NVidia Omniverse

Maybe a bit short-eyed, but I see it primarily as a collaboration-tool that allows users on different machines with different dcc-tools to work simultaneously on one project in realtime.
At least this is what my company needs, facing issues with synchronizing data between 3dsmax, Blender, Unity, Unreal. Too many exports/imports, multiple sourcefiles, etc.

 

What you might be missing is that the subscription for Unity is not a subscription for the engine. It's a subscription for the editor only. Omniverse allows your artistic creatives and level designers to work outside of Unity which can potentially eliminate the need for them to have licenses.

It's also more than just a collaboration tool. Omniverse can do just about everything for the architecture, film, and manufacturing industries that Unity is currently capable of doing.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/omniverse/architecture-engineering-construction/
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/omniverse/media-entertainment/
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/omniverse/manufacturing/

 

Watch the siggraph opening they did, they have stuff directly in competition of stuff like ziva thing unity try to get hold off.

 

Hmm, this is not very clear to me.
However, why are "other big engines" with very similar tools (e.g. to Ziva) then offering connectors - but not Unity?

In the end we just wanted that collaboration solution (USD/MDL) using connectors.
But the 9000€ starterpackage is too much for little companies like mine so I won´t get it anyways.
I also was in contact with NVidia since we won´t use Kit/Creator but they don´t offer anything smaller than that starter-package. They´re not interested in small studios like mine....

 

It's very clearly shown in the official tutorials for Omniverse. You create your scene within Omniverse and once that is done then you migrate the scene to Unity. That only requires ONE person interact with the Unity editor. All of the people who were working in Omniverse don't need to use the Unity editor and therefore don't need Unity licenses.

Unity is the only company that charges to use the editor. Just about every other game charges you for using the engine. UE's EULA, for example, states that any product incorporating part of their "Engine Code" (this includes example and starter content) requires you pay them royalties.

They're not interested because they're not making money off of them. NVIDIA makes the bulk of their income off of selling you the professional tier hardware needed to accelerate your workflow. Omniverse's starter cost isn't there to make money. It's essentially a "you need to be this tall to get on our rides".

 

I don't give a S*** about any of that, they should consider if a Unity dev would be willing to switch engines just to get a feature they consider ideal for their company or team.

There's no comparable Unity solution as far as I know they can point to.

For me planning the long term this is a factor. But i guess it's not happening like a bunch of other things...

 

Go ahead and switch. Losing you to another engine or losing you to Omniverse. It's the same thing.

 

Not really, that's like saying maya loses customers to zbrush. Or Unity loses customers to substance 3d Sampler just cause it had a texture capture app for a minute. You're talking about features Unity mostly isn't offering yet or a place unity doesn't fulfill.

You may be allowed to do a lot in omniverse but it's not a replacement. Nothing in unity allows for direct collaboration of creating scenes and environments, thats the core of why people want omniverse.

But i guess if unity has that view they'd rather sell to fewer developers than have a broader userbase to capitalize on just cause they're stingy.

Maya doesn't lose customers to zbrush just cause it doesn't have good sculpting and super high poly features. If anything zbrush boosts it's userbase.

 

It's not a complete replacement but it can be a replacement for some roles.

 

Role unity want to monetize to diversify their revenue income.

But the competition sprung up overnight from all side and turned unity bet to take a lead into l'âme duck territory. They haven't been lucky with their branching out so far. I don't envy them.

 

But... Does it have ads?

 

I would have loved to use the "cross-platform realtime collaboration solution" that Omniverse seems to offer because it adresses the biggest issue we have in our company: Working environments change that way that people work from home or anywhere else using cloud tools. Omicron drastically accelerated this.

We have to stay competitive against others so we should use competitive software. In my special case (Archviz) I see very sadly Unity being no longer the tool of my choice, the same as 3dsmax isn´t anymore. (Maybe its remarkable that more open software tools seem to win for me: If Omniverse-Collaborating is seen as a competitor that has to be excluded I need an alternative from Unity, just one point of many.)

(I worked for 12 years with Unity (+ 3dsmax) every day and I really would like to continue, since both are great. Also because it takes a lot of time and stretches nerves (omg - I´m 47!) to get into other engines and modelling tools.)

 

Unity connector coming at the end of the year:
NVIDIA announces Unity connector for Omniverse at GTC 2022 - The Ghost Howls (skarredghost.com)

 

Maybe this will put some effort behind Unity's USD support - still in preview.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/usd-for-unity-updates.646645/
https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.formats.usd@1.0/manual/index.html

 

That'd be nice. Omniverse is a pretty useful tool for gamedev collab and it'd be nice to see its implementation shored up.

 

Any updates on this?

 

Yes, there is: https://developer.nvidia.com/omniverse-platform/unity-connector-eap

Though until it's a two way sync, it really isn't that useful for my needs

 

I was thinking the same. I can't find Unity in this NVIDIA presentation.

GTC 2023 NVIDIA Keynote
​

He mentions Unity but simultaneously shows up a Unity interface but with the Unreal logo! That's bad.

​

 

Someone put the wrong logo up, not a big deal.

 

The Unity connector is out now in beta.

Docs: Unity — Omniverse Connect documentation (nvidia.com)