supports flash.

It would be very good to be able to make for example a GUI menu in flash and the import it to unity and be able to use it in a game.

 

What would the point of this be? So you don't have to learn how to use UnityGUI?

Not that some sort of support for Flash wouldn't be nice - for example its vector graphics and/or animation could be used to generate high-quality textures at tiny filesizes. But.... don't expect it to be very interactive. Getting diverse and proprietary programming languages to intermingle is very difficult, and UT's time is better spent elsewhere.

 

I would like to see Unity support Flash as either an import option or an export option or both. As a seasoned Flash developer new to Unity it would be awesome to be able to leverage those skills inside Unity or start a project in Flash but then finish it in Unity. Flash also has a wider plug-in support then Unity. Another option would be a Unity plug-in or component for Flash so that Flash developers could access Unity's features inside of Flash. Flash ActionScript 3 is based very strictly off of JavaScript so I don't see why this would be that difficult to accomplish.

 

Pointless. I too have a Flash background, but I find the new GUI system much more productive than flash has ever been. Sure, vector functions could be usable sometimes, but UT should spend their time on more important things. All IMNSVHO.

 

For both technical and licensing reasons, it's somewhere between very unlikely and completely unthinkable that Unity will be supporting Flash.

Fortunately we have UnityGUI for now, and we'll be watching out for various possibilities to make things easier in the future.

d.

 

Hi David, thanks for the response, but I'm not quite clear as to why adding Flash support to Unity appears to be such a taboo subject on this forum. Why is it so "completely unthinkable" as you stated? Many different creative / multimedia applications support either importing or exporting the Flash .swf file format such as: Apple's QuickTime Player, AfterEffects, Illustrator, Maya, Poser, Director and many many other programs that allow you to make Flash animations without having to use Flash.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled with Unity and more excited then ever to learn all I can about it and how to harness all it's incredible power. I've been waiting for Flash to support 3d for years now hoping that they would incorporate their Director technology into Flash and that never happened. They are only now just beginning to take 3d seriously with the newly announced 3d effects for Flash Player 10 and PaperVision and Sandy3d. Unity is light years beyond where Flash is in the 3d game development area and that's precisely the reason I'm learning Unity. It would just be really amazing and cool from a web designers perspective to for example design an awesome Flash website that has a 3d Unity game embedded within it's interface without having to link out to another web page and require another plug-in that the majority of the world doesn't have.

 

For Unity exporting a SWF, that cannot really be done; Flash cannot render Unity content (unless your content just happens to be something along the complexity of a movie player on a 3D plane

Unity embedding Flash is also problematic; it is ridiculously expensive to get the "real" flash. Now, there are various OSS implementations of it, and they do an okay job - as long as you do not use "certain" features. What these certain features are is usually somewhat unclear, and we don't want to ship a bad flash implementation (which still would not include proper video playback for licensing reasons). Add to that the increased download size of the Unity plugin, and the whole idea just becomes worse.

Unity is about kick-ass 3D content. Flash is about kick-ass 2D content. Choose the right tool for each job

 

Prior to Unity 2.0 and the implementation of UnityGUI we really needed better 2D tools, and if importing SWF's was possible, that would have worked too. But now that I've gotten a taste of what UnityGUI can do I just hope we get more Flash-like capabilities in UnityGUI.

As far as exporting to Flash, you can screen capture a movie from Unity and convert that to .FLV (not the same as exporting to .SWF, but it's something), and a number of folk have gotten a Flash player to talk to a Unity player (a search of the forums should find the threads). So at least some sort of Flash <=> Unity integration is possible.

 

Like Nicholas said, nothing taboo (and we have spent a lot of time researching and contemplating the question). Some things just aren't possible, and that's one of them.

d.

 

mmm... I was wondering... Do you think I could take one of those OSS implementations and embed it inside a plugin? I mean, how would you tackle it? what potential problems do u see, how would you solve them?

Saludos

 

Anything is possible if you put your mind to it! Come on guys! If Maya and Poser can export to Flash so can Unity. And speaking of Poser.... that would be a great import option as well ! If Unity could implement something like Vue 6 Infinite does in regards to importing native Poser files that would be really great. I have tons of 3d content that I have purchased over the years for Poser and Daz Studio that would be great for games if only there was an easy way to import it into Unity. Currently I have to open my Poser files in Daz Studio and then use my $99 FBX export plug-in for Daz Studio to then finally import into Unity. And even then its not perfect. Some of the textures get lost in the process. Having access to fully rigged Poser characters and scenes inside Unity would be a great marriage of power and content. E-Frontier is working on releasing Poser Pro this winter which will make Poser more integrated in professional 3d apps like Maya and 3D Studio Max... via a plug-in version of Poser inside Maya, 3D Studio Max and others so maybe that will work better since Unity seems to love Maya.

 

If you're just talking about exporting vector based 3D animations to Flash without any sort of interactivity then you sort of just answered your own question. Other 3D production programs can already do it so why reinvent the wheel in Unity? Unity is meant to be used for creating realtime interactive content.

Now importing Flash into Unity for use as GUI elements or textures is a little more interesting to me but the aformentioned licensing cost is a big issue.

 

Flash is interactive and based largely upon JavaScript so I don't see why it would be soo hard and difficult to translate Unity JavaScript to Flash ActionScript to retain the interactivity and then just export a vector Flash version of the 3d content or utilize Sandy3d or Papervision to handle the 3d geometry. Certainly being able to import Flash GUI menus and interface components for use in Unity would be of great use as well. Don't forget that the Flash Player is already installed on 98% of all web browsers. What percentage of web browsers already have the Unity Player? I'm not being sarcastic here. I think it's important info for everyone to know. Has anyone tracked this yet or do they not care thinking that anyone who plays online games will just download and install the player?

This topic could be debated until the cows come home so I don't want to go down that road. My main view is that in my experience as a multimedia developer and creative / multimedia instructor and designer for the past 15 years teaching everything from Flash to AfterEffects to Final Cut Pro to Maya and Poser, Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, Dreamweaver, HTML, Podcasting, Logic Pro, MotionBuilder, Vue 6 Infinite, DVD Studio Pro, etc. to employees at major companies like MTV Networks, Viacom, Logo, Universal Music and others is that software integration is a major key to successful multimedia development. The best professional creative multimedia applications on the market today integrate flawlessly with other creative multimedia applications so that artists and designers can easily integrate a particular piece of software into their current production work flow or pipeline.

 

If you don't see why this is hard, that's probably the fundamental problem with this conversation.

At the bare minimum UT would have to rebuild all of the code they've written for Unity - the classes, the skinned meshes, lights, camera matrix transformations, there's an absurd amount of little things that would cause big problems. Nevermind the little syntactical differences (not having much AS experience I'm not sure how major these would be), things that simply don't translate, and the fact that all the shaders they've written would be useless and your game would look terrible and perform like crap.

That and we still don't have a clear idea of what the point of such an absurd translation process would be. To use Flash to make your GUI? UnityGUI is on its FIRST revision, and you're basically asking UT to go to an insane amount of trouble so that you don't have to use the system they've just spent months developing? (And will continue to develop for all the things it currently lacks)

This entire thread smells like: "It's possible, therefore it's easy, therefore UT should do it for me. GO!"

 

I see your point. I get it. I keep forgetting that OT and Unity are still fairly new and a small company with limited resources. Unity is such an incredible piece of software that one could easily assume it took an army of programmers to create. And you are right in that I'm by no means an expert programmer so I'm not aware of the difficulties involved or time it would take to have Unity support Flash. Maybe I should be asking Adobe to support importing Unity files in Flash instead? They certainly have the money and resources to pull off such a task. Maybe then Adobe could license the Unity Player and make OT some nice cash! Wishful thinking maybe, but hey I dream big! I've already contacted Lynda.com, VTC.com, Macprovideo.com, and digitalmediatraining.com and requested that they create some Unity video tutorials. We have to spread the word about how amazing Unity is so more people install the web player and it becomes a common software title that we all know and love ... like Photoshop.

 

Seriously - could you explain WHY it would be so amazing to have Unity-Flash integration?

You come across as a flash developer who's simply too lazy to learn Unity and instead want to leverage existing knowledge?

I know Flash very well myself, but I can't see what the point would be. Sure, Flash has near 100% coverage in terms of plugin deployment, but it's not a relevant fact. Flash can't handle what Unity is doing, and why on earth would you want to export Unity content into Flash as rendered images, along with ported code to keep the interactivity?

Apologies for harsh wording, but that is just plain stupid.

 

May be, maybe not. Flash is by no means a "game engine". It may be a useful tool for creating fancy-looking 2D web games, and I know people who hacked pseudo-3D games into it - which, however, are not really 3D but just look like 3D, which is quite a difference.

I think this is really about understanding what a "3D game engine" is, and what Flash is. It's not just about creating a little 3D-viewer (which is what you currently get with many tools and plugin that now put the label "3D-support" on their boxes).

With Unity, just as an example, there's a full physics engine included; it's about the way of defining interactions between 3D objects, handling shaders, getting the best FPS on a wide variety of different systems (which is obviously very hardware-specific), networking-support, creating a GUI that doesn't eat up more performance than absolutely necessary etc. etc.

I can only suggest that you learn to understand Unity, or what a "game engine" is in general. Create a game with it, or two. And then think about it again...

Just as UT obviously can't be interested in creating "SWF-export" (which would be completely useless because Flash is NOT a 3D game engine), Adobe won't be too interested in importing Unity-stuff. If you look at the strategies that Microsoft and Adobe are now following, it's about user-interfaces - NOT about games. They'll be coming up with some fancy 3D effects - no doubt about that - but that will be it. The focus is clearly on developing Web application user interfaces that look cool, and it might turn out that in the end Adobe will have to focus strongly on also being able to deliver high-end standalone application user interfaces to be able to compete with what Microsoft is currently coming up with.

Right now, Microsoft is starting to be in direct competition to Flash with its Silverlight stuff.

I don't see neither competition between Adobe and UT, nor do I see much of a synergy. For user-interface design in Unity, there may be some - but my understanding right now is that user-interface design for games is a completely different story from user-interface design for applications.

Yeah, I was shocked at first when I learned about "immediate mode GUI" (still not sure if I like it or not, but that's another story)... If you have a Mac, get the evaluation version of Unity, do the platformer tutorial, and you'll know what I'm talking about ;-)

Jashan

 

Flash for us is very interesting because it would allow the artists to make animated menus without having to script anything, or with mininal intervention of a programmer.

It is the best platform to create 2D menus in a *fast* and flexible way.

Menus are very important for our advertising oriented games, initial image is everything.

Of course it is possible to create beautiful menus with UnityGUI, it is just that it will take more time and resources. No excuse anyway to make something beautiful with this great tool.

BTW, I am still thinking about my idea of making a plugin. I have researched a bit Gnash, and it seems a bit pain in the ass to make it render in a user provided buffer. Now it is turn for GameSWF. Please, if somebody has some ideas about doing this, we could share them.

 

Finally, someone else who sees the potential here! Thanks for the support John!

Foxis, please be nice. No need for the harsh words... this is just a discussion about possibility. I'm not demanding anything. I'm just making some suggestions and exploring the possibility of some ideas. I have already purchased Unity 2.0 and gone through the Marble Tutorial and I'm almost finished with the Third Person Platformer Tutorial. I even created my own simple Marble game with custom Maya graphics, music and sound effects and got it to work with a LogiTech game pad controller. I also went through the Terrain section in the manual and created my own terrain with painted textures, trees and plants. I even built some custom huts in Maya and then put them in my new Unity world. The new Terrain tools are really impressive... it's almost like a real-time version of Vue 6 Infinite. Now, to answer your question as to WHY it would be so amazing to have Unity-Flash Integration: I think John already answered that for you but just as with Flash there is always going to be disagreement in new feature requests between Designers and Programmers. Designers want to do things with minimal or no coding and Programmers usually always have a completely different agenda. That being said and after reading all the previous posts to this topic it probably makes the most sense (to me) for Unity to be able to just import .SWF files because:

1) Flash can import layered Photoshop and Illustrator Files so designing interfaces for Unity games would not take a typical graphic designer out of his or her comfort zone.

2) Flash allows you to easily create animated menus and buttons with minimal coding requirements

3) Importing of .SWF files would give Unity users another option for streaming video as well as having the added bonus of using all the predesigned or custom skinned Flash FLV video players.

4) You could think of .SWF files as extra content containers for Unity scenes. Imagine walking through a Unity 3D scene of a room with four television sets each with four different interactive 2D .SWF files playing in them. The game player could walk up to each television and then activate playback or interact with some .SWF animations mapped to the televisions.

5) Unity users could make use of Flash's drag and drop interface components for form fields, check boxes, radio buttons, etc.

6) Flash is by far the best tool on the market for making advanced, completely customizable 2D buttons fully equipped with multiple layers of embedded movie clip animations graphics or video, multiple button states (up, down, over and hit) as well as sound effects for each state of the button.

I could go on and on about the advantages of being able to import Flash .SWF files into Unity, but the main point to consider here is that being able to import Flash .SWF files or Poser .PZ3 or .CR2 files directly into Unity is essentially just expanding Unity's features by adding additional compatible asset types to the already impressive list of compatible file formats that Unity supports.

 

I am nice, but I also call it like I see it. This below here is what I referred to, and it is a stupid suggestion.

Wanting to be able to import swf for menus is an entirely different matter, but I would still argue that it isn't - by far - necessary. Your coders could very quickly develop a system that would require very little of your artists and provide you with reusability.

Anyway, I think I'll just stop visiting any feature request threads from new users. I seem to be making the same comment over and over: "Use the right tool for the right job". Unity just isn't a 3D Flash/Director wannabe, it's a game engine. I sure hope it stays that way.

 

Foxis, you obviously have your own agenda for Unity and your entitled to your own opinion, but calling other peoples ideas or suggestions "stupid" is just childish and immature. There is no need for it. Grow up! I don't have any problem with people disagreeing with me, but name calling is really unacceptable behavior for a forum.

 

I wasn't calling you stupid, I was saying the idea was. I'm not a native english speaker though, so I will apologize if you took personal offense.

However, I would suggest that you look closely at what you suggested. Exporting content from Unity defeats the entire purpose of the product. Hence my labeling of the idea. You would be better off exporting from Maya/C4D, etc and coding directly in Flash.

As for having an agenda, sure I have one. I want UT to focus their efforts on making Unity even stronger where it matters.

Anyway, I've spent more than my 0.02 swedish kronor on this thread, so I'll get my coat.

 

Apology accepted. Thanks for the clarification.

 

I don't know about Illustrator files, but I do know that Unity supports importing layered Photoshop files just fine, so that's nothing that Flash would be needed for, it would just create an unnecessary step in-between. I'd rather use the skin-system that Unity already provides, and I'm sure the UT-people already have some very fancy stuff on their minds and just need a little time for implementing that.

Obviously, vector-based GUIs are "the next step" in GUI-design, and it's something probably suitable especially for games because of the different screen-sizes that need to be supported. So, Illustrator, or even simple SWF support for the asset pipeline might be an interesting option to consider.

When it comes to GUI design, what's "hip" right now is XML-based languages with which you declaratively create "stylish" vector-based GUIs. But I'm not sure if that's such a great idea for games, because I would assume that rendering a vector based GUI simply consumes more time than just putting a bitmap on screen. Especially when it's "fancy" with animations and stuff like that.

You have to understand that "common applications" spend most of their time idle, doing nothing, waiting for user input. For such an application, creating a "fancy GUI" is not a problem. You just give it something to do while it's waiting for user input. While this may also be true for in-game menus, configuration screens etc. in games, it's not true for HUD-style GUIs in games, which I feel are more "natural" in games.

I might be mistaken with that, and if I am, I'm sure that's something UT might be looking into.

The question would then still be if Flash really is the best solution for that specific purpose. Personally, my feeling would be that Microsoft's WPF / Silverlight which is actually designed from scratch for GUI-design might turn out to be the better option in the end. If Silverlight is adopted into Mono, it would probably be much easier to integrate into Unity than Flash (even though I would agree that Flash has other advantages) - with a little patience, it might even come "for free".

Same here: It sure would be nice, but the question is whether this would not eat up too much performance in most cases. I know quite a few flash movies that take up a significant amount of processor power. It's nice if that's all that has be rendered - but in a game, that might just be misplaced. One of the "arts" (it's actually just plain engineering) involved in game design is the art of balancing which components of the game (physics, 3D, AI, networking etc.) get how much processing power. If that's understood, it becomes clear that using a GUI-system that requires a lot of processing power might just not be such a wise idea...

Another question that arises is whether Unity might not even support "fancier stuff" for startup-menus and the like than Flash-developers can even dream of. I think the limit here is only one's own creativity.

I think that has been answered before, hasn't it? That's a matter of licensing.

I agree that this would be an interesting feature. If UT could integrate that without having to create their own implementation of Flash, and if it's not something that would cost UT a lot to license, it might be nice. But I see quite a few things that would probably have a much higher priority for most people using Unity.

However, why limit yourself to just Flash for that? A much more useful approach would be rendering the complete output of a Web browser to a texture. Then you could even have terminals in-game to browse the Web. If it's possible to capture any browser-output and put it into a texture (and I think that should be possible), you're not limited to Flash but could have just anything Web based inside of your in-game terminals. It's more generic, and - if possible - would probably even be much simpler than implementing native Flash support.

Again, I would say "nice-to-have", if it's easy to do. Btw, isn't that the same as 2?

That's nice, but are fancy buttons with videos on them really something needed for games? If you really need that, you could do it right now with Unity, even though I agree that it would not be as convenient and easy to do as in Flash, and there sure are things you can do in Flash that you can't do in Unity. Again: If UT would just have to get a little "Flash-plugin for Unity", it would be nice. But if implementing such a feature (that I and assume quite a few other Unity-users as well would consider "nice-to-have") would mean more "game-related" stuff gets less focus, I wouldn't like it.

I believe that in the actual game, this functionality is really not needed, because obviously, the "in-game GUI" should not distract the user's attention from the actual game. For "start-screens" and menus it sure would be nice, though... But if you have "browser integration" into Unity, all you would then need is a way of that browser embedded into Unity to talk to Unity. With that, I guess we'd have all you're asking for, and even much more ;-)

Again, this looks a bit like 2 ;-)

Importing Poser files directly into Unity with all the features available sure would be great - at least, if there's a good way of creating low-poly models from those files without losing all the posing features. But I think that would be worth another thread as it's a completely different story than Flash.

Jashan

 

Maya and Flash have better Photoshop importing then Unity:

Unity flattens a layered Photoshop file upon import which is not very flexible. Flash's Photoshop import options in Flash CS3 are superb. All of your Photoshop layers are intact and all of Photoshop's layer styles are supported as well. It even supports vector layers in Photoshop. You can also convert individual items or layers into Flash symbols prior to import. If that's not possible for Unity, another approach is the way that Maya supports Photoshop layered files when you create a PSD network in Maya. You can have one of your Photoshop layers be your diffuse layer, another your specular layer, another your bump layer and so on. Maybe I haven't used it enough yet or don't quite fully understand the way it's implemented, but I find Unity's Material setup a bit confusing. I would like to see how everything is connected visually similar to how you can in Maya's hypershade window or Poser's Material room or Vue 6's material node view. Is there a way to do this in Unity that I'm not aware of?

 

Hi

A little while back I was involve in a project that meant creating a slick flash front end GUI that connected to a C# .Net back end, this wasn't a web project either, and the SWF had to run in the same window as the C# app code.

Luckily we found this little work of wonder

http://www.f-in-box.com/

It allows a .NET app to display an swf, not only that but thought the use of the ExternalInterface API allows Actionscript access to C# functions or C# access to Actionscript functions. In terms of work flow it meant that the developer could get on and work on the back end without having to learn Flash and that the Designer could work on the Front end without having to learn C#.

The problem for Unity is, as far as I understand, that F-in-box is built for Microsofts .NET framework, however as Unity is built on the Mono .Net framework it could well be ported over.

Currently I'm a heavy flash user and I have taken a keen interest in Unity since I first heard about it.

I would never expect Unity App to allow the encoding of SWF files and Unity needs continue developing its own system for creating GUI's, however the ability to use SWF's shouldn't really be considered much different from allowing the use of JPEG images.

Flash is a great app for throwing together custom GUI's and there are a large number of Flash Designers across the world with a wealth of knowledge about digital user interface design (you can't at this point say the same about silverlight - its uptake by designers has been fairly slow). As soon as you provide the ability to display and run SWF's in Unity you expose the Unity game platform to a wider creative audience who might take much more interest in the Unity platform.

If I could us my existing knowledge and experience of creating content in the Flash to enrich the games produced in Unity, then that can only be a plus for the Unity game development platform - in the same way that my knowledge and experience of creating bitmaps in Photoshop can be used to enrich 3D models with texture mapping, the use of Flash could allow designers with little knowledge of C# to quickly create UI's for use in Unity (plus in terms of an alternative video codec to obb, flash player is a fraction of the size of Quicktime)

And I understand that the Unity team have to focus a lot of their time on developing the core engine and abilities of the platform, but how about approaching the F-IN-BOX team to produce an optional plugin for Unity, something that people could buy only it they really need it.

ps - I myself can code in C# , and us flash developers ain't lazy we are just very busy.

 

As I read this, it sounds like two very different things are being suggested and they are often getting mixed up as if they are part of the same argument.

It seems like you are proposing two things:

a. Unity should be able to import content created from Flash.
b. Unity should be able to export as swf.

These arguments need to be kept separate to really discuss them.

With regards to importing content created in Flash, I would assume that this content would function as a 2D layer much like the current GUI does. So it would basically be a 2D interactive video that sits in front of all the cameras. The issue, as it seems like it was explained is one of getting this to perform reliably. I would imagine that IF it were possible to implement, it would involve using a SWF player and doing some sort of extension to ActionScript in much the same way that programs like Zinc do for mdm script (or whatever they call it). This idea isn't bad... if it could be done reliably. That said, Unity already has a set of conventions for GUI that are maturing. These conventions are, and would be for a long time, much better integrated into the rest of Unity than such a solution could hope to be. So on one front, this would take a step forward (allowing users to leverage existing skills) but on another, it would take a step back (adding unnecessary complexity). Personally, I think that step back is bigger than the step forward.

With regards to Unity exporting content to SWF, this is another matter entirely. All of the examples that were posed export vectorized stills from content and lack any serious interaction. This isn't a UT doesn't have the resources issue so much as it is one of mixing two different things that are very different. But hypothetically, lets say that UT could somehow create a way to get the Flash player to display 3D content with decent performance -- that they could get a 1:1 export that played as a SWF file (note that we have just left the realm of possibility here for the sake of discussion), what would we really gain? A larger install base is all, as far as I can tell. So if in the end the only argument is for a larger install base, maybe that should be the request. Fortunately, we don't even need UT for that wish -- create amazing content. The more amazing content that is created in Unity, the more support it will have.

 

I think it's actually the same issue.
I own Poser and was DISTRAUGHT .. when I
finally read the EULA (End User Lisence Agreement) and
discovered that I could NOT use Poser 3D content
generated from any of their supplied template
material in a 3D format.
There're other threads on the forum that point this
out - but basically you can render 2D images of 3D
content from Poser and use them commercially -you
may NOT export and use any 3D variations based on
/ derived from 3D content shipped with Poser.

Now that doesn't render Poser entirely useless ..
for instance you can import your own models and
use poser to to rig and animate them .. but .. Poser
seems to use a slightly differnet skeleton/bone
setup to most BVH type rigs and i've ended up
with the distinct feeling that Poser is actually
more trouble than it's worth.

If i'm wrong here .. i'm only too happy to put my
hand up .. but i think the EULA issues are ironclad.

 

EULA with flash as far as I recall does not cover the use of SWF content (please correct me if I'm wrong) - as there are a number of offerings from both commercial and open source operations that allow you to create swf content.

What the EULA does cover is the distribution of the Flash Player. I have never read the full agreement, but if the unity engine was to use the Flash Player that was already on the users computer or alternatively redirect them to download the player from the Adobe site if it wasn't installed already (much like you would with quicktime) then the use of the flash player might not contradict that?? I know that Adobe Reader has restrictions on being used with other plug ins but I'm not sure if that extends to the flash player... hey I'm not a law person. The Flash Player EULA can be found at the URL below maybe take a look and decide for yourself.

http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/players/flash/

 

Whether or not it would be a backward step, its a feature that would still be useful to some of us. Add midi support and you have a platform that I could use for a wide variety of projects.

 

Adobe has decide to relax its licensing on media formats used with flash meaning that flash video FLV and shockwave flash SWF are now open platforms.

http://aralbalkan.com/1332

http://www.macworld.com/article/133247/2008/05/openscreen.html

 

http://my.smithmicro.com/mac/poserpro/index.html

New Distributable Content

Poser Pro comes with a set of four re-distributable 3D characters to help users save production time. This set includes a male and female figure in both medium and low resolutions. These professionally modeled 3D characters include facial morph targets to create expressions and visemes to synch with imported sound files in the Talk Designer, plus they are Face Room ready.

Use these four figures as a starting point and customize them to create your own real-time 3D or game characters. Modify these fully-rigged characters with Poser Pro’s powerful magnet deformers or sculpt detail using the Morphing Tool. Import them into the Face Room and modify their geometry and texture to match your imported facial photographs. When you’re finished, these four figures can be exported via Poser Pro’s many geometry export options including COLLADA, or hosted via PoserFusion plug-ins, and re-distributed for royalty–free use in your project.

Distributable Content Includes:

2 Male Figure Versions (LowResMale, MedResMale).
2 Female Figure Versions (LowResFemale, MedResFemale).
Developmental OBJ geometry files for all for figures.
Figures are Face Room ready.
Figures include facial morphs for expressions and synthesizing speech

----------------

Daz3D

DAZ 3D and Mogware Collaborate to Bring DAZ 3D Content Seamlessly into Game Development Pipelines
MOGBox Allows Time-saving and Cost-effective Solution for Artists and Developers;

http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/corporate/press/-/daz3d_mogware?id=44_m=d

------------

Between Adobe, SmithMicro (Poser) and Daz3D's recent announcements it looks like the tides are a changing!!

I can't help but say.. "I told you so!" ha ha

 

Why not license scaleform and integrate it yourself into unity

 

Is this a viable pathway for video textures into Unity?

I would say there are at least 3 issues
-standardised JavaScript/AS3 for 3D content
-swf as video textures on 3d objects -Adobe Atmosphere did this from flash, I had some nice avatars with moving clothes
-and all the above..

I don't think they will merge JavaScript although it would be nicer for those of us that use both apps.
I don't think Flash 3D ie Papervision etc is really in the same market
And video textures..well they can be processor intensive.

As for GUIS, I suspect Flash's ActionScript 3 is making it a little harder for beginning developers, you could of course use Flash to prototype Unity interfaces, maybe export the fla as an image etc but is it worth the effort?

caveat: my 2 cents is worth less than Swedish kronor

 

I'd really like Unity to be able to display Flash content inside unity.

The oranisation I work for has literally thousands of Flash assets which we'd love to embed inside a 3D enviroment, but we can't use any 3D enviroment in which we can't embed our existing content.

I think that there is a plug-in for "Torque" from Garage games that can display Flash content up to Flash 7+ (ish), so I'm guessing that this uses the GNASH GNU / Open source player.

Would it be possible to do the same thing in Unity, i.e. build the GNASH player from source code and embed it in Unity (somehow).

 

I believe that's the plug-in they used to get the vector cut scenes in the penny-arcade game that was released recently. It would be great to have that kinda of functionality in Unity, as the Penny-arcade was very stunning in that respect.

 

/signed.


This would simply jet Unity to be the number one worldwide, crossplatform, web player, and therefore the number one graphic engine (by popularity I mean).

C'mon dudes, let yourself go with the flow !

Won't be any harm to Adobe, as their software license would still be necessary to build swf

 

Guys It seems like little war on background I mean same war as always AS3 vs .NET.

Personally I am flash developer but I've start to looking new SERIOUS 3D web platform to switch on.

I love Action Script especially 3.0 but I see is no big deal to understand .NET or Java code for me as well. Shame that Flash not going to be full 3D. Shame that unity using .NET but is great tool for 3D content.
Shame that UNITY team doesn't understand why Flash become so popular (Because has bring non programmers /artists to the platform and learned them how to be programmer from 10 years), Shame that Flash guys here are not going to learn something new even if they follow in love to flash as myself.

What can I say now is:

- It's time to get lead in 3D browser and seems like Adobe failed, true fact...

- Unity3D looks like only the best quality and complex solution. true fact...

- Flash Platform have very good language now as 3.0 true fact... and its one of the faster on the web and client side.

- Flash Platform have a lot of good Developers and Artists And will be good to win them in this 3d fight. Same way as Flash because of 3.0 grabbed many C++ guys true fact...

- Games made by Coders only are always crap from end user point of view. For Professional looks games We need always good artists. true fact...

- A lot of Artist using Adobe stuff and authoring. true fact...

I guess Unity team maybe personally like only Mac and .NET, who knows but understanding what happened in last 10 years with Flash platform and why should help them get lead in new 3D area and I thing is worth of it.

P.S. Apologies for my English.

Best
Devu

 

Hi Devu.

While making Unity, we always prioritized making it easy for people to collaborate, while keeping all the different profiles happy;

- Graphic artists can just throw in a PSD file, a Maya file, etc.
- Programmers can use .Net (which has a pretty big following)

We developed our own scripting compiler (partly) to make it easy for flash developers to get into Unity. Take a look at Ryan Gordon's blog:

http://rockonflash.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/ifly-from-flash-to-unity3d-to-iphone-game/

 

Hey, is this interesting for you guys?? I'm creating a system to capture and control Flash movies from Unity. Above, the texture in the cube is taken directly from the Flash movie to the left.

This texture is 512x512 and is loaded quickly without any optimization... anyway I'm working on frames capture, and later I'll work on mouse and key simulation from Unity, to fully reflect Flash on Unity. To start with, the system will be aimed for Flash 8 (AS2) by the moment, but I'll probably work on a port to AS3.

 

I completed the first version of what was the prototype above, now is called Flashcot. Posted some information here: http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=19945

I'll stop replying here, if you have any feedback write me in the other thread. Thanks!

 

Don't take this to seriously...but it could work.
Adobe would have to develop a special Flash Export with a "Transparent Stage Layer". While, Unity would need a special Importer for that Layer. Also we would need a two way javaScript translator/interpreter to communicate between the two documents. Furthermore, it could work from both applications, seemingly. Flash developers could [seemingly] import the Unity document. Really they are viewing the "Unity Game view" through the same Transparent Stage Layer, but in Flash.

"Because somethings can be made... doesn't mean it should.

I wish we could have a common scripting model between Unity and Flash.

politics

Well, back to the fun stuff!

L



:idea: :idea:

 

Somebody suggested the f-in-box solution.

Well, I would like to suggest that once more.

f-in-box encapsulates the REAL flash activeX control, so it is not a licensing problem. You don't write your own flash player.

Problem is I own a license for f-in-box to be used on delphi, but I don't know how it would be done from a .NET dll or from for example C++.

Maybe somebody who is capable of writing anything plugin-like could try? The technical support at f-in-box is superb, very fast and very helpfull.

Maybe something can be done after all.

http://www.f-in-box.com/

There are even c# examples on the website for interfacing the .net assembly

 

god of war uses flash for its hud and gui ... and god of war is only the single best game ever made (in my humble opinion ^^) so anything that that they do in god of war would be great for unity to have !


postmortem/speech recording where they mention some flash trivia can be found here : http://www.gdcradio.net/2007/05/god_of_war_how_the_left_and_ri.html

worth listening to for all game developers !

 

SWF support is not a boolean - it's a wide set of technologies where some are more useful in Unity than others. AS3 support? On2 video codec? Nellymoser decompression? Video capture?

As long as there's no proper 2D vector drawing API in Unity, I can't see any decent way to implement even the most basic Flash functionality.

If there were such an API, things would be much simpler. There are already a few basic C# SWF parsers/renderers (including an old prototype of mine) that can be extended and improved on.

I'm really missing this in Unity for non-Flash 2D stuff too, and it's possible it will be a showstopper for me.

(Right, Scaleform, I remember now that that's where Maxim Shemanarev went)

 

I think the point is not to parse the swf file inside unity3d but to take the flash as a 2d surface and convert it in a texture in the same basis that unity3d is able to play videos inside a texture.

 

Not sure if anyone's interested in my opinion, but I've done a lot of Flash development over the years in my day job and I can't think of one sensible and worthwhile reason to have Flash support inside Unity. I can't think of anything that this would add to Unity - it seems that the only reasons people want it is so they don't have to modify their content to work in Unity or they can't be bothered learning how to use Unity. Why just Flash? Why not ask for word document or powerpoint support inside Unity or something else equally nonsensical.

Another thing, I would bet that if Unity iPhone supported any variant of Flash content then Apple would be unhappy enough to stop approving apps built in Unity iPhone.

I wish that UT will never support Flash - Flash is old technology that needs to be allowed to die. It will be replaced on the web by HTML5 soon enough. imho.

[/rant]

 

there are plenty of places where flash could be usefull.

However, flash is indeed a name of a technology and mostly when people talk about flash integration, they only mean a little part of that.


I think that the most obvious reason for this question is because unity3d (and yes there is 3D in the name) has almost no 2D support to be worth using.

So... I don't really mind anymore that unity cannot playback flash, since we switched to plain flash for those projects again.

Unity is 3D and it would be very nice to see some animation-editable-and-script-atachable-2d-like thing inside unity too.

 

I am certainly no Flash apologist here... in fact, I generally hate it. No. To be honest, I really really hate it. But, I can certainly see where having Flash support in Unity would be useful.

A lot of times, a client will already have a graphic designer, and they have mocked up the interface in Flash. They say that they need this interface, and additionally, some 3d stuff happening in the middle.

It would be nice if I could import the working interface and then get on with doing the fun stuff. Instead, I need to spend a lot of time in UnityGUI development, recreating something that already works. While I agree that UnityGUI is very powerful, and I have indeed done some cool things with it, I would much rather have been able to use that time polishing the exciting stuff while I let the graphic designer make all the inevitable changes to font sizes and colors.

If Unity supported Flash, they could just send me a new swf and I could get on with my job.

Additionally, there are effects that can be done more easily in Flash than with Unity's GUI system, and if those are the effects that a client wants, they start questioning why we are using Unity to begin with... When their designer's mock up can do fancy bouncing text effects and dynamically changing font sizes, they do not want to hear that it would take too long to recreate those effects in the final version.

Personally, I would be happy to see not just Unity, but the entire human race not support Flash. But sadly, there are those out there (and they are the ones providing the paychecks) who think that Flash is great and will not accept anything that cant look the way their Flash stuff looked. And anything that helps me sell Unity work is good for me.

 

I hate to apparently resurrect this thread, but i feel it's important to realize that in this, our lord's year of 2009, Flash is used extensively in the games industry precisely for scalable vector GUI, primarily through the efforts of the Scaleform guys. Did you like Mass Effect or the Dawn of War 2 interface? Flash 7 ActiveX.

Vector GUI was, iirc, leveraged to a fair extent by IDTech4, and "flash-like qualities" have seemingly been a goal in games GUI for a long time.

I come from a little over 10 years of Flash development, so naturally i have a bias, but it's one thing to have dabbled in it as a development platform and found it wanting, and something completely different to be able to create a full on Photoshop clone and then realize you can leverage few if any of those skills in Unity.

I'll be brutally honest; UnityGUI is some of the most awkward GUI dev i have ever touched on. It has problems intrinsic to any component model GUI, starting with a default skin that is borderline offensive, and ending with skinning possibilities that are uncomfortable at best and requiring the dedicated time of a team member simply to learn how to get started.

For a strategy/mmo game we are currently working on, our GUI demands are quite serious, and we currently find ourselves leaning towards a combined Unity+Flash frontend, with Unity being limited to very basic interactivity (and awesome rendering), with Flash 10 sidebars handling anything more complex. It's a painful decision to make, but the way we see it, the amount of GUI work we can actually get done with results of the quality we want is better with Flash than with pure Unity.

Now, in this modern day and age where a young gentleman can throw together a C# application that embeds the Flash Player 10 activeX controller with a modicum of effort, I'm genuinely interested in the technical limitations keeping SWF components with externalinterface out of UnityGUI.
FlashContent flash;

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. //rosy red 5am sci-fi-script:
3. void OnGUI(){
4. flash = GUI.Flash("myswf.swf");
5. }
6. void Update(){
7. if(flash.IsLoaded) flash.call("myFlashMethod",someArgument);
8. }
9.  

I think Unity did a very smart thing implementing Mono, in essence "free outsourcing" of their scripting support. I think it would be equally smart to implement Flash support as an alternative to UnityGUI. I see no reason to keep the 2D and 3D camps separate in this way, and if the discussion ends with "Flash incurs too heavy a performance cost", i'll counter that with poor Unity development incurring the same. With a platform as mature as Flash an application is not intrinsically bad; There are only bad developers.

I would like to add a Flash 2d graphics editor to my game and pass the resulting PNG to a host Unity app, letting players skin their own characters or clan banners. I would love to leverage Flash video and webcam support, or one of the many Flash augmented reality libraries. I would love for a computer panel in a Unity game taking the player to a 2D Flash minigame to solve a puzzle. I can't imagine a better addition to the Unity featureset than a Flash frontend component.

So there's my $2. I imagine Unity as a company would be better served developing their component based 3d worldbuilding solution, renderer and asset pipeline than significantly update UnityGUI (which is, as we all know, 2d, and therefore apparently Very Boring).[/code]