Submarine Surfaces In Unity Trial Testing

here's a screenshot from some early experimentation and learning with the trial version...



a wwII German Type XXIII sub running surfaced... it's a lil rough, and still needs a lil (lot) of work, but so far i'm sorta impressed (and a lil intimidated) with Unity...

my goal (seems to be turning into a lifelong obsession ) is to make a submarine simulation (actually, several) in which the players experience the game from a 1st person perspective (as if they were actually aboard a sub), with DOOM3 like shadered eyecandy...

one planned release is set in the North Atlantic at the end of wwii...

i'm looking at using Unity (multi platform and shaders), but i still have to resolve a few things before i make a final decision...

(1) real time moving waves on the water... while the shader displaced stuff looks great, i'm going to need real time wave action to add to the realism... this is really important...

(2) moving a crew member around aboard the sub, and maintaining a level view from the players eyes while the boat rocks and rolls, and as it takes on a dive angle... not just when on the surface, but inside the sub when it's submerged and manuvering...

i've managed to do these things using other middleware, and i think i should be able to do em in Unity as well, but the perfecting of a legal brief has taken valuable time and the trial period has or is going to expire soon... finding the necessary programming references has been a bit of a task, especially when trying to squeeze real world deadlines into what seems to be an ever shrinking day...

anyways... just thought io'd post a pic... and ask a few questions...

(1) can i market software with the Indie license... i may need to do this as i have a version of for the pc 60% complete (ok, maybe 40% complete), and am planning on using Unity only for the macintosh version initially...

(2) how do i (can i) request an extension ofthe trial period...


thx

--Mike

 

Whilst I'm not an official spokesperson for Unity, I think I can answer a few of your questions

1) You can do mesh modification to move the water, though water physics are insanely complex so you may not be able to get 100% realism but you *will* be able to get something that looks pretty darned good! Certainly good enough for a release.

2) Unity can deal with this really well. Not everything you're asking for is 'built-in' to out-of-the-box scripts, but you can code it all ... Unity is amazingly flexible.

the other 1) Yes, you can market games made with indie! You can do anything you like with them ... only difference is that you don't get the same feature-set as Pro. That's not a huge deal, though, since you can still make kick-ass games in Indie!!

the other 2) Fire off an e-mail to the Unity guys (maybe try sales@unity3d.com) and they will most likely extend your trial ... as long as you're nice to them and you're prepared to have your mind blown by such a great game engine

3) Ok, so there wasn't a 3 ... but I made one. Buy Unity. Seriously. I've tried a huge number of other game engines and haven't seen one that comes close to being as intuitive, powerful and fun to use as this. The support is excellent and they are constantly striving to make the engine even better. I was very wary at first, coming from PC to MAC for a start, and everyone I spoke to about Unity told me that they haven't looked back since buying it. Well, now I'm one of those guys who hasn't looked back. Buy it, enjoy it and make some really cool games with it!

Hope to see you around the forums and good luck with your game - looks great btw

 

thx guys for the quick and helpful replies...

--Mike

 

Looks cool!
How did you create the waves around the submarine? Are them only a plane with a texture/video or are you using a shader?
(without these waves, it wouldn't look as good, I think...)

 

Looks like some particle effect if i had to guess.

 

Particel always turn to the cameras position, I've tried, it isn't working with them... :? Maybe he wrote a code that fixes the rotation of particles...

 

just some particles... no real waves yet...

--Mike

 

Hi Mike,

Do these two things (well actually three things ):

1. When you write Unity Tech, ask to get the Unity Pro demo. The normal demo is just the Indy version, you have to ask to get a demo of the Pro version (I'll tell you why in a second...).

2. Get your hands on the updated version of Yoggy's vehicle demo and look at the "boat" demo (requires the Pro version, I think the updated version was posted by Eric a couple weeks ago). This demo shows real-time normal animated water, boat wakes and rain splashes, plus a nice little demo of boat buoyancy. This is just a demo, but could be expanded to give you AAA quality water simulations.

3. Go out and buy Unity Pro. I don't know what middle ware you used for your Windows version, but if it isn't ready to be released I don't think it will be a waste of time or money to just re-do it all in Unity. Building in Unity and then distributing to Mac and Windows is a complete "no-brainer".

 

thx BigK... will do...

actually, i am considering the Pro version... right now i'm real busy completing some legal work... i will be able to apply myself 100% in a few days at this...

thx again for the info... and the advice


--Mike

 

thats pretty cool looking.

 

Hi there Mike, nice to see a familiar face from the Blitz community. I hope Unity works out well for you and your submarine project!

 

hey there dock... yeah, i think that a few blitz refugees have found a new home here

--Mike