Unity 2.5 Coming Soon! (the official announcement)

I bought a Mac just a few months ago ... and yes - Unity was probably the reson that convinced me (in the PC segment I would have gotten twice the power for the same price) ... yes I am a little pissed about it. But I still like MacOS and Unity wasn't the only reason. I am very satisfied with my computer now and .. well I bought most of the software for it already so I won't be switching too soon, any more.

Yes - it does suck a little but I still like my Mac. And I don't think Unity is the only selling point for Apple. This isn't supposed to turn into an Apple vs Mac argument, though. Sorry.

 

I bought a G5 dual 2GHz with a 6800DL on it. A month ago I turned my dual Xeon workstation on and it started smoking

Since which time I've had to use my G5; my Quadro FX4000 was fried, the mainboard and possibly the CPU's ... not amused.

Since buying the Mac I really like it to the point that I wonder why I didn't try this earlier, I've been doing everything since on the Mac, so not really gutted at all, more knowledgable if a little less well off financially but knowledge is worth a tonne of money more IMHO 8)

The move to Windows platform will just take a load off, for me, when it comes to industry based project development, but personally when I replace my Windows puter I'll be in a better place than when I started being able to test on two platforms

 

Geeez you guys, 1 day within the official announcement, and already we have pages pages of Mac vs PC nonsense*...

Too soon, TOO SOON!!

joe

* Mac FTW haha!

 

Actually Unity makes the argument pretty obsolete since you can just try out on which platform you like it better. And all that with just one license

 

I don't care about Mac vs PC. Fact is that my kick ass PC cost less than $1k ... my Mac, on the other hand, cost $2.5k - if I didn't do iPhone, I'd ditch the Mac yesterday

CONGRATS UT on another HUGE step forward ... what an exciting year this is going to be

Jeff.

 

Yeeha! Thanks UT. I have both Macs and PCs but our school is almost exclusively PC. This will allow us to purchase many more licenses and provide a much more robust game development curriculum. Totally excited.

 

I'm glad to see that everyone is excited about this upcoming release and happy (for the most part) about the direction we're going in. It makes all the hard work worth it when we see such a positive response

The existing FBX implementation seems to be working just fine for a lot of people, but for those having problems rest assured that we've had one very talented developer solely focused on improving our asset pipeline for 2.5 (updating to FBX 2009.x and getting 3DS Max integration to work rock solid). Hopefully any problems you're having presently will disappear with this release.

Ethan

 

I think you dont get the point here.
If i want a new member in my team, i wont have to buy him a Mac if i (or he) already has a pc. Thats the investment i'm talking about, and that would be great for me according to my growing plans.
Thats why i would love to see the possiblity of development in PC altough at the end i would need ONE mac for the xcode (like Shiva)

 

I don't see any bad news for Apple

I am a pc user since 1991, got a mac that is 10K better for 80% of what i need; basically i get back to the pc only when i wanna play games or when i have to develop in C# or C++, since MacOs sucks big time with xcode...not even close to visual studio.

To me have unity on pc means to continue to work in mac, except that i can go anywhere and continue to work on a pc if i do not have my computer with me, without the hassle to have to find a mac (rare thing in any internet cafe); and when i am at home, i can switch between pc and mac via bootcamp, so if i have some stuff that has to be done on pc i can do the job there, then reboot and continue to work on mac.

And hitting pc without the need of use the browser for the games is great, even with the splash screen.....after all what it counts is that people see your work, and they get the rest of the work from us making games, so everyone is happy

The splash sounds like a big HEMI or V6 mark on the hood of a car ....is this something bad?

Thanks for the replies to my questions! The last question that i have is:

can you guys add somehow a way to call in the code a movie and display it as intro ? I know that this would imply buy the PRO, and execute this using the render to texture capability, but having something that limit the user of the indie to launch a video (mpg, avi, QT) before loading the main menu screen or the game would really be a nice thing to have

It doesn't look like a hard thing to code, since is very specific (you could extend the interface of the loadlevel() call to include a parameter that accept a movie, so when the level is loaded, teh movie is played and then the level is loaded...don't now if i am explaining it correctly); so i hope that sooner or later someone will do this...you did so much with the max support and the windows publishing that i really am happy to be a customer now (not that before i was not; but some limitations were hard to swallow)

 

Umm... the signal to noise ratio went sour WAY faster than I thought it would. I'm so naive. Let's keep this place as awesome as it has been, k? It takes everyone's restraint and maturity for that to happen. Please and thank you.

Now I feel REALLY bad for even mentioning my personal thoughts about my own future computer purchases. Any small addition to what this thread has turned into is embarrassing.

What was this thread about again?

 

The thread was about the announcement of a new Unity update....i don't see where is the problem...

Since you can develop on both machines, people that are mac lover or pc lovers are expressing their feelings about the great news

This is something good, since rarely we had a community, made of 2 factions that always had to express how superior system A is compared to system B, were both can work side by side and interact with each other, disregarding the platform or the OS that you use...i feel happy to see federation folks and klingon fight side by side using Unity...can only get better and i do not see your concerns about this thread

 

spreading the love, removing content

 

Of course we did by implementing our same licensing and activation scheme on Windows. We're not delirious enough to think that we're 100% safe from piracy so we're bracing for the thieves of the world to go about their business, but in the end we've made our preparations and will deal with piracy as on ongoing reality of being a major software provider.

Just to add to Ethan's reply, we're not in the business of modifying FBX exporters for various modeling tools, that's up to those vendors to handle.

It's not a specific priority right now but the chance is non-zero, assuming Lightwave allows for command-line scripted export to FBX.

Could we do such a thing? I suppose. Will we? I think not.

Yeah, it's not good. I won't tolerate any further "Mac vs. Win" argument B.S. in this thread, posts will be edited/deleted if that happens. Everyone needs to keep this clean and about the coming release, not about platform allegiances and whatnot, thanks!

Because based on the information at the time of my post what you were saying wasn't strictly true.

You're choosing to have multiple machines in that case, nothing in our product or licensing is compelling you to buy two machines.

In this case you would in fact need to buy that developer a Mac if they'll work on iPhone stuff, so that's an extra cost.

And there it is, that Windows-based person still needs a Mac for any builds so it's a dependency due to more than just Unity. Yes I can see some value in editing iPhone projects on Windows but that so far is not the primary use case and so we're not going to focus our efforts there. At some point in the future that might change, but for now Unity iPhone will stay Mac-only.

 

Because your feelings on Mac vs. Win, or the feelings others have about the two platforms is entirely unrelated to our announcing the coming release. If you want to discuss Unity 2.5, post up. If you want to carry on inane arguments about why Mac or Windows is better then take it elsewhere as that doesn't relate to Unity 2.5.

</end Mac vs. Win discussions in this thread>

 

darshie76 wrote:
can you guys add somehow a way to call in the code a movie and display it as intro ?

Could we do such a thing? I suppose. Will we? I think not.

Makes sense, same for the pc vs mac thing

 

Will 2.5 give access to the window properties?

For instance, we have a medical application built with Unity and the docs want to be able to put the window in the size they want where they want and have it open that way every time. That is easy functionality for us to add if the window properties are open for us.

 

No, there aren't any changes in that respect found in the 2.5 release.

 

If I understand your question correctly, that's something you'd handle with the player prefs (that's all available in 2.1). You can check whether your game/application runs in full-screen or not, and you can also check the "screensize" (which in reality is the viewport size). Then, you can take those values, store them to the playerprefs and retrieve them on startup.

But I think you can't freely resize Unity game/app Windows, so you'd probably have to add some GUI for changing that.

EDIT: Ah, the Windows position can not be checked or changed, so that's the part that won't work ...

 

Nope

Sorry Tom, just have to chime in and say that the founders of Unity are all fervent Mac users (obviously)... besides that black sheep Aras ... and that parity between Mac and Windows versions will be maintained into the foreseeable future. I honestly can't see a shift towards Windows favorability ever happening unless certain people at UT lose their soul ... no offense to Windows users of course (but being a fan of Windows is like being a fan of McDonald's)... seriously, no offense :wink:

We hope to keep both versions equal, and while certain companies have failed at doing this (ZBrush, Cubase, Photoshop, etc) many companies have succeeded (Reason, Modo, Max/MSP, etc) and we hope to stay firmly in the latter.

Ethan

 

Oh man, the ban-hammer is so close to being used...

 

that was funny

 

Haha wicked! Why didn't anyone think of that one earlier? :wink:

 

I actually like that feature for indie, why wouldn't I rep my engine?

 

... in Unity we trust ;-)

 

Ya think?! :wink:

w00t, for the Reason, but modo goes too far by not letting ANYONE use the command key, and Luxology has done a poor job with Help and Spaces in Leopard. I think they can take a few hints from UT, perhaps?

(Though both companies could stand to listen to the "half dozen" people complaining about SpaceNavigator support! 8))

 

Clarification:

In Unity 2.5, publishing to both platforms will be possible with Unity Indie on either platform?

 

Hey, what's wrong with McDonalds?

Well, if Windows is McDonalds, Mac is Burger King West London.

 

Yes. With the splash-screen.

I think this is addressed in the FAQ at the beginning of this thread.

 

The "half dozen" estimate was me just joking... I know there's at least 15 of you

But I'm working on it... I'm not a convert (3 button mouse has worked for me for ages) but you guys are pretty vocal so I'll be trying to get some attention for implementing this soon. As always no guarantee.

Ethan

 

It is. Page 1, Post 1. It clearly states:

Q: So it means that Unity Indie on Mac won't be able to publish to Windows?
A: 2.5 Indie on either platform can build standalones for either platform, with a splash screen. 2.5 Pro - the same but without the splash screen.

 

Same here. I'm looking forward to seeing a build start up with "Made with Unity". Reminds me of Source Engine's little splash screen.

 

I'm just glad that this is the case. One of my only fears about a windows release was that the windows indie version would only be able to release windows games. This way game creators on either system can release games for the other with very little extra effort. Almost gives a new spin to the name Unity.

 

I'm very excited Unity is coming to PC, unfortunately not soon enough, but I can wait. I have never owned a Mac before, basically because Macs are too expensive so I was pretty much lucked out of being able to experience Unity.

So how stable and fast does Unity operate on the PC in comparison to the Mac version? I know performance varies on how fast your CPU is. When using 3D Studio Max and Poser for example, they sometimes operate a little sluggish (on the PC), perhaps due to the Windows OS itself. I think most newer Macs are at least dual core, so would it be an issue for those still using single core on the PC (once Unity is released for it)?

My PC specs (in case anyone cares - custom built by me):

- AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3500+ (2.31 GHz)
- 2 Gigs of RAM (Corsair brand)
- Windows XP Professional (with Service Pack 3)
- Asus A8N-SLI Premium (motherboard)
- GeForce 7900GS (graphics board)

 

You answered the speed issue on your own, it's entirely dependent on your hardware and whatever content you're trying to author. As to stability, we're of course aiming for overall feature and stability parity between Mac and Windows so you should expect a typically great Unity experience.

 

Exactly! (I recently purchased the orange box, Half Life 2 is a masterpiece and I hope to channel some of it's "smartness" in to some of my games) Plus, even if there wasn't a splash screen I would still want to make one because of how cool the Unity logo is...

 

I saved this page, just in case... for the future

 

so if i understand my situation would be correct:

- tomorrow i want to buy unity and run on a macy: fine
- next week i get my new lap that is mac and pc.
So, when the updated version comes out I can install for free the
version on my mac and also the windows (bootcamp) of the computer.
- can i open the scene file on the mac and later open in windows?
and keep on working there

regards,
carl

 

I don't think that is right.
Bootcamp technically results in a different system as it creates an "intermediate layer" for Windows.

So if you install the Macy tomorrow, your mobile will likely be restricted to mac OR windows

 

Actually i like the black sheeps! :O)

 

@lesfundi. Actually, I think you are right if you mean this final result:

You have Unity on the mac you had before the new laptop.
You have Unity on the Windows side of your new laptop.

That's all you get with one license. What you CAN'T do is have it on a separate mac, and on BOTH "sides" of the new laptop (Mac and PC.) Each install for a different OS counts towards the install limit of 2. That make sense? That would be 3 installs (original Mac + laptop/MacOS + laptop/Windows)

 

But sadly that's not a user centric licence anymore which means that the software is licenced to you, no matter on what machine you use it on, instead it's licenced to your computer(s).

If you're doing client work there can arise a number of situations were this can be a problem. A honest question: I'm glad that we get a crosslicence but why does a company like Luxology which is operating in a more difficult sofware segment trusts me as a user on this one and why UT doesn't?

 

Nothing has changed. "anymore" seems to imply that there is some difference between this and what there was. There isn't.

 

As the guys above said, you can install your license on two different machines. If you install Unity for Windows under Bootcamp, Parallels, VMWare, etc. then that will count as one of your installs as that constitutes a "different machine" (due to being another OS). Take your pick where you want to use two installs.

Project folders can move between platforms, no worries there.

 

oh farewell the good ol days... *sniffle*

booya for UT and Unity tho! congrats guys!

 

Anybody know when they will be giving out access to the Unity 2.5 beta (Windows) for Global Game Jam participants? I sent them an e-mail yesterday but I'm a little anxious to get started!

 

wow, I like what I see! but boy... to tell you the truth... this whole unity thing is starting to look a little too good to be true. is it my head again? :/

 

Same here.

Sammual

 

My feeling exactly. These forums will soon explode with ideas and people and good stuff. The quiet neighbourhood is gonna get exciting soon.

 

Will the 2.5 version have LOD (Level of Display) available to all object and material on the scene and not just for the terrain?