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[RELEASED] Scene Fusion - real-time, multi-user scene editing!

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by grimunk, Feb 2, 2017.

  1. grimunk

    grimunk

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    Hi everyone,

    I'm Justin, from KinematicSoup.

    Since Unite 2015 we have been working on Scene Fusion, a tool that enables your team to work together in real-time.

    Availability

    We distribute Scene Fusion via our website. Scene Fusion is specific to each minor Unity release version, which currently makes it very difficult to distribute and maintain in Unity's asset store.

    What is it?

    It is a way of sharing a scene so you and your team can work together in real-time. It gives you the ability to 'host' a scene, much like hosting a multiplayer game, so your team can connect and work with you in real-time. We call these Fusion Sessions.

    Here is a quick video that demonstrates the basics.



    What does this do for you?


    Scene Fusion lets you and your team assemble scenes much more quickly. If you are laying out a level, bring your decorators with you. If you are a lead designer, supervise and provide feedback in real-time while your design team is working on building the scene out. You can focus on one scene at a time, including sub-scenes, get it done, and move on to the next as a group.

    We have several customers reporting to us that their teams are able to work twice as fast when using Scene Fusion, as well as schedules completing weeks worth of work in a few days.

    Here is it in action:



    If you're interested, check us out on youtube! We have tutorials and workflow videos there, with more coming all the time.

    Is it Source Control?

    Scene Fusion is different from source control. It does not sync your assets or code. We recommend you use collab, Perforce, PlasticSCM, git, or svn to handle that work. Scene Fusion does work WITH source control, so while you are in session you can use source control to add new assets! We even have placeholders for other who have not yet pull the new assets in.

    Here is a video showing how to use Scene Fusion with Collaborate. The process is similar with Perforce Helix, git, etc.:



    What about code/scripts?

    We get asked this A LOT. We don't sync code and assets, so use source control to push those changes to each other.. If you change something while in a Fusion Session, Scene Fusion detects the change the provides the team with a notification of the difference without interrupting the session. Once you use source control to push your changed asset or code, and they pull the change in, the notification will be cleared automatically.

    What about plugins?

    Scene Fusion ships with extensions to support the latest versions of official Unity plugins (ProBuilder, Cinemachine, EXR, etc). It is possible to create your own extensions to support plugins you are using or have created. For larger paying customers, we will help you with this - just ask!

    Announcement Feb 22, 2020:

    We are currently on version 1.8.3, with support for Unity 2019.3 tested and awaiting deployment. We are working on Scene Fusion 2.0 for Unity, which can interact with Scene Fusion for Unreal which is also based on 2.0.

    Scene Fusion 2.0 is much more easy to extend than Scene Fusion 1.x, and we have already used it to create a tool to move map data from Unreal to Unity and vice versa.


    [EDIT]: We continue to improve Scene Fusion. For more detailed up-to-date release notes, please check this page: http://www.kinematicsoup.com/scene-fusion/resources/releasenotes

    If you have any questions or comment, we're all ears!

    Thanks!

    [Edit 1 - added info about this not being a source control replacement and youtube link]
    [Edit 2 - added more specific info about how to use Scene Fusion with source control, and what can/cannot be synced]
    [Edit 3 - we support EditorVR, and other plugins such as Ferr2D, ProBuilder]
    [Edit 4 - we support arbitrarily large scenes in the paid version and PlayMaker]
    [Edit 5 - official support for EditorXR and Unity 2017.2 is finally live]
    [Edit 6 - yes, the project is alive, we just forgot to update this thread. We are now on Scene Fusion 1.8. We have deprecated support for non-unity 3rd party plugins as it is getting too complex to offer wide unity version support and plugin support]
    [Edit 7 - Scene Fusion has been updated significantly. Clarified how Scene Fusion now tolerates project differences, including code and asset differences, between collaborators during a session. Clarified plugin support]
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2020
  2. MrIconic

    MrIconic

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    Just so everyone knows. This asset is revolutionary. It works as shown and has only become better and better.

    I noticed they also have a free trial now too. So you don't have to take my word for it.

    Edit: Just be aware that it doesn't sync files and assets. It can deal with projects not having the same files (by displaying a gizmo of sorts) but you may need an external file sync solution.
     
    Gekigengar, Teila and AThiessenKS like this.
  3. grimunk

    grimunk

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    Thanks @Blueberry for the kind words!

    And yes, thanks for pointing this out because it is important:

    This is NOT a source control replacement. Use Collab, Git, Perforce, etc. to distribute and sync your project. Scene Fusion is all about loading a scene, and bringing in people to help build it out with you so you can get decorations, lighting, architecture, etc. all done at one time.

    We are posting videos to our youtube channel here: www.youtube.com/kinematicsoup. We are always adding new tutorial and workflow videos (and a bunch of speed builds!).

    You can finish a week's worth of work in as little as a few hours working this way.

    You can even enter and leave play mode, and choose to see the changes other people are doing in real-time. For example, if you are tuning some jumps on your platformer, you can have a person adjust the scene for you while you are testing so you don't have to enter/leave play mode for every change.

    We have another release coming up, 1.2.1. We are fixing a few things like child order syncing. I believe we will also have support for Ferr2D by Simbryo. We are in contact with other interesting tool makers who would work really well with real-time collaboration.

    Oh, and if you are attending a game jam, and would like to use Scene Fusion for it, contact us!
     
  4. grimunk

    grimunk

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    Update:

    Hello everyone. Yesterday version 1.3 of Scene Fusion went live. This one is a bit special in that it has specific EVR support. However, you will either need to use the development branch of EVR or you will have to wait until EVR 0.0.2 is released. The feature is to be considered experimental. If you try it out and have an issue, just contact us at support@kinematicsoup.com, and we will help you out.
     
    IgorAherne likes this.
  5. grimunk

    grimunk

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  6. grimunk

    grimunk

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    Update:

    We are now on version 1.5.2. We are currently working on extreme-size scene support, Playmaker support, and performance/bandwidth optimizations. We are also working on documenting our API so everyone can use it.

    Have a favorite plugin that you would like to see us support? Join us on discord or contact is at info@kinematicsoup.com.
     
  7. grimunk

    grimunk

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    Update:

    Today we released Scene Fusion 1.6.

    What's New:

    > FREE tier is now available, allowing two people to use Scene Fusion on small scenes containing up to 500 game objects.
    > Playmaker 1.8 support
    > Significantly improved scene setup times for very large scenes
    > Better support for EditorVR, including Oculus Touch support
    > A significant number of bug fixes, tweaks, and enhancements
     
  8. grimunk

    grimunk

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    Update:

    Today we put up a new asset release, Scene Fusion 1.6.0-1. This fixes an issue where the new fast loading system would be overly aggressive is matching your projects up. The problem made it hard to start sessions. This is now fixed!
     
  9. ffman22

    ffman22

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    nice work with this, Can we use super tile map editor with scene fusion?
     
  10. grimunk

    grimunk

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    We haven't created specific support for super tilemap editor, however it is possible to make it work. Scene Fusion includes code to sync ProBuilder and Play Maker. Look at the code and you'll see how you can tie in to Scene Fusion to enable support for other plugins.

    We are working on Scene Fusion 1.7, with Unity 2017.2 support, with official EditorVR support and support for Unity's new tilemap system. We are including a change to the API allowing you to lock and sync arrays of data, which you can use to hook in to your own tools. This change is an improvement on the current system that you see in our plugin integrations.
     
    theANMATOR2b likes this.
  11. grimunk

    grimunk

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    Alright, Scene Fusion 1.7 with support for Unity 2017.2 is live! That one took awhile.

    It supports Unity's new tile terrain features, which was a challenge to get working. More importantly, we have really put a lot more focus on support for EditorXR 0.0.9.
     
  12. grimunk

    grimunk

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    We just release Scene Fusion 1.7.1. This one adds a notification and scene information system and has new features in the API! If you are looking to use Scene Fusion capabilities in your project with your plugins, jump in on discord with us - Discord invite is in my signature.
     
  13. Sajid_farooq

    Sajid_farooq

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    Any ETA on support for Unity 2018?
     
  14. grimunk

    grimunk

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    We have just finished 2017.4 which should be released imminently. We have just started work on 2018.1. We anticipate it will go reasonably quickly, though we may have to do more than one release to ensure we work with the new plugins. We already work with ProBuilder, so it shouldn't take too much time to verify everything works with the version shipping in Unity.
     
  15. grimunk

    grimunk

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    Just an update: Unity 2018.2 has been supported for a few months now. We are starting work on 2018.3 since it should be getting close to release.
     
    OfficialDeVel likes this.
  16. Rich_A

    Rich_A

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  17. grimunk

    grimunk

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    No we are active. We are currently building support for nested prefabs as well as a prefab syncing option. We now also have Scene Fusion for Unreal engine. FAQ page is now here: http://www.kinematicsoup.com/scene-fusion/kb
     
  18. Rich_A

    Rich_A

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    So it looks like if I build my level design/art pipeline around SceneFusion, I'm going to be stuck a few versions behind in terms of Unity editor... that could be a problem.

    Unity should aqui-hire you and integrate the service officially as part of Collaborate
     
  19. grimunk

    grimunk

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    Yeah we're a little behind because of nested prefabs. It adds a lot of complexity. Several things are changing in the engine and, as you might imagine, we have to go through all of it to see what has changed. We are also working on a prefab syncing feature that works well with source control, and the two need to work together, so it is taking some time to get right.

    So far we're 2 official releases behind. We should be able to catch both up at the same time once nested prefabs are all sorted.
     
  20. Recon03

    Recon03

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    We are on 2018.4. just wondering, when do u think this will be updated? Thanks

    We are thinking of giving this a try. but right now we cant. unless we got back a version.
     
  21. grimunk

    grimunk

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    @Recon03 2018.4 support is imminent. 2019.1 should follow shortly after.

    We pulled back on our prefab syncing feature for now. We have find some workarounds in Unity because of some unexpected behaviors.
     
  22. grimunk

    grimunk

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  23. Loupyboy

    Loupyboy

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    Quick question: would it be possible to add Bolt support? Since code can be updated in real-time in play mode, that'd be really useful for a full team to work with!
     
  24. nsxdavid

    nsxdavid

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    So 2019.3 is out, are you guys updating to support?
     
  25. grimunk

    grimunk

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    Yes we are. It's taking us a bit of time to get support for Terrain holes, and (as you might imagine) we have to finish all the usual testing making sure every built-in component syncs or is handled properly, and that as many custom properties of custom components can sync as possible. We also have to spend more time with DOTS to make sure there aren't any gotchas there.
     
  26. nsxdavid

    nsxdavid

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    DOTs..... blech. :)
     
  27. grimunk

    grimunk

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    I just updated the main post to contain more up-to-date information. Scene Fusion is very much alive and well, and we are working on Scene Fusion 2.

    SF2 is super-extensible, and engine-agnostic. We already use it in Scene Fusion for Unreal and are currently integrating it with Unity. We already have some tools to move level data between the engines, and we are able to construct cross-engine real-time workflows. This has been used by teams who want to migrate from one engine to the other, however we envision it as a way to use both engine technologies simultaneously with less effort - for example for titles that span mobile, web, and console/PC simultaneously.
     
  28. grimunk

    grimunk

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    2019.3 support has been up for a bit now. Anyone using Scene Fusion already knows this, as the plugin will tell them.
     
  29. hottabych

    hottabych

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    I don't quite understand how it communicates with source control?
    How does it handle scene saving?
    Admin starts a session, users change his copy of scene, then admin needs to push changes to repo?
    Or it synchronizes automatically between users? Then who is "a source of truth"? When a scene needs to be pushed and by who?
    How does it deal with inspector? If User 1 changes some settings in Inspector, does User 2 see it immediately or he needs to pull it from git?
     
  30. grimunk

    grimunk

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    @hottabych Scene Fusion doesn't need to communicate with source control. It detects and lists the differences people have in their local project states, such as files that are in different states, but will operate uninterrupted. It ensures that any changes made to the scene are immediately applied to everyone who is in the session - ie. everyone get the change immediately in their local copies.

    The scene is saved the usual way by the host of the session (the person who started the session) and submitted to source control. At the moment the workflow is that the host opens the original scene file and starts session. Others join the session and Scene Fusion creates temporary scene files on their machines to work on. Technically anyone can save the scene as all the changes are replicated by scene fusion in real-time so they will all be in the same state, but only the host has the original file open. This has one unfortunate side-effect where only the host will have any pre-baked lightmaps. (NOTE: this is going to change once Scene Fusion 2 is available for Unity: In that case everyone will open their copy of the original scene file, lightmaps and everything will be available. We've already implemented it this way on Unreal.)

    Any changes that are visible to the inspector will be replicated in real-time to everyone in the session - if you can see it and change it, the change is made for everyone in the session at the same time. Scene Fusion also syncs heirarchy changes.

    That's probably a bit more long-winded then you wanted. Let me know if you need to know any more details!