for about 5 years now because as far as I'm concerned it's the only UI solution for Unity that isn't total bullshit. But that doesn't mean I can recommend it because without these costs being up-front, I can't recommend it to others in good faith because they can't make an informed choice without being able to confirm that themselves.

    I also get that a product being worked on by paid developers can't just be given away for free. Noesis isn't doing that though. The indie license has a pretty direct revenue cap but might as well not exist for a lot of people because of how the current system is set up. Having to juggle 30 day trials because your UI implementation ran long is just going to strike people as punitive, even if it's an extremely small barrier to entry. Hell, I'd say that having a 30 day trial system and having the indie license be €150 a year or whatever would be less off-putting than the current setup.
     
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  22. jdesantos

    jdesantos

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    Trials last 30 days, but you can generate a new one after that, there is no limit.

    Anyway, thanks for the feedback, and you may be right, we have plans to improve the current setup.
     
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  23. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    I directly address that here:

     
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  24. TheOtherMonarch

    TheOtherMonarch

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    I have always been interested in Noesis. But could never understand your pricing. If you switch to transparent pricing, I would be open to switching to your product.
     
  25. bugfinders

    bugfinders

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    While I feel this bit has entirely derailed the conversation.

    Does it work with webgl? Id never heard of it but invisible pricing is a great turn off for hobby coders. We dont have someone elses money to throw at things nor an ability to claim taxes back or anything it comes out of our food money.
     
  26. PanthenEye

    PanthenEye

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    Exactly, it's not paying that's the issue. It's the unclear terms of what exactly is the process of asking for an indie license. And the fact that they can simply torpedo your project last minute by not giving that license for any reason. €150/year sounds reasonable too for a non-S*** UI solution in Unity. I'd pay for the certainty that I can ship on time.
     
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  27. It's mind-boggling that in 2024 we still have middleware companies who try to be the judge of the games we are working on if they are worthy of their tools. Or just simply scam people into working with these tools and at the end when devs are desperate to ship resurface with the bill.

    Noesis is the prime example of a great tech, if you have the budget and you don't care how much the tool cost you.

    I won't touch Noesis and continue to actively discommend it for any indies until a transparent pricing implemented.

    - 30 day trial available
    - indie pricing (couple hundred bucks annual, tops)
    - not deal with "we will evaluate your game, you need to register" BS (you can ask people not to mention you by default and tell them to ask you if they want to credit you), make it automatic, I pay, you make the binaries available, that's should be the extent of our relationship. You aren't investor, stakeholder or advisor on our projects

    Until then, great that high-budget indies are using your product, it's great (unironically and honestly), but it's not for average indies.
     
  28. Milvulus

    Milvulus

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    It seems they have updated their licensing terms:


    https://www.noesisengine.com/licensing.php
     
  29. jdesantos

    jdesantos

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    We've listened to all of you. Please find more information about these changes here.
     
  30. jdesantos

    jdesantos

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    atcarter714 likes this.