Standard Assets 2018 - let us know what you think!

OK, so let me see if this is a new "feature" of 2018. I create a brand new project. I go to the menu Assets->Import Package-> and all I see is Custom Package option...and nothing else. So the old standard Asset Packages are gone?

There were a couple of packages that had some useful stuff to an initial project start up. What will replace these? Templates?

 

Have you read this thread?

The course will be:
- revamp the standard assets and move to the 'prototyping tools' direction (maybe it would be a good idea to rename them as well)
- provide more templates for various popular genre and/or game styles to provide starting point

Oh, and BTW: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/essentials/asset-packs/standard-assets-32351

 

We do appreciate using the easily-imported, readily available Standard Assets packages for testing, learning, prototyping, experimenting with new assets or new ideas. Most common ones are: Cameras, Characters, Environment. We like having all the packages available to load from local cache, fast, specific, individual, one-click away from the Hierarchy window. In fact, the absence of those assets makes us reluctant to use 2018, since it forces the delays inherent in Net dependency and requires time sorting through the pages of the Asset Store and managing a finicky download process to get even one needed template like, for example, an FPS controller or a rock texture. It is far preferable to have a number of such vitally useful, specific, small-footprint templates, like those in Standard Assets, available on one's local disc. That's what they are. That's how we use them, and we use them a lot.They are quick to load, super-useful all the time; did i say quick and easy to load? yes, that. And being "standard" we use them a lot to prototype, inspect, and experiment.

Cameras, Characters, and Environment packages are very useful templates. Please provide them in "Import Package" to make them easily importable automatically into any and every new project - without requiring Net access and login to Asset Store, search and discover Standard Assets within the Assert Store universe, downloading and importing, and clicking/unclicking folders of files to include/exclude needed/unneeded assets.... Please provide them in Import package? The issue is speed of accessibility. They are super useful right there. Thanks for an awesome tool suite, by the way.

 

Personally, I want them back in ASAP, especially the character controllers. I work for a university where I focus on visual art asset development for real-time. The students I work with do not need to know how to make their own character controllers. While I understand that all of us create our own during a real project, some of the magic is lost on new users when I can't show them how easy it is to get a super basic first person example running.

The asset store isn't a terrible place to store them. But please at least break up the downloads. Installing a 200mb "standard assets" package with a tremendous amount of stuff we don't need, or checking tons of boxes in hopes that it does not break one of the scripts, is just bad practice.

 

I will tell you a secret (while Unity refactors theirs):

- you download it once
- strip down everything you don't need
- fix any errors/warnings you can find
- export it as a unity package
- distribute it to your students through network

or just put together one for yourself and distribute that for them and it will only contain the things you put in there...

 

... A game takes 2+ years to develop. Over this time period, Unity is going to change and update certain methods / expressions / "enter what eff'd up here" ...

Standard Assets are Great for learning.. A LOT of people have moved past that point. Maybe having something that is cross-compatible that can be used while updating through the versions? Other than that, I intentionally untick "standard assets".. It almost gives false hope.

Standard should be a standard, not a requirement that may not work that's included..

 

These are the newest ones to my knowledge. I just happened to see them mentioned in an older thread.

http://download.unity3d.com/downloa...aller/UnityStandardAssetsSetup-2018.1.0f2.exe
http://download.unity3d.com/downloa...AssetsInstaller/StandardAssets-2018.1.0f2.pkg

 

Agreed, In fact, I believe each version of Unity should be based on the needs and omissions discovered by making advanced templates. Epic's huge advantage is that they themselves develop commercial games, not just templates, but high end games.

They don't just depend on votes and inspiration by thousands of mediocre developers. (sorry but it is true) But the needs of successful high end games. That is the best way to figure out what high end development will benefit from. (not that Unity doesn't provide amazing new features, just better focus on improving useful aspects of the engine) I am not downplaying the importance of the demo teams, and their amazing work, however, it slowly becomes apparent that there are many things the Demos use, that are not in Unity, nor are they intended to ever become part of it. Epic impresses, with high end features that it actually is releasing. Not with stunning demo videos that include tools that regular users will never ever have the opportunity to use. The best thing to do as templates, is grab any old successful game and in collaboration with the Studio make a new version of it in Unity.

Having said that, Templates take time to develop, are a lot more difficult to update. Also while great for intermediate users, they are not that great for beginners who may get lost in a vast template. Some times all you need is to grab a 3rd person controller or a multi-platform control scheme and push out your prototype for testing THAT is what Standard Assets are great for and have served many from the very first days of Unity and even today when they are not broken due to being abandoned for so long.

These assets are the first line of contact with the very basic requirements of a game. Especially for game designers. It should include 2-3 standard control methods, a basic inventory system, particle effects,(explosions, fire, dust clouds, smoke, water fountains) spherical gravity, point/tap and click controls, a spawning system for loot drops or weapon crates, etc. even some basic ML and even AI features. (player, enemy, salesman, quest giver) some basic bipedal animations, (walk, run, idle, shoot, fight with sword, defend, crouch, jump open door) anything a student or beginner can grab fast to make something cool and be happy and learn without being overwhelmed from a vast template with thousands of assets and hundreds of scripts in a 30GB template...

 

Yeah I wasn't thinking of more than a few hundred MB TBH Standard assets will also be pretty big I think.

 

I haven't spent any real time comparing the different releases. I'm inclined to believe they're just the legacy ones with a quick verification that there are no problems with them before packing them up. It wouldn't be hard to compare the differences using a local version control repo of older and newer releases. I just don't use them enough to care.

 

Probably they're the legacy ones, the last I heard they're working on a new set of these assets (it's not clear if they will keep them as standard assets or they will publish them as examples).

 

I can understand in a way why people would want game templates. But I'm unsure. Inevitably if you provide, say, an endless runner game you will end up with 100 exactly the same games being made with different artwork substituted. What would be the point of that?

Selfishly speaking, the least amount of examples and templates are available the better for me. Because less competition. I don't want everyone to be able to make games easily! That wouldn't benefit me. It wouldn't actually benefit other developers. It would benefit the public though as it would raise the bar on game quality.

However many templates etc. are made, the games that will rise to the top will be the ones that were hard to make. There's no shortcut to success. Making a successful game will always be hard.

So wishing for templates etc. is just shooting yourself in the foot. It will just move the difficulty to a different place, and make it twice as difficult! OK, so everyone has a template for FPS. But now what separates good games is if they have destructible physics. OK, so now there's a template for destructible physics. Now what separates good games is that they are made from texels. And so on...

Anyway, that's my argument why financially and economically developers shouldn't wish for templates. However, if your motive is instead to make a good game quickly regardless of the economics just because it's your "passion" or something, it's not a bad idea.

Also, it leads to the conclusion that asking developers what they want is maybe not the best way to improve the quality of games in the market! Unless developers are completely altruistic.

/rant

Anyway, things that I like in assets are things like particle effects, like fire and smoke. Things that everyone could do themselves but it would just take a lot of time fiddling with parameters. On a down side you would get the same fire effect in a 1000 different games, but fire is fire at the end of the day.

 

Thanks for looking at this. I miss the standard assets from 5.6 - they just aren't working in 2018. It was heavily used to create sample scenes for third party assets and provide a series of quick scripts for prototyping

 

You will always have people trying to sell learning resources as their own game. You might think that not providing them would reduce the number of instances of this happening but the reality is if someone wants to make a shovelware game they will find a way to do it. Everyone would have to eliminate learning resources.

Fewer competitors doesn't equate to higher quality. If anything games would likely be lower quality now than they are if they didn't have to compete with each other to the degree that they do. Some of the mechanics we have today exist because the games that introduced them were in fierce competition with other titles.

 

Thats what I meant, I'm saying templates would be good because it would force developers to think more outside the box to get ahead. Harder work for us poor devs but good for the public.

Well maybe a bit easier if we can start off with a modified template.

If you think about it, if there was a Minecraft template Notch would never have become a billionaire because anyone could have made Minecraft.

 

Any ETA or timewindow on when the templates are coming?

 

Is that a bot? Or just someone with a very bizarre idea about how forums work?

 

Dunno, got rid of it anyway.

 

Do anyone knows if they have the lightshafts anywhere ?
I find it more useable than the volumetric lights solution that they are actually still upgrading.

 

That's nice of you, thanks!

The only way I use the existing assets is to study coding and how to use them in the editor; I don't use them in games I would make, but... there is something I would use though: sound files, all kind of sound files, whole libraries of sound files, and music.

 

The new people look great, I just wish you'd hurry up and add something. You took away a vital part of the pipeline without offering a viable replacement. The one in the asset store contains a car and an airplane. I can't just 'drop in a character controller' like I used to be able to do. I have to import, wait, and then exclude all the things I don't want. It was simple and effortless before, and now it's complicated. Not cool.

 

Since you're doing it so often... why not make a unity package of the bits you want? It takes no time to export a unitypackage.

 

Say. . . we reaching the end of 2018. . . .

 

It's ok they can just rename the thread "Standard Assets 2019 - let us know what you think!"

I do think they are slow, and they really need to help asset developers out with some better damn grass textures..among a list of other things but whatever.

 

Well honestly i'm not complaining though, just want to remind them about this thread. Might be better to remove the year part from it's title, or else new people that just finding this thread will be confused

 

To be honest, if the assets will come with HDRP or LWRP, I will not use them simply because the new renders are broken. willgoldstone btw I already got those and with a control rig ;D

 

<scathing-remark-mode>
This is a classic case of dealing with breakage if you try to stay on the current version of Unity3D... even the Unity DEVS can't keep a finite set of "standard assets" fully working correctly with each new version of Unity 3D. And it's not just API change/deprecation... some of the prototyping prefabs get errors now about overlapping UVs?!?! Has something very basic changed with the importing of simple models like in this prefab of a... BOX? In version 2018.X... doesn't that make like 297 different releases of Unity3D now and there is suddenly an issue with a... BOX? I guess I shouldn't be surprised. This thread is another testament to slacking on the basics... it's been a WHOLE YEAR NOW since this thread was started... and... nothin'. Maybe if I bought a Pro license they could afford to pay someone to expend the effort to actually go through and fix the standard assets and keep them working (like someone who actually KNOWS what the changes are and why/how fixes are needed)... or maybe I could just wait another year they'll have it working with 2018.X... just in time for the 2020.1 version (and then it won't work in that one)??? Oh well... <sigh>
</scathing-remark-mode>

 

Don't use ellipses like that.

 

It's relatively common for people posting with their first 20 or so posts complaining before they understand how things all work, seen it for a decade now. After a while they realise and change the tune *shrugs*

Standard assets are not really that useful as they do go out of date quickly, because the engine (indeed all engines in game development) change quickly to keep up with the insanely rapid pace of development in this sector.

So assets, like written books do devalue very fast, it's quite normal and not just Unity (UE4 breaks projects most updates actually).

You learn how to insulate from that before long.

 

Editor camera movement isn't even smooth. I used Unity 5.1 recently and it was a dream.

 

What? I've used the package manager for ages and never had these compiler issues.

 

There is a very simple solution for that. Stop upgrading to the latest release as soon as it's available. Contrary to what you might believe as someone just getting started, most developers don't upgrade to the latest release as soon as it's available and many of them don't even upgrade at all for the project they're developing unless there is a pressing need.

I don't know about Cinemachine but I haven't had any problems with TMP on Unity 2018.2 or 2018.3. Are you positive it's not just a borked installation of Unity? We've occasionally had people in Getting Started mention that they had something odd happening only for it to be completely cleared up with a reinstall.

 

Let us know what you tink: I hate it!

 

Care to elaborate?

 

will you include the water and boat system created for LWRP?

 

Could you update FPS controller ?
I remember in Unreal being it very intuitive on many situations in which I didn't know how to overcome it in Unity.

 

As it's been stated, Unity seem very bad at keeping their template assets up to date and probably removed them due to this. There doesn't seem a clear plan for how any future templates will be delivered, with talk about using their current "saviour" that is the package manager. This hasn't happened, so you are left downloading things off the asset store in the hope they are still compatible with your project in an engine upgrade. This seems an area that Unity are very weak in addressing, along with many features that are still in Beta for even though they appeared in the 2018 version of Unity.

 

This is more like "Standard Standalone Assets".

Standard assets frameworks of games to learn from, mmo/3rd person, racing, fps like I just bought an rts framework.

The selection of units in rts is a big mystery.

Multiplayer examples with chat, guild etc to learn to implement which could be going to far idk.
This boosts people to start creating games and can put them on the right path with coding examples to accomplish what they want to accomplish is it harvesting you can see that in the rts framework on the villager class or whatever the case may be... instead of staring at your program doing nothing for either of you.

However you appear to be making things more complex with scriptable pipelines and materials altered from normal pbr workflow and depricating the efficient and fast creation that is also effective while it should become comparable in features to the others if possible since its workflow is better for starting off then you can go into more advanced options later scripting your rendering if you want to upgrade, forcing people to have to do that right off when they are solo getting started to learn a lot of stuff like 3d, animation, cfx, coding, all alone they dont need things changed into something entirely different when they come back to coding in a few years to where everything they knew is going to be deprecated for something you have to learn that is going to be more complex and more importantly time to learn it all instead of working on your game and theres a lot of it to learn instead of what you already learned which is now all seemingly useless even to the level of gameobject and monobehaviour just entirely thrown out.

 

Your point is valid about having to relearn things after coming back to Unity.

To be fair though, it's never been a secret that Unity is revamping their whole engine. They've been pretty accommodating too despite this. For example, gameobjects and monobehaviours are not useless, but with the advent of DOTS, there is clearly a better, more-efficient, way to program, and to stay stagnant in the light of this knowledge is pretty terrible in today's game industry. Honestly, we're pretty lucky to have a (free) game engine that is trying to keep up (and surpass!) a lot of custom-implemented solutions made by AAA studios, and as such, there inevitably has to be lots of underlying bits of technology that swaps in or out. This is why modular programming is indeed crazy-important, moreso now than ever.

Yes, there are still many pains. I, for example, can't help but cringe at the fact that the animation system is still unusable without heavily-authored tools to help it become a little functional for game animation. That said, Unity is definitely listening to feedback a lot more these days, so make (or reply to) some threads and point out your issues. Being both loud and clear about your problems tends to be what it takes for something to become actionable.


Back on topic though --

"Standard Assets" as "Example Projects" is a terrible idea to start with, but before even that, the problem with more examples is, when moving to DOTS, these "examples" are going to need to be redone. Many things are actually going to be more simple with DOTS, once you understand the concepts, and having some solid examples to help with understanding these in the context of games would be great -- in theory.

However, most people use these "examples" as an easy way to jumpstart their project without having to do all the boilerplate code themselves.
There are, however, common things that are overlooked in some of these "Example Project" formats though, like dealing with more complex scenarios that require tools for things like breaking up terrains into territories (like RISK) and moving units around in an RTS game. Instead of a complicated "Example Project", I feel like these parts should be handled more generally (since they can likely serve you just as well in styles of games other than the RTS genre -- i.e. splitting meshes or terrains into "territories" like RISK could easily become useful in a game like Splatoon, for example.)


It's silly that "Standard Assets" has become synonymous with "Teach me how to program a game!"

In general, I think "Standard Assets" should not be about examples at all. It should be more about game-making assets / scripts / editor-tools / scene-tools / prototype-assets that are easily used, shared, and tweaked amongst users for out-of-the-way functionality you may not consider until you run into the need for something exotic.
Something like a territory editor tool (as I discussed above) to operate on terrains might be a good "Standard Asset" since this is really the meat of what you'd want to see in a "standard" tutorial / RTS example anyway -- Everything else besides the selection/territory tools is just fluff.

 

Yea once I started seeing what appears to be the facade of this is done for superiority in coding and can be an image of helping you with motives of hindering through complexity. You completely lost my interest in everything you just said.


I mean yea sure tons of new features can give off an image of superiority but having them there can be a hindrance if you have to learn a hundred more things before you can release the game instead of learning them as additionals later.

Or for performance yea this is the greater good for performance, but youve been completely mindwashed on everything you learned thus hindering you just accept it as it is.

I dont want to read any material you have to write after this.

Then you go on to completely dismiss the idea of frameworks, just dismissal and supporting things that appear to be deceptive fronts for you to psot that exact post and the other guy to post his exact posts against me on materials and youre just superior game designers trying to avoid the truth of lead design hindering someone while you can when he claims lead design not coding but lets hinder and mindwash him on coding to hinder that lead design ever being seen while everything we say is going to be one big lie of that lead design being incompetent while we do everything in our power to prevent it from being seen so our games are not ourtshined by a clear superior mind to make decisions but were going to try to manipualte that mind to look below by making it have to relearn everything it learned and just dick it around in any way possible to hinder and prevent for however much time that buys us while he learns coding to put his lead design into play to now have to relearn everything to put it into play.


But everythings for the greater good its a good facade it appears, the evolution of ecs in the video appears to be a bunch of clowns from microsoft who are transgressing while monitoring the target they are hindering for their own personal reputations to appear to be what they know they are not but tis all for the greater good guys its clearly not one more step in the way of a new developer from releasing his game or erasing his mind to have to relearn and clearly not hindering in any kind fo way. Just so much new features and progression thats all we need to be blinded by.





You're not even wroth arguing on the topic of frameworks and you will openly show pride in being wrong so youre not worth even trying to argue with since you will love to be wrong and try to get people to think what you are saying is right when its wrong so im not going to even bother. You can look right on this one youre not worth arguing with and you know it when youre going to avoid the truth and whatever you say is going to be reality while you know its in the wrong.

 

Where are you with this?

 

@Merchant1307: Could you please do us a favor? Put some punctuation in your phrases. They're incredibely difficult to read.

 

Assuming you're talking to me, my brain hurts just trying to interpret your response, so the feeling's mutual. D:

Look -- In spite of whether you want to read this (or whether I want to try to interpret your response again), from what I could make out, I agree with you that there are too many things to learn to make what people consider a "game" these days, and the constant back-and-forth of technologies on top of that is disheartening at best. Clearly you're passionate about wanting to make games, and as such, in no way was I trying to minimize your suffering. I had stated from the outset that your point was valid (as I just restated again) and we all deal with that same issue of unresolved technology in our own ways, but (just FYI), you're not going to win any arguments with anyone by telling them "I don't want to hear what you have to say!" -- You (both) instantly lose when you do that. -- It is much better to try and understand whether the person you are speaking to is reasonable or not before you decide to judge them on whether it is wise to move forward on a (constructive) argument with them or not. When you tell me "I don't want to hear what you have to say!", I would normally instantly deem you as unreasonable (and the argument nonconstructive) and move on. The reason I haven't yet is because, as I said (and despite your overall rudeness under the protection of the anonymous intarwebz), I agree with your overall point: -- Unity is hard to learn simply because it tends to very quickly (and without notice) change on you when you think you have it down. You're forced to go back and relearn and relearn and it never makes a bit of difference, right? -- Your game is still not made.

As with any form of art (yes, game development is a very complex and nuanced form of art), it all depends on whether the way you approach your art is actually the right way for you to approach it.

Picasso, for example, was a quite crappy draftsman, and as a painter he was just "meh" (IMO), but he understood that art was personal, and he did whatever the heck he bloody-well wanted to with his paints and pencils, and that made it his. Learning Unity (and which parts you choose to learn) is an art form in and of itself, but that is an extension of game development in general. The tools for art and game development are always changing, and what tools you learn and how you apply them is up to you -- not Unity. If your tool is made of water, and it keeps slipping out of your hands, try a different tool. There's a neat game called "Dreams" for the PS4 that is very artistically freeing (and surprisingly robust!) and it's possible you could get a lot of use out of it as a creation platform if you don't like programming.

Beating up on Unity for "improving" their tool (or me beating up on you for disliking the "shape and feel" of that partially-complete tool) is still wrong at the end of the day, so that is not my intent here.

The truth is this:

Like Picasso, the choice of which tools you use and the way you use or deploy them is yours alone to decide.
However, this is a double-edged sword. Only you control which tools you use (and in what way you use those tools), so you do not get to go blaming someone else (in this case, Unity) for a choice you've made yourself. There are other tools to learn (as I suggested above), but if you choose to move to a newer version of Unity, remember, that is because you chose it yourself -- warts and all -- and just like with any choice, it is a commitment. For better or worse, you have to accept responsibility for your own decisions at the end of the day. Even if the reason you made them is no longer valid or relevant anymore. This is part of growing up. Get used to it. There are lots more decisions like this to come. Taking responsibility for your own part in these decisions is the very first step of becoming an adult. Then, after that, you can put the rest of the problem on someone else (i.e. like Unity.)

 

As i also mentioned in Survey comments that you will receive. My Personal Opinion as Intermediate level Game Developer, is to Rewrite Standard Asset from scratch. And Optimized it for low devices as well. Divide it for Beginner and Advanced Developers for Usability. Beginner for Learning purpose and Advanced for saving time. And Add more features such that it provide less error prone and easy to use. It must provide some practical tips of Unity Project forwarding like prototyping, 2d,3d accessories, optimizations etc... Thats all.. Thanks..

 

You filled out a two year old survey that no one will look at.

 

It's nearly 2020 and we're still dealing with a thread with 2018 in the title being pinned that I'm still not certain has actually had any progress made towards its implied goals.

 

Hahaha Yeah I realize when I click on Post Reply.. Then I thought no need to remove someone may reply as you did... I have recently checked Standard Assets but i feel nothing new about it.. So waste of time with these surveys..