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StartUp: choosing Unity

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by taualex, May 21, 2006.

  1. taualex

    taualex

    Joined:
    May 21, 2006
    Posts:
    2
    Hello,

    We are a start up indie company, and shopping around for a game engine that will be a great tool for our development.
    I'm personaly quite impressed with the list of features that Unity delivers, especially the art pipeline, and material fallback to the low-end hardware.
    Our first project will be a 3D puzzle game that will be aimed at casual market, supporting low-end (non-shader textured) and high-end video cards (shaders).
    I would like to put a list of features that we need for our project, and asking you to give me some comments on it (can it be done with Unity?). I didnt find the answers in docs or forums.
    *) CUSTOM (programmer defined) post-process shader effects (like motion blur, bloom, old movie, etc.)
    *) Easy camera manipulation:
    a) fixed camera
    b) camera movement along path
    c) isometric camera setup
    *) Customizable GUI (skinnable windows, menues, etc., high req)
    *) Water rendering (req - ocean shore line, animated texture blending?)
    *) Linux port (they are also customers :) )
    *) Future Wii/SP3/XBox port posibility
    *) Accurate mouse 3D object picking API (high req)
    *) Music playback (ogg, mp3)

    A note about our requirement for the water rendering: we need a technique to render a ocean shore line (similar to Far Cry or Age of Empires II-III), like determine the border between water and terrain, then blend animated texture on top of that border. Is there an easy way to do it in Unity?
    BTW, if we buy Unity Pro, do we have access to the source code, so we may port it to other platforms?

    Thank you!
     
  2. Sync1B

    Sync1B

    Joined:
    Sep 13, 2005
    Posts:
    561
    I'll try to answer you the best I can.
    Yep, you can make post process effects, a few examples are here, and Jon has made a glow affect thats posted on the wiki.
    All of that can be done via scripting and animation.
    Those are GUI textures and the docs for those are here.
    There is a premade water shader in Unity already and Araz has made a reflective water shader here. Animated textures are supported but unity does not use any compression on them so they are big.
    Not going to happen any time soon, maybe never.
    XBox will be first if at all.
    Not sure what you mean by that but all of the monoBehaviors for mouse stuff are here.
    Both are supported, but it's better to use ogg.
    I am not possitive on how you might do a good shoreline. Probably some kind of animated textures or shader. Gooball has a pretty nice shoreline if I remember correctly, not sure how they did that though.

    Unity pro does not give you access to source code, and I beleive it uses some special mac things which make a "port" extremely difficult. Unity fits right in the mac experience, with its ease of use and artistic way of thinking and personally, I would not have it any other way. :)

    Hope that helps,
    Bill
     
  3. taualex

    taualex

    Joined:
    May 21, 2006
    Posts:
    2
    Thank you, Bill a lot for your detailed answer! I really appreciate it.

    It's sad that Unity is not available for Linux... Would be a perfect "swiss knife" tool for my needs...
    By accurate mouse 3D object picking I mean that it will work (pick a 3D object) with differend current camera settings (FOV, etc.), it's quite important for a puzzle game - to move pieces, etc.
    I would like to see an example how can I implement the shoreline in Unity, or atleast to know if its possible...
     
  4. Sync1B

    Sync1B

    Joined:
    Sep 13, 2005
    Posts:
    561
    The 3D object picking and placement will be how ever acurate you script it. Unity has infinate possibilities. The shoreline is definitely possible, they did it on Gooball, I'm just not sure how.

    Bill
     
  5. socksy

    socksy

    Joined:
    May 21, 2005
    Posts:
    244
    Actually, a reflective water shader is built in to Unity Pro, with a non-reflective one in Indy. The one Araz made is refractive, and you can see through it.
     
  6. Sync1B

    Sync1B

    Joined:
    Sep 13, 2005
    Posts:
    561
    I meant to say that. :p

    Bill
     
  7. antenna-tree

    antenna-tree

    Joined:
    Oct 30, 2005
    Posts:
    5,324
    Just played that first level of GooBall and I'm pretty sure they're using polygon planes with an alpha texture ebbing and flowing to simulate the shoreline. Works very well.
     
  8. Joachim_Ante

    Joachim_Ante

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2005
    Posts:
    5,203
    Source code is available but has a steeper price than the pro license. If you want to know more you can write a mail to info@otee.dk.

    The player source code is kept very portable, with all platform specific code kept in a few files.
    Also if it is a common platform we might be interested in collaborating on a port.
     
  9. Joachim_Ante

    Joachim_Ante

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2005
    Posts:
    5,203
    You can do accurate mouse picking using mesh colliders.