Something Different : Can I use Unity to create Live Product Showcase?

Hello guys,

I'm a profressional Graphic Designer and 3D Modeler, and I just heard a lot about Unity and how simple it is compared to other engines. So I would ask this straight, Can I use Unity to integrate a live product showcase "window" in my website?

For example, for turntable 360 views people often render sequential rotating camera frames of the 3D object and put them together in Java or Flash. I thought of how to make this more creative? Like why wouldn't I put a product "say a laptop" and the client can be able to open/close the screen, rotate and zoom freely, change materials, and so on?

Am I in the right place? Or this is just very unrelated to the whole thing Please advise me what should I do, and whether I need programming skills as I'm actually not a programmer

Thanks very much!!!

 

Yes, that is definitely possible. I think Unity would be a good solution.

 

Hey E-Samurai. Actually, you would need at least a little programming skills (though simple things can be done very simply), and using Unity to integrate a live-product window would work great, except that users should download the plugin. Thus it depends on what type of users you assume will come on the website, and if you can ignore the ones that might not have privileges to install it.

As an alternative, consider that Unity is coming out with a Flash export option, thus you should simply require Flash, which is often installed even in non-privileged users computers.

 

Hey, and welcome to the Unity forums!

You are very much in the right place - I've done a few visualization demos like that, and I believe there is even a turntable starter kit in the Asset Store.

The scripts you are describing to do those sorts of things are fairly simple, as well. It would require some programming skills, but there are plenty of tutorials and help for scripting in Unity.

 

We'll now he would be able to export to flash which is the standard for these types of things

 

Absolutely, but some graphical options will need pro (shadows, bloom, ectect).

I wonder if using udk for this wouldn't be easier.

 

Thank you guys very much! This was a quick and very useful reply from all of you.

Let me please clarify some things though :

Well I think I can handle "little" programming without problems, I'm not just a professional programmer. I can look in tutorials and see then.
But about "Flash" would it still work live in 3D ? I mean could the user have the ability to do anything like with the "Unity Plugin" ?
What is that plug in? I mean is it necessary to have additional plugin to play a MMO for example? Just confused sorry :s

Would you please show me some? I would love to! And is the Turntable starter coming up with abilities to control movements with HUD?

 

About Flash, yup, it will still work live in 3D, like if it was inside Unity's webPlayer (though somehow less powerful). You can read more here: http://unity3d.com/unity/preview/notes.

Though note that for now it's still in beta, and uses a FlashPlayer that will be discontinued when FlashPlayer 11.2 will be officially released. This won't be a problem because the guys at Unity have already planned ahead, but it means that there's no official release date for Unity 3.5 final (though you can already download the beta).

 

Unity is a very good solution for this type of work, the upcoming flash build option just lets you build for flash as an output as you would build a standalone or web player. (output platforms for unity)

There are lots of scripts you could mess with to get a turntable going very easily, some are built into the unity editor, like mouse orbit.

If you want to get more complex without learning to code you could try playmaker, universe, or uscript. These are like visual coding with blocks. Check them out if you want to build your own systems or change things you find it others.

 

That means I can't consider using flash as main target output until a final stable release of the Unity platform support and Flash 11.2?

Visual Programming would be really GREAT! I already have experience in Grasshopper3D plugin for Rhinoceros and I can handle programming in a visual way a bit easier than plain scripting of course.
I searched for the three names you provided but I'm still a bit confused. I don't believe I have enough experience in this to pick one of those or have a first step.
I only need to know where do I start right now? I mean what should I learn in Unity itself before considering a visual programming solution?

Actually I'm intending to play a lot with the beta version, but for now I will be straight to the point this is EXACTLY what I need to achieve :
I need a laptop showcasing system that allows users to move around the model, open/close the screen, rotate it if applicable, change materials/ colors, and maybe turning the screen on or off.

 

If you develop something with a beta, you will have to re-test it when the final version comes out, to be sure everything is ok (and in case of Unity for Flash, to re-export it for the correct FlashPlayer version). Plus, you might have problems getting it to work (betas are... unstable). So it's up to you: if you don't mind this, go for the beta, otherwise don't

 

Even if you didn't want to code yourself, I would expect it would be very cheap to get someone to write such a simple app for you. Given an already created model, and an open closed animation, it doesn't seem like more than a few hours coding at most (I would expect a working prototype would take about 15 minutes).

 

Should be quite easy to achieve.

 

DUDE!

I love grasshopper, I'm an architect, or rather arch grad student check out antares universe, you'll be up to speed in no time if you are familiar with tools like grasshopper.

http://forum.antares-universe.com/

I'm a fanboy.


in response to what you need to do... check out the unity reference docs with code examples,

look http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/ScriptReference/Material-color.html
look at http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/Animation.html (you could also just change the rotation but animating it could be easier.
look at the mouse orbit script that comes as a standard asset for the camera orbiting.

These are just suggestions are could do all of these things you said many ways, these are the fastest I could think of though if you need to get something working.

 

I wish ! How big do you estimate the final file size? I make the 3D Modeling/Texturing myself and I see that size of the model matters, but is there any other aspect?
I wish I could do that shortly.

Great! I see that Universe is kinda close to what I am thinking. I'm good with grasshopper and I enjoy it a lot. Btw I'm an architecture graduate too And I VERY MUCH liked your blog ^^

Can I import animations from 3Ds Max and Trigger them? And most importantly MIX them? I can animate in 3Ds Max of course so is that a big help?

 

By the way I found this : http://walkerboystudio.com/html/unity_course_syllabus.html

I think it's VERY great to start with it when I want to learn Unity

 

About size, apart the 3D models (which should be stored externally and loaded each time a user wants to see one), for which you should do a test, the rest should take around 200kbs (if you export to the webPlayer), maybe even less (it's just some short scripting and some GUI elements).

About doing it shortly, if you're new to Unity I think it will not be very short, cause there's a lot of basic things you'll need to learn (like assets management).

 

Okay
All I have to do is start learning and see where things go. I will also get Universe soon and see if it helps me for what I do.
About the storage I will probably have to research a bit.

Thanks very much

 

theres a free version of universe as well for non commercial work, pm or email me if you need any help.

 

Hey guys a quick question. Does unity support NGons? if yes how far does it allow it to be?

 

No real time 3D renderer supports NGons, as the hardware itself does not support it. It will always be triangulated before beeing rendered to screen. Even a modeller that supports NGons will triangulate, it will only hide the details for you.

But there shouldn't be any problems with importing a model made with NGons, and you won't see any difference.

 

Yeah that's what I meant. all 3D CG applications triangulate the mesh. and you answered by saying that unity supports them when found in a model by automatically using it's triangulation data. It's just a fact that too many engines wouldn't support the model when imported with NGons.

 

What Unity 3D plan should one choose to start with something like this?