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Unity 2.0 Coming This Summer!

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by David-Helgason, Jul 6, 2007.

  1. garyhaus

    garyhaus

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    Thanks Sam! I hope we get a release date soon and maybe some more idea of more features. (hint hint!)
     
  2. hsparra

    hsparra

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    Argh! I have been so busy lately I did not even know that was happening this weekend. Are you leaving the 7th immediately after the conference or are you staying over for a day or so? Man, I could have seen a live demo of Unity 2.0 :(
     
  3. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    Just a supplemental question @ OTEE.

    The online video is going to accept MPG(win)/MOV(mac) and compress to internal format.
    I heard from Tom Higgins that this format is OGG Theora. Having heard that I have immediately started testing this compression system and I must say I am impressed by the graphical quality of the video.
    Even at low bitrates it looks like ogg theora is a very good system to use for video.

    I do compress with a standalone compressing tool which immediately creates the .ogg files.

    Is unity going to support importing these .ogg files (the native format) also or will we have to let unity compress all ?

    I found that compression of video to ogg can be CPU consuming (I like compression to take a lot of cpu if decompression takes little).

    If it won't be able to read native ogg theora files, will all compression options of the standalone then be settable in unity3D ?

    Like

    The resize x and y
    The video bitrate
    The video quality
    The audio bitrate
    The audio quality
    --optimize
    ....
     
  4. Joachim_Ante

    Joachim_Ante

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    You can do both.

    You can import ogg files natively and in that case import time is of course really fast. If you supply uncompressed or mpg, m4a, mov, avi files, then Unity will automatically compress the movie for you. You have a slider where you can choose quality / compressed size. If you need more control than that you can always use one of the commandline tools or i think quicktime has some plugins for exporting to ogg as well.
     
  5. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    Thats great to hear.

    Another question might be trickier, but quite important for me.

    I would use video to make characters talk.

    If I have 10 video files of each 10 seconds, then I occupy 100 seconds of video or roughly 3 to 4 megabytes at 250kbps compression.

    Can you then playback video 1 and leave the video at its last frame so that after for example 20 seconds you want to start another video and it should immediately go from the last frame of video 1 to the new video without flickering or without going to a blank/black frame inbetween.


    Is such a thing possibe?


    Or can you for example just encode my 10 pieces of 10 seconds into 1 big movie of 100 seconds and then jump to certain positions, like playing a video from second 30 to 40 and then stop on second 40. then jump for example to second 50 and continue playback? (I know scripting would be involved in this)



    I hope to have made my question clear.

    Video is a very powerfull addition to unity and its the main feature in 2.0 which i'll surely need to create educational software.


    Hope to get a positive (and if not, then a negative) answer soon.


    regards,

    Bart
     
  6. Joachim_Ante

    Joachim_Ante

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    You can pause and resume playback. With the 2.0 release you won't be able to jump although we want to add this feature at a later point.

    In your example I think you want to make multiple small clips. This does not increase the total size of the movies compared to having a single one as far as i can see.
     
  7. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    Ok/

    So I should use multiple small movies.
    Can it then play movie 1 and ad the end movie 2 without flickering inbetween ?

    I will make all movies to begin and end with the same pose for the characters. but maybe the engine might flicker while changing video ?
     
  8. Joachim_Ante

    Joachim_Ante

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    If the frames match it should definately be possible to match them up.
     
  9. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    All right.

    I ordered a new iMac on august 25th just to test unity3D.

    The iMac hasn't arrived yet but I took the time to read all possible documentation I could find about it while waiting.

    You can certainly count EducaSoft to be a next Unity Pro customer.
    Coming from director this is even more then a huge step forward and thats speaking of 1.6 , so what will happen with 2.0.

    I really hope that lets say in around a month the 2.0 could be out. That gives me the time to do some basic testing with 1.6 and then buy the pro in october.
     
  10. Joe ByDesign

    Joe ByDesign

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    Hehe, I also bought a mac primarily for Unity, but now consider using a mac as a bonus :)

    So to answer your question, one or the other, or perhaps both... welcome to the club! :p
     
  11. GWPGearWorx

    GWPGearWorx

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    I was a PC user, I bought a new iMac last month when the new ones came out, just for Unity.... and now I am a full on MAC ADVOCATE.


    Windows WHAT ?????

    Beside Unity being the best damn dev tool I have ever used (and I have tried em all for PC) Unity is bar above the rest, and hands down my tool of choice.

    I also find I am MUCH more productive on a Mac than I ever was on a PC....

    You my friend are a genius. You will find... or by now already know, that this community is filled with very cool, friendly and helpful people.

    So welcome aboard, and best of luck on you're future products.

    Regards
     
  12. polytropoi

    polytropoi

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    Yep, me too, and I feel more like a genius every day! As a longtime linux user for server stuff, the thing I enjoy most about OSX (aside from Unity) is the integrated shell. No more putty, no more ftp!

    That's a good idea for facial animation, to use an array of little movies mapped just so to the character's face. It would sure save polygons and vertex animation work, plus audio sync wouldn't be an issue. Hmmm... Will it be possible to map movies to geometry using UV maps, or can you only do this on primitives?

    Having attended the Austin GDC and felt the zeitgeist (and played w/ v.2 a bit), my impression is that a tipping point is near for Unity. This release is going to open a lot of eyes. There's a huge pent-up desire for these capabilities, and Unity satisfies.

    Lack of a windows port is a deal-killer for some folks; we all know that's coming eventually, probably next year. Sam told me they heard fewer objections in this regard at the Austin conference than at the Seattle casual conference, which makes sense when you consider the cost structures most of the companies are used to. Except for Torque (who had a nicer booth, but still aren't as cool) all the commercial engines have a "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" attitude. Or, we'll just take a chunk of your revenue forever. The hero engine that Bioware uses is touted for it's usability, and it's certainly nice, but not as usable as Unity, and OTEE isn't going to show up and claim your firstborn.

    Another interesting angle on the perception of Unity is on the quality of graphics. Casual gamer types aren't used to seeing "hardcore" style graphics (i.e. realtime 3D w/ modern shaders) in a browser, or in a non-AAA game. They're like "hey, you got hardcore in my casual!". Folks out there advocating web-based gaming make the valid point that better graphics don't necessarily mean better games, which is certainly true, but to some extent that's driven by the difficulty in reaching the bar set by the AAA titles. Unity lets us reach that bar, and publish without asking anybody's permission, or toadying up to the Death Star.

    We all know that when the windows port does come out, things will change around here - the noise level will go up dramatically, for one thing. And we'll all fondly remember these days, when we were the special few. But by then we'll be rolling in cash, so it'll be cool....:)
     
  13. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    Couldn't have said this better.

    I do have a very important question which I was thinking of today.

    In earlier educational programs I printed out stuff to the windows printer.
    In other projects I was even able to generate some simple PDF documents.

    Is there any way in UNITY to print something on the printer ? Any trick would be more then welcome as I would normally need it.
    If its not possible, then I'll have to think about a workaround.
     
  14. Joachim_Ante

    Joachim_Ante

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    You can take screenshots and save them as png files. I am sure there is some way to print a png file, easiest is probably using a commandline tool or if not just write a plugin.
     
  15. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    Can unity for example also draw on a texture or so ?

    I mean, are there ways to for example create a 1024x2048 bmp file and draw individual pixels on it in unity ?

    Screenshots are just not enough to do
     
  16. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    Second thought.

    I have embedded the activeX player of unity in Delphi7 (you could do it in Visual basic too) but I don't see any events in the players control.

    By setting its src attribute, its possible to let it load a unity program from within my delphi program, but isn't there a way for example for vb programmers so unity could send something back to the application which carries the activeX control ?
     
  17. HiggyB

    HiggyB

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    Can we keep this thread's conversation on topic and about the coming 2.0 release? If you have other general/non-2.0 specific questions then please start a new thread (or threads) with appropriate titles. This will make it easier for folks to help answer your questions and allow others to benefit from the answers (they may not look here for these sorts of questions whereas a new specific thread is much easier to find and read). Thanks! :D
     
  18. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    Okay Tom.

    So lets get it a little more specific.
    My Imac arrived today.
    When will 2.0 arrive ? ;-) ;-) ;-)
     
  19. HiggyB

    HiggyB

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    Thanks for understanding. Again it's just to keep information on topic and more easily found (for others to both read and reply), that's all.

    Soon. :D (nothing more detailed than that to offer for now, sorry)
     
  20. GusM

    GusM

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    Have you think about offering some kind of special Pro upgrade discount on next 2.0 release? I just recently got the indie license, so I will get the indie 2.0 for free, but maybe if you offer a nice deal this would be a great ocasion for upgrading. And maybe a lot more people will... :)
     
  21. jaydubs

    jaydubs

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    I like the way GusM thinks ... plus, once we have a Pro licence we are likely to KEEP a Pro licence with further upgrades ... it can't hurt to ask :)

    JW
     
  22. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    Nice try but don't you think 1499 isn't that expensive at all if you compare with other packages on the market ?
     
  23. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    Quick question.

    I found in previous posts on this subject a higher res picture of the new gui.



    Maybe my question is quite stupid, but does that mean in 2.0 we will see

    PushButtons
    Labels
    Text boxes which can easily be edited
    Option boxes
    Checkboxes
    Group containers
    Scrollbars
    windows floating around


    Is that all going to be in ? That would greatly improve the way to do interfaces and such.


    Can anyone of OTEE tell me if it is such stuff thats gonna be in the new GUI ?

    I suppose also that it will take another approach then using GUITEXT and GUIIMAGE now ? Or will it be a similar system ?
     
  24. Joachim_Ante

    Joachim_Ante

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    It will have all those features. On top of that it is incredibly easy to use and incredibly skinnable and easily lets you invent new controls.
    It's a novel approach to GUI and I am sure it will knock people's socks off when they start using it.
     
  25. diese440

    diese440

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    Cool ! , When when when... please tell us :D
     
  26. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    So actually we might also expect some things like an image component which you can then assign an image/texture to and attach OnmouseDown events and so on ?

    Could be very nice to playback video to texture then in the gui or even a camera mapped to the texture used in the gui image object.
     
  27. aaronsullivan

    aaronsullivan

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    Well, this may all come out tomorrow, but I have a feeling I'm going to be overwhelmed when all this is released.

    It would be great if you guys could simply post the DOCUMENTATION for 2.0 online. It could be a download and besides generating more hype it could help people really understand what they can do with it in the future and plan. Once people understand and align their ideas to the new features they won't be able to resist buying on that first day of availability, right?

    I imagine the documentation won't be changing much before release anyway, right?
     
  28. Aras

    Aras

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    Well, this is possible in Unity 1.6.2 with GUITextures.

    Why, this is possible in Unity 1.6.2 as well... it's called Render Textures.

    Have you ever shipped a software release? Documentation is usually the last thing that is done :)
     
  29. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    Aras, I was thinking loud that those features (which are allready there) combined with the new GUI wil rock, thats all.
     
  30. aaronsullivan

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    Well, in a perfect world, once you reach beta your program is feature complete. You can document features even when bugs are being squashed. Beta doesn't mean much anymore, though, I guess.

    Though I didn't suggest it, I was only thinking about documentation on the scripting side which is somewhat self-documenting (besides the examples, obviously.)

    Anyway, cheers, you guys are under enough pressure. :)
     
  31. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    Indeed, I guess they won't delay the release with ay necesarry day if thats possible.

    I'm currently learning all kind of isolated stuff in unity anyway.

    The problem is -> Every new feature you dicover you get more and more ideas about what you could all make with Unity and I am afraid I won't have enough time in my life to make them all :)


    Especially the new networking features invite me to think in a multiplayer online game genre.

    I heard that you will be able to write a client program, but the server program is also something written in unity. If I understood well, then players will even be able (if its coded in your program of course) to act as server for hosting the game.

    That is of course a huge feature to save on bandwidth for the gaming server. A lot of stuff in games can be sent directly without having to go over the main gaming server.


    For example if you make a game of Sea battle I can imagine that players will have to meet eachother on some kind of centrally hosted gameserver, but once they play against eachother, its always nicer if they can connect directly. This is never a problem if you only get 5 players a day. But you never know and unity is quite hot stuff, so you might as well get 1000 users playing simultaneously, and in that case I prefer to be able to deviate as much as possible the bandwidth usage to peer-peer connections and not peer-server-peer.


    Anyway, this all sounds nice.

    OTEE -> Is there anything known about the capacity of multiplayer stuff? Not that I want to know if you can handle 10000 simultaneous users, but is there some data known about features that surely ARE possible?


    I am not going to try making anything serious right now, since 2.0 will most possibly change my point of view on what to make. Having huge terrain and networking almost invites to do some fps deathmatching (even if its not with too many players)


    And I am only learning unity so there is plenty of stuff to learn before the real work comes in. Hopefully by then 2.0 is there.

    And also hopefully we'll see some new features on the Unity2.0 page where it says now that 40 more features are SOON to be found online on that page :)


    OTEE -> 3 Days of Unity usage made me allready forget all other 3Dengines I ever used before (with the little exception that i very hardly miss blendshapes and would kill for it to get them in unity)
     
  32. islanddreamer

    islanddreamer

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    With the release of the update imminent (summer's over Sept. 22!), what are your plans for releasing pricing information for the new version?
     
  33. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    For me its easy: 1 x $1499 :)

    Don't own anything yet so I'll directly buy the pro.

    For upgrading I can understand you guys being quite interested. Hopefully for you all it won't be that much since you were after all the first guys to fund Otee
     
  34. aaronsullivan

    aaronsullivan

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    Why all the talk about when Summer ends guys? That was the target date for release, not any sort of guarantee.

    This is software development, remember? Let them do it right. The constant digs about "end of summer" are grating me, I can't imagine how annoying it must be to the OTEE guys. Do you really want them to release it full of bugs just to make the deadline?

    I'd love to see more details, of course, but I'd rather have them focus on keeping the quality level tip top.
     
  35. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    I don't even believe that they would release under pressure. The product is too good to risk that.

    It will be released when it will be ready for release.
     
  36. islanddreamer

    islanddreamer

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    I don't care when they release it. But I need to know how much it's going to cost me.
     
  37. polytropoi

    polytropoi

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    Of course there are no guarantees, and rationally we want them to take the time necessary to deliver a high quality product. As well as complete docs and tutorials, new marketing materials, etc.. etc.. It's a big deal, and there's a lot riding on it.

    But EducaSoft has a point - the silence is deafening, and the resulting uncertainty kinda sucks: is what I'm working on today going to be wasted or moot or pointless when version 2 comes out?

    If they end up pushing back the end of summer "deadline", that's fine, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect an update. This week. Before the Autumnal Equinox. Or the greenpriest will be vexed.
     
  38. garyhaus

    garyhaus

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    I am hoping that OTEE is going to release some more info. on 2.0! I can't stop watching the video interview from TUAW, showing the features from 2.0. Please, please please give us some more info on the feature set and pricing! I understand software dev. takes time and we want it done right, so give us a little more on the new features!!!

    Just getting so excited about future prospects with the new Unity toolset.

    An excited user who can no longer contain himself,

    Gary Haus
     
  39. nm8shun

    nm8shun

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    Where's that TUAW video? Thnx.
     
  40. Darko

    Darko

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    Here.
     
  41. nm8shun

    nm8shun

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    thnx much. can't believe I've missed that clip.
     
  42. Mike

    Mike

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    Do you think it's possible to have both versions of Unity installed at the same time, i.e. 1.x and 2.x?
     
  43. drJones

    drJones

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    you just rename the old version folder to "Unity 1.6.2" or something before install, works fine.
     
  44. HiggyB

    HiggyB

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    Folks, please bear with us through the "radio silence" just a bit longer as we're all very hard at work on 2.0 right now (it will come out when done properly as you've all surmised, and not a day before). I know it must be hard to not have the desired extra details so I can understand the impatience well enough, if folks have urgent needs for information (urgent needs, not urgent desires) then drop me a PM or an email (tom@unity3d.com) and I'll see what, if anything, can be shared. Otherwise please find a tad more patience and you'll all be handsomely rewarded.

    :)


    And yes, you'll be able to have both 1.x and 2.0 installed simultaneously, but projects will not be able to move back-and-forth between them (once opened in 2.0 they will not be able to be reopened in 1.x).
     
  45. garyhaus

    garyhaus

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    Tom,

    Thanks for the info. and the reassurance for the masses! You guys must be excited for its release as well as the users. I believe most of us LOVE this application and what possibilities it provides ALL of us, and of course that creates this massive passion(and impatience) for new Unity!

    Thanks again,

    Gary
     
  46. NicholasFrancis

    NicholasFrancis

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    And here's a small teaser of the Unity2 GUI running the Avert Fate demo game
     

    Attached Files:

  47. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    Looking really nice, just a suggestion:

    is it possible to fix the ends of the scrollbars into something like this?
    I guess it's not so easy because it's a apple osx component?

    anyway looking forward to the final release!

     
  48. kaaJ

    kaaJ

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    Wooha... I hope avert fate will be the standard demo for unity2.0?

    Nice screens
     
  49. slashdotray

    slashdotray

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    throw that beast out...i cant wait any longer
     
  50. EducaSoft

    EducaSoft

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    Nice looking.

    What new techniques are used in this version that are new to 2.0 ?