Unity 2.5 for Mac and Windows available now!

I think you are missing the point you are getting one license that you can use in two instances and that is a real bargain.

Remember you are not buying the software like you would buy a car you are paying for a license to use the software just like you pay to get a license to drive a car the license does not mean you own the car.

And in this sense you can drive a car and a motorcycle on the same license.

I hope this is a fair explanation, please correct me if I am misunderstanding the EULA

 

I hate for my first post to be disagreement with this team that I have a great deal of respect for, so let me start off with...

CONGRATS ON 2.5!!!

I'm going to have to agree that the EULA needs a little help though. A computer or a machine is hardware, not software. The OS that drives it is another matter. If my wife drives my car, it's not a different car, it's still just one car / one machine. As well, multiboot is not at all the same as virtual machine technology (ie parallels or vmware). VM tech can allow you to run multiple os's at the same time (and have OTHER people remote into them, which is where licensing becomes a problem). Multiboot just controls which base OS is running the computer at THAT time, but only one OS is running.

Now don't get me wrong. It is your software, and you have every right to license it as restrictive or as freely as you wish. I am not begrudging you that at all. Just stating that the EULA does indeed spell out more than you indend, and it is in fact confusing for those who have been in the computer industry for 20+ years and have very specific ideas on what those terms mean.

Perhaps (just a suggestion) the EULA could simply say that it can only be installed twice simultaneously, and only one of those installations could be used at a time. Then it removes hardware / software / virtuals / os's out of the mix.

Unless you'd be so kind as to let us have it installed on our multiboot mac laptop and our desktop? Being only 2 hardware devices? I'm sure that there are a lot of us that would appreciate that, but it is totally your call.

Again, I congradulate you on a terrific release, and apologize that my first post was a disagreement!

 

I just like to say thank You to all the Unity3d developers for bring out a great no ...Awesome product and it is now a windows version



i have 1 question Do the unity package's eg angerants ai package or the terrain packages or any package at all made by anyone work with the windows Version of unity?

thanks to you all

Hans

 

Just realized that sadly, still Unitron is used on OSX

UniScite is so much better with a much more "standard behaving" autocomplete feature and the folding.

Any chance that over the time Unitron will be replaced with it as well?

 

As far as windows is concerned don't think that the guys at UT would be able to come up with anything much better than Visual Studio and since it is free (Visual C# Express) I really don't think that they should put that as a high priority. I would download Visual C# Express and use that for editing scripts (and getting auto complete is just adding the unity dll as a reference).

Now for Mac, there might be a bigger need for a better editor but I can't comment on that.

 

What you are saying is that the EULA doesn't cover multiboot scenarios where no virtualization is occurring since such a scenario doesn't count as a separate computer or a virtual machine. It does cover multiple computers (hardware) or scenarios like Windows running in Parallels, for example. The reason that it was explicitly called out rather than your suggested "installed twice simultaneously, and only one of those installations could be used at a time" is that similar phrasing to that caused quite a bit of confusion when 2.5 was announced. It also simplifies things to a degree as to make them inaccurate -- it can be installed more than two times total -- as long as those two installs don't exceed two machines (whether virtual or physical and with unique OS/hardware combinations counting as "machines" for the purpose of the license). That scenario makes it possible for you to run multiple licensed copies of Unity on the same machine with different versions installed.

 

A bargain?
:?
Do I become more productive for the same amount of money? Now, that would be a bargain... The only thing this (being able to istall on two machines) means to me, is I'm able to shift chair once in a while. But I get the drill, and I know that Unity has a very fair licensing system. I just didn't get why they would stop there, preventing a guy from using it from both OS's on his computer, when it doesn't cost anybody anything. But whatever, it's their business, and I'm happy either way...

but...
It almost sounds, sometimes, like I should feel in debt to these (great!) guys, or something. If Unity can get their company running (and grow!), I (we) most be paying enough for their hard work, right?
I don't feel greatful to Unity. I only realize I have paid too much before on software, which Unity obviously knows how to do better, and more efficient!

 

Thankyou so much Unity team! This is great news for the entire gaming world.

 

If you weren't being harsh then I apologize, but nothing in your post came across as anything other than a snide "tsk tsk" statement so I was offering you the same as you (apparently to me) delivered. In the future, work on making things more obvious in order to avoid confusion! <--- smilies help!

Thanks for clarifying and again, sorry for jabbing "back" unnecessarily.

 

Fair enough. As I said before, I don't begrudge your rights to restrict your software as you please. It's your software. The wording just sounds like something is allowed that really isn't, that's all. I think people who already have it on two physical computers that happen to dual boot one of them are going to feel left out.

Anyways, we've both made our points and it is your software, so you have every right to set the terms.

I want to thank the Unity team for making this a dot release instead of a full one!! Most other companies would have looked at all the work done here, all the features added, then looked at the possibility of upgrade pricing.

Thank you!

 

I just hope that they make a few more 2.x releases cause I would feel a little cheated that I have to wait until windows was supported and then the next release I have to pay for an upgrade (but of course I know other software that has worse upgrading policies).

 

Seriously, how about we just revert that and make you buy separate licenses for Mac and Windows? NOT!


Thanks to those for understanding our licensing model choices. We're offering a cross-platform license already (more than many competitors) with unlimited publishing rights (more than many competitors) on top of an incredible tool (more than all competitors!). I think what we're offering is pretty darn awesome.

 

You can't say it better than that Unity is really something as well as it's supporters that are making it even better.

 

hi HiggyB

i have a question about unity pro license, when i buy the pro version of unity 2.5 for windows can i install this on 2 windows pc´s ? or only one mac or pc? is this with hardwarekey or only softwarekey?

christian

 

You can install it twice under OS X, twice under Windows, or one each, your choice.

We use a software based licensing system, neither hardware keys nor dongles are used.

 

Sorry to repeat myself, but the "Show Prefab" Buttons gone, hasn't it?

I hope not it was most handy

AaronC

 

Select your in-scene object and then check the Inspector, it's now there as you'll see a "Select" button next to a "Prefab" label (up at the very top of the inspector). Pressing that button will not only show the prefab like the other used to do, but also actually select it so you can make tweaks in the Inspector.

 

Hi Aaron,

I'm not perfectly sure if that's what you're looking for - but in the inspector, when you have a prefab selected, there's 3 buttons (in the top area): Select, Revert and Apply. "Select" selects the prefab in the project pane.

Trying this I just noticed that this doesn't scroll to the selected objected, which can be a bit inconvenient; so I guess it would be good to file that as bug report / feature request with a good description and "bloated project" (it's not really obvious that this is a problem when the project is small) ;-)

I guess the best solution would be using the same approach as when selecting stuff in the inspector and this yellow "here I am" shows up in hierarchy / project pane (that is *so* cool ;-) ).

 

Ah, Tom - you beat me (and this wasn't *such* a long posting ;-) )

 

Aha Cheers guys.

Yes that project view click-highlighting works really well..!

FYI Tom my email arrived about 12 hours later after the launch.

Y'all have fun now!

Aaron

 

Point taken. (Does anyone actually write "tsk tsk" and mean it as anything but jest? On the web, I guess you never know.)

About the blog, I assumed http://blogs.unity3d.com was the "official" blog and not the website news page. I didn't even know that the news page had a feed until I went looking for it today. Maybe you guys could add a big RSS icon?

Long live Unity!!!

 

There are all types so I took it as entirely possible you genuinely used tsk tsk...

Fair enough. I've fallen prey to that and had to remind myself to note the RSS icon in the Firefox address field. But a clear RSS button/indicator would help.

And those are our blogs, it's just not our primary "announcement" or "news" outlet, it's more about us (mostly me) posting our thoughts and whatnot as the crew behind the product.

Anyway, long live Unity indeed!

 

Woot I take an overnight trip into Philly with my sister and come back and its out! Im so tickled.

*blows kisses*

 

And of course I ought to close the loop here...

Unity 2.5 for Mac and Windows Now Available (the blog version)


@Merries: don't ya wish every overnight trip was like this?

 

I spent a leisurely evening using Unity on my Windows laptop in the living room. It's a 1.6ghz Centrino with Intel GMA950, and it runs very nicely. Colour me surprised and impressed!

It'll take some getting used to. ^_^

Thanks again Unity people!

 

Okay, you guys have blown me away too often, and I can't handle it anymore.

Because of my tight budget, I thought I'd have to skip this upgrade until later, and then I saw that it was free! Now I'm a little too happy for my own good....

 

WOOT! WOOT! WOOT!

Commence epic soundtrack!

This is awesome! Go Unity!

 

Got my Indie license, installed on my Dell laptop, and I'm currently at a coffeehouse making the cutest little tank ever out of Unity primitives. It's even toon shaded.

You guys are awesome.

 

Oh, if any of you guys have an iPhone/iPod Touch and a copy of "Air Sharing", you can turn your iPhone into a portable reader for the Unity manual and scripting references.

Simply connect to Air Sharing from your computer, and copy both the "Documentation" folder and "Documentation.html" file to your iPhone in a new directory. Once finished, you can use Air Sharing to view the Unity documentation complete with all the hyperlinks and images intact.

Very handy for learning your way around the new interface without having to constantly bounce back in and out of Unity.

 

Speaking of "coffee shop" Unity, I installed 2.5 last night on my cheap little $249 Acer netbook.

It runs just fine!

 

I wonder if Unity would ever go with people who want extra options who own like the Indie version could just purchase specific upgrades individually like if they want the realtime shadows, streaming, watermark removal, etc...; they can purchase an add-on license for each feature seperately, so it's more affordable, because most people don't have a lump sum of $1500 in their banks.

I'm pretty sure most guys who like creating video games are either high-school or college kids. By the time they are adults working for a company, they probably aren't ever going to look back even if they make enough money to afford it at their old age. This is just my opinion... I don't know about you the rest of you guys.

 

You couldn't be more wrong.

 

I was actually pretty embarrassed to write that post, but it's just a suggestion. I highly doubt anything like that would happen.

 

I'd have to guess that the average age of Unity users (and game developers in general) is probably in the mid-to-late twenties. Video games aren't just for kids anymore... never have been actually

As far as the å la carte feature licensing goes I just don't see us ever doing that.

 

Bzzzzt! I'm 48 and just purchased Unity Pro and iPhone Advanced a couple weeks ago. Judging from the a lot of the forum posts I've read and pictures of the posters, they are certainly not teens.

 

I'm sixteen , but meh, I'm a relatively new member anyway.

 

Young, old, who cares. Buy Unity and have some fun with it.
I'm 27 and I am still working on creating games. Will probably never stop.
It's like that song from Ozzy, I don't wanna stop.

 

Or, Don't stop me now by Queen :wink:

 

I'm 25, so I definitely agree with the mid twenties statement. =) In my opinion from what I've seen in the community, I would say that there are actually more people here older than 25 than there are younger.

 

I think the thing to remember is young or old really does not matter because we are DEVELOPERS and we all dream to make games for anyone and everyone that just want to play.

The good thing about being young is you have time to get your skills up level and if you are old your skills now let you get it done.

Oh btw I was born in 61 do the math

 

Youngster! Born 59

You might never get too old to programm games or other real-time graphics. Unity is just fun.

 

HA! Kids
Born in '55

 

Awesome job guys, working hard and had not too much time to play with the new build but looks amazing!

great to see that it runs on GMA950, since i have also an Acer one netbook; but i doubt that i will use it for development since the screen is too small and we have only one license available, so i prefer to use it on my mac booting it in Vista (still thinking that the engine should be licensed by person, and not by computer, like many other software that let you use it on as many computers you want, but just one at time...but is not my choice..if apple sell Aperture and many other products with this formula maybe they are not totally wrong )

Anyway it will be useful, especially for the max models...no more hours passed converting hundreds of models

BTW running it on parallels count as license? i didn't tried just to avoid to burn the license (do you guys check the ID of the vital parts of the machine to tie the license to?); parallels 4 runs 3d apps, and would be fun to run parallels on a screen and unity in the other in realtime!

BTW, i am 33; and now that i have a nice job i can afford what i want, but when i was a student i was using what i can afford of course I've got a car as project car for hobby, that i paid 9 grand, so Unity is not really expensive, even if is an hobby; i stick with Indie because i am still learning it; and i really have no need of the advanced features, especially now that i know how to load an intro without the need of the movie render to texture functionality but if i will need i will buy it, like i bought A7 and Torque

Keep up the good work guys and thanks for the free update; Autodesk is really happy of that move

 

You can actually install it on two systems (OS), but you are only allowed to use it on one at a time.

per user is a bit of hard to control unless you enforce permanent network connections and logins at each start to fully enforce the "only 1 copy running per user" the hard way.
wouldn't be too user friendly.


also many other apps only allow a single active install, so unity is pretty generous (and you will likely not need more than two. One mobile sys + one desktop or one at home, one at work)

 

yeah, that was my point i can't use it in 2 places at the same time of course.

we are basically almost always connected to internet, i would not see anything wrong in checking if that serial is already in use

my pc at work sucks, so probably i will use it on my mac pro via Bootcamp until i finish to convert the 3d models and then get back to the mac version

 

You are but many others aren't.
Its not that common practice to have professional dev workstations connected to the internet, at least if you care about your project and its security.

Also it would be very troublesome for the end users. I'm speaking out of experience. Unity would be dead within months time if they did something that stupid.


The two system installation should actually be more than enough, because its impossible to manage anything anywhere usefully if you try to do the very same thing on at X places jumping between them. chances to introduce errors that way is very high.

 

I can see that i could call myself almost totally safe, since i have a firewall configured (not left as default as many does, thinking that is ok as is); so i don't really have any problem to be online all the time ^_^

I could bring many examples of software that we use everyday, that connects to the internet for the most various purposes without that the user would never notice, and in case of no network, they simply store data in files and when the connection is available, they shoot the data up....they are pretty much well alive

Agree with you; more than 2 would be troublesome maybe, but imagine that you have a web space with SVN on it, so you can pull down your project anywhere, update it and upload your work; ( you travel a lot....have a computer available in any office that you visit for work, plus your personal one at home plus your laptop.....); this would basically means that we are over 2 computer, or means that you gotta work all the time on your laptop or waiting to get back home on your workstation

I mess up things even on one computer, can't imagine on more than one, but it happen often to me to be in different places

 

Well the situation you describes pretty much violates it anyway. Aren't your computers are they? So how can you guarantee the part of non-parallel usage?
Non usage after you left?

Just as examples.

Naw if you travel a lot, an MBP / Windows Notebook + external screen is likely the way to go (and actually what I do as well in case I need to take it with me. I'm glad that Unity Tech offers this great support and allow two parallel installs)

Sure there might be more systems in some very rare cases that would benefit from it, but there are commonly just the points where this no longer can be supported, as it is otherwise hard to impossible to guarantee that others aren't using your license

 

Well, the computers are not mine, i am just the user, not the owner; but i can simply remove the software when i leave, so there is no real issue that someone else can use it

I travel with the acer netbook, is heavy to bring with me my 17 MBP sadly the air sucks with that graphic card that barely compare to a macbook, otherwise wold be a good choice for me.

To simply avoid to worry about someone else using the license is kinda impossible, otherwise EA and many others would not loose money when people crack their games...they are smart now, since they offer online playing, so you gotta log in with your key if you wanna play

Anyway mine was just a point based on what i see with other software; now that Unity is on Windows, i will expect for sure that it will be more popular, and this means that it will be found everywhere on bittorrent sites, like the other engines; so this restriction simply bother who bought the engine instead of the piracy groups