Question about Autodesk Scaleform Unity plugin

I'm thinking about purchasing the Scaleform plugin for Unity, but I don't have any clue how content is created for Scaleform?

This is in regards to creating a UI for a game of course. I know it is heavily correlated with Flash, but do I HAVE to create a GUI art element using Adobe Flash Professional first, and then load the asset via the Scaleform plugin? Or does the Scaleform plugin allow me to create a custom gui element from within the plugin itself?

The main thing I'm trying to figure out, is if I pretty much have to own Adobe Flash Pro in order to make good use of Autodesk Scaleform?

Could I simply use programs like Photoshop and Gimp along with Scaleform's vector graphics features to create a good-looking UI?

 

As far as I know (but I might be completely wrong, because maybe the Unity version of Scaleform behaves differently than others) you will need Flash to code all your GUI, so yes, it would be a necessity.

 

Okay. I was kind of hoping that would not be the case, but it is what it is.

Thanks Izitmee.

 

I haven't used scaleform but this time the new Units GUI really is going to be released very soon. Maybe wait a little and do other things on your project if the time isn't pressing right now?

 

Indeed, the new Unity GUI is officially scheduled for release this summer, and it seems very well done. Waiting is a good advice.

 

I'm not sure waiting is right thing to do. First new GUI was promised in 3.x cycle, then in 4.x, then this spring, and now this summer. I'm not betting on it.
Second, if you have to make complex GUI's not, 2 buttons and some texts then, you can be sure, that Unity new GUI is going to have issues. For example look at Mecanim, after a year it still struggle.

 

The new GUI is scheduled for 4.6 for an extremely long time now. Its been featured in the official webcast tutorials already a few times now. There's a presentation video of nearly 30 minutes length ... and you would still rather buy Scaleform because you don't believe Unity?

 

I havn't seen anything related to the new Unity GUI yet, but do you think it's even going to be able to compete with Scaleform? I think the true strength of Scaleform is it's ability to deliver "crisp" great looking graphics at any resolution (especially with vector graphics).

Is Unity's new GUI even going to be able to do vector graphics, or mimic it in some way? What about text clarity as well? I'm hoping Unity's new GUI will give us an easy way to implement text that is actually clear.

All that being said, I am waiting for the new GUI. Scaleform is just something I'm considering, but it's still too high of a financial price for me right now. But I wanted to know how it worked -- like if you could create content with the Unity plugin itself.

 

I don't know if it will be able to compete with Scaleform. I honestly haven't even worked with Scaleform yet because I didn't really have any need for it, yet. It certainly looks liike the new GUI will be able to deliver crisp UIs.
Anyways - here's the thread: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/official-new-ui-system-coming-in-unity-4-6.248524/

If you have any experience with Scaleform you can probably get a better picture for compaison, yourself.

 

Trusting Unity some time ago to deliver new GUI backfired hard for us, and for sure we can't take version numbers or release dates from Unity seriously after that.
Long story short:
We delayed our GUI dev, as much as possible waiting it to be released any time in early 4.x. After seeing this blog post
http://blogs.unity3d.com/2012/06/29/the-new-gui/ (yeah it was 2 years ago!!!!, Screenshots looking similar to what we can see now from video), we belived in Unity and agreed to wait for it (we had 1 full year to our project deadline), and you already know, that there is still no GUI as we speak.

 

That's been discussed a million times. When you decided that you would hold on to a GUI there were no fixed or promised dates. Yes Unity wanted the release way sooner than what it turned out to be. The whole backlash or people who though that there would be updates was one of the main reasons Unity went into silence about their upcoming tech in the first place. Which resulted in the current backlash about unity being too silent. You get the point....
This time however there IS a fixed timeframe (this summer). There IS a fixed Release number (4.6).

BTW - the screenshots you linked to may look the same but the way I understand it the tech behind it is completely different. I know it took too long - Unity know it took too long. I'm sorry that your plans didn't work out. But I think you should be able to see the difference in a blog about plans and an actual promised feature release.

 

Here is literally the first sentence from that blog post you posted:

If the new GUI is coming out in 4.6, then that's a later release. I get that you feel burned, and a lot of people have been waiting for it. But now people (testers) have been using it, there's a full 30 minute overview (not a preview, but an overview, implying that this is what we'll actually be getting). It's scheduled for 4.6 (and specifically 4.6, not 4.x) and 5.0 is already on the horizon. It's quite possible they might delay it again, but I don't think they'd make such a big show of it and mention a specific timeline this time around if they weren't reasonably confident they could deliver. Not after having messed up last time when they promised a 3.x release. If they were saying sometime in the 5.x cycle, then sure I'd share your doubts, but that's not what's happening here.

I was recently at a point where my game needed a UI system too, so what have I done? I've implemented my own custom system for now and it's fully functional. It's not perfect and not especially flexible, but it gets the job done. So if the new UI system ends up taking another 3 years for whatever reason, I'm already good to go. If it comes out sometime in the next couple of months as expected, I'm also good and can switch. Now if you decided to literally wait and do nothing, without having a fixed release date, and you didn't have a backup plan, well sorry but that's kind of a foolish thing to do regardless.

 

Yes, we were aware of it. And there were no solid dates or version numbers given, but the quality of tools visible in screenshots left us with false assumption, that it's near finished and will be shipped during early updates in 4.x cycle not last update in 4.x. Lesson learned.

I was just trying to give OP little information about it, after seeing multiple posts suggest to wait for unity. Even now i would not wait if i had to finish GUI (i'm not talking about 2 buttons and one label type of GUI's) within next 6 months.

 

Great information. Thanks Chariots. Looks like if I want to "leverage" Scaleform even a little bit, I need to have Adobe Flash. I was hoping I could get away with not having to purchase it, but looks like it's pretty much a necessity for Scaleform. Thanks for the advice in regards to large studio vs. small team as well -- that helps a lot.

 

Why don't you believe it? I understand why but it's a for sure thing now. Don't be ignorant and read the forums. There's a topic with a bunch of videos showing it and even how to use it.