Unity 3.1 part 2

Ok, don't get us wrong, I think 3 was a massive upgrade and it's been really stable for what I do and I'm happy I bought it.
Just please don't think of us as your normal iphone/aaa game audience and overhype stuff. Anticipate expectations and tell us that core features and bug fixes are coming later but there's some great new side additions and initiatives coming and we'll love it. It just tastes of pure marketing and business and it seemed to ignore the actual point of Unity, making games. I know using other peoples stuff is 'making games' kind of, but the vast majority make their own stuff because in Unity it's amazingly streamlined to do that and it's not like clicking 'open' on someones webpage for a package was hard.
Pleasant surprises always work better than hype even if the end result is the same (and yes 3.1 name counts as hype)

 

People have different abilities. Some people are able to create great graphics and yet can't program at all, and vice versa.

An asset store will mean that both types of Unity users can benefit from their work.

 

If you don't report bugs, you can't expect that somebody fix it. Each project is unique, each team works differently and uses different approach, it is impossible to test everything. Even small army of testers can´t compete with tens of thousands of users, they will try in few minutes, what testers would do for years. If you want bug free product, report bugs. There is no other way.

Other thing is seriousness. Which bug will you fix first, bug from typical production pipeline, or bug in some workaround-like sollution, which is used by 1 user from 1000?

 

even if you reported them they would not be fixed.

reported a major memory issue that makes it totally impossible to use texture2d.loadimage in B4 or B5 and its still present.
so I fully understand anyone not willing to waste time on replication cases any longer if bug reports get no feedback, no attention and no proper comments on why the hell they are closed if the issue isn't fixed

 

Disappointed also with the 3.1 release.

The case is 3.1 should have been released later and include more features.
The reason? Now Unity "have used" an important-relevant upgrade (3.1) to fix a few bugs and create the asset store and you remember Unity 2 had only three or four major upgrades before Unity 3.0 : 2.1, 2.5, 2.6..2.6.1.......3.0

 

Asset Store Union, are innovative and amazing developments for Unity and game development in general.
I have always felt that my investment in Unity Pro, iOS Pro and Asset Server as being the best investment I have ever made in this line of business.

Now I feel the same but 10x more so.

Well done Unity.

 

I have to say I was really bummed yesterday when I said good-bye to my gf early to see the keynote live and then spent 40 minutes trying without success, 20 minutes watching the first part of Jesse's talk which wasn't really what I mainly was there for but still was pretty cool ... and then at 5pm my time, after a mere 20 minutes of successful watching, the stream seemingly was "stopped because it was time" (I might be wrong but that's really what it looked like ... I just *hope* I'm wrong with that assumption, hope someone will clarify). I really wanted to see the announcements - Jesse's talk would have been fine to be watched "archived". So that was really frustrating and really messed up my day yesterday. But ... well ... mistakes happen (and I think this was a major mistake because in 2010, there's really no good reason to mess up a live-stream IMHO). I guess I'll watch the recorded video now (and I think it's pretty cool that video is already available) ;-)

That said: I think with the Asset Store Unity does deserve a x.1 because IMHO, even though not everyone might agree I think it is a major feature. It's not only an enhancement to the editor, it actually changes the whole development process. One small but noteworthy detail: While in 3.0 you had to click through file browsers like 15 times to include all standard + pro packages, now you have a slick list where you just click on "import" once, then select which items you want to import (usually all of them), and another click ... done. No more super-annoying file-browsing (and now I know why my "keep the last selected folder persistent" bug report never got fixed ... there was something in the pipeline that made it obsolete ;-) ).

That's just a "convenience" thing, though - the "big news" IMHO is that now it's "official" that some stuff will be done by the community, allowing the Unity devs to focus fully on "engine features" (which they are mostly already doing but which a lot of people seem to not really understand the value of, yet). And the line should be pretty clear: If it requires Unity source-code, it has to be done by UT, if it's possible with Unity's extensibility, it can be done by the community. Right now, I see many more free assets in the Asset Store than paid ones. This is a nice start. And I think this will be tremendously beneficial especially with iOS and Android versions (likely less of a "big deal" for Unity "desktop" ... but e.g. for AI-stuff it'll also be really cool there and hopefully silence some of the "why doesn't Unity integrate pathfinding"-folks).

What I feel will make or break this new feature is how well UT handles the approval process. If they do this right (= approve everything that has real value, disapprove anything that will just clutter the asset store), it will be awesome. And it does matter a lot that it's integrated into the editor the way it is because that makes all these additions an actual part of the editor. Just like the pro / standard packages, only that it the community can now hook into that system.

Also, I think it's really nice that Nicolaj, Ethan and Rune commented even though they're probably all pretty busy @Unite. I'm not following many of the forum threads anymore (just too much volume and too little time) but those that I do follow usually do have some nice UT participation.

 

That would be cool to implement a Blizzard-like system where there is a little icon in front of a topic where some Unity member has posted in.
Sometimes you just want the "official" info, and this tool is great for that. You click on the icon in the topic list, it points directly towards the first (Unity) post, and when you click on the icon "next (Unity) post" on top of the current page, it brings you towards the next one.

 

Cool idea ... I think that would be really nice ... I see myself looking for "official info" through threads quite frequently and that would save me a lot of time.

 

Also I just read Ethan and Rune's interventions, and gentlemen, you got my respect. Thank you for keeping being honest and communicative. And thank you for your work, too.
I hope you don't believe most users start to feel entitled to have a major release every month, and that you understand that the "little" problem here wasn't what you offered to people, but what was announced. Everything is ok I guess, and I'm personnaly fond of your efforts in a relatively short timespan, but just be careful with words like "next big thing" next time


// offtopic

That's awesome. Reminds me of the good ol' demoscene.

 

@Ethan and Rune - I can understand why you'd want to name this update 3.1 versus 3.0.1 for the bigger impact it will have at your annual meeting. I can also understand why you've added the new asset store and Union. But please, please, please go back to the old, successful formula from pre 2.0 days of listening to your customers and "under promising and over delivering". The current direction the company seems to be moving is really quite disappointing. Please make 3.1.1 -rock solid stable- and get back to the business of restoring the old features we use and the new features we have been requesting for years now.

 

from what I see no need to move to 3.1. Still happy with my 2.6.1

 

Historically, the x.0 version of Unity was typically a bit buggy and the x.1 version was rock solid stable. That was the case as far back as I can remember. On that basis, yes, this release was a disappointment. On the basis of features, and again I'm speaking from my perspective which may vary from others, 3.0 was a big step -backwards- rather than forwards. I lost more Unity features that I -do- use in exchange for features that I -don't- need. At the moment Unity 3.x Pro is just a $500 anchor sitting on my hard drive that I cannot use, but I'm hopeful that someday that will change. Unfortunately, this release hasn't done anything to reassure me that my investment was worthwhile. And yes, I'm still using 2.6.1 and will continue to use it, but even though only a month has past since 3.0's release there are already a lot of new developments (like the visual shader design projects) that I cannot use because they are only compatible with 3.x.

 

I don't really like the asset store idea... if you want to make a living making videogames you NEED to have a team and you NEED to do your assets yourself...

But what disappointed me the most it's that middleware like the Visual Shader Editor and the Sprite Manager should have been bought by unity and integrated in the ENGINE! To guarantee quality and stability these things must be mainteined by the Unity Team.

Aniway, i really love Unity and i think you guys did an amazing job.
Just i can't help but feel disappointed by the things i said above.

 

Well I got to say, it's the day after and I do think the new stuff is cooler than I gave it credit for myself - the Asset Store has far greater potential than similar services because of the way it's integrated with Unity - not just for buying and selling, but for actually getting things done and quickly. It should turn out especially great if you need a load of placeholder stuff for a prototype - something that you can't rely on when buying from Turbosquid because you can't actually see what's in the tin until you've downloaded it (absolutely love the asset browser).

So well there we have it, I'm eating my own words. Hoping I'll feel the same about Union; when do we learn more?

Can we have an Asset Server upgrade next?

 

I have to tell you I am pretty happy about the asset store. Really a great thing to happen, can we add "starter kits"?

 

I see the tutorials are up there, so that's a beginning. I expect more will come quite quickly. If I'm anything like the average Unity user, there must be an awful lot of directories on peoples machines where they started on something as an experiment and never took it any further, but will likely be of interest to someone else...

 

I know what you're saying, but there are pros and cons to consider.

For starters, you can get a daily build from independent developers, where you'd have to otherwise wait for a proper update from Unity.

And historically, you get more creativity from developers "outside the system". There's little enough incentive to improve something when it's already paid for - just ask anyone who owns an Autodesk subscription what they get for their money. Not a lot other than next-version-is-cheaper, and annual releases to Max and Maya are pretty poor (Max just gets more annoying). Autodesk have a habit of buying up technology and then not really doing much with it - they're just too damn big.

+1 to Indis.

 

@Phil W - True, plus who knows how willing some of the indis would be to selling their work to UT? On the other hand something like the "Ocean Shader Project" (a project that has only survived thanks to the generosity of those who have worked for free to develop it) is certainly something UT could have and should have implemented into Unity a long time ago.

 

Possibly, and who knows maybe they have these same conversations around a boardroom table, and are just waiting for the right moment to fit it into the larger roadmap. Perhaps the best way to court UT, if that's a goal, is to create an API that is seperate, but can be licensed - like Beast, PhysX, Speedtree, etc... thus adding to the sum of it's parts rather than being something they have to understand and maintain exclusively themselves. (or is that what the O.S. Project is?). Either way I think it would have to be pretty major to justify the effort, and have good credentials behind the party supporting it...good enough to stand up to due diligence.

You may get your day yet...

 

I'm drifting off topic, but indulge me for a moment:

The "Ocean Shader Project" is this: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/16540-Wanted-Ocean-shader In years past it wasn't unusual for an individual project (take for instance the old "grass shader" and "Uni Tree" projects) to re-appear as a new feature (ie. Unity's integrated terrain and tree systems). I've been suggesting (for years now) that UT do the same with the "Ocean Shader Project".

Back on topic:

Here's hoping 3.1.1 is rock solid stable and either the functionality I've lost with 3.0 is returned or suitable work-arounds (that work at least as well as their predecessors) are incorporated. Otherwise I'll just have to wait for 3.2 (or 3.3, 3.4, 3.5... ).

 

I apologize if I missed this earlier in the thread.... but out of curiosity why is Unity 3x unusable to you? My studio ran into a wierd issue when using Lists... but we were able to swap over to a Dictionary implementation and it fixed our editor freezes immediately..... There are definitely memory issues with Unity 3x, but I'm curious what things make it unusable for you.

 

Two main reasons: Functionality that was removed that existed in 2.6.1 (and earlier) and intermittent crashes (under Windows 7) that cause HD corruption. The latter is very reproducible here but AFAIK UT has yet to find a source on their end. FWIW 2.6.1 works nicely on the same machine.

 

I gotcha, Tessendorf waves/shading, I have a Max plugin that uses the same technique, it makes a huge difference. Definitely be nice to have a realtime version. Thumbs up from me.

 

Unity isn't just for videogames. I do wish people would stop making this assumption. Unity is for building interactive 3D applications. There is nothing in that description which says those applications have to be games. Unity is also being used for art installations, architectural visualisation, interactive training, and more.

It's also perfectly possible to make a living creating videogames by hiring freelance artists and musicians when needed. (This is, incidentally, how most movies are made.) You certainly don't "need" to have everyone on board from the start. Especially if you know what you're doing.

Where is this alleged rule written? Which textbook makes this assertion?

Third-party plugins and extensions haven't done Photoshop any harm. It's what helped Photoshop become a de-facto industry standard.

Every new feature you add to a product needs to be designed, built, tested and then maintained with every release to ensure it's not broken. Testing involves building test suites and script code. New features require documentation and support. All of this stuff costs money. If the feature is only going to appeal to a tiny percentage of your overall market, it makes far more sense to leave the implementation of said feature to third parties.

A "Sprite Manager" feature is only of use to people who need sprites. For the majority of users, 2D sprites are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

Right now.

People have been releasing successful, commercial products using Unity for some time now. I honestly don't understand why you keep insisting Unity isn't ready for prime time.

No, Unity isn't perfect. Yes, it has bugs. This is not news. Nor is it unique to Unity. OS X has bugs. Windows has bugs. Entomologists have bugs. Every non-trivial application has bugs. It's the nature of the programming today, given the poor tools available. (Programming hasn't really changed all that much since the 1970s. The tools have gotten prettier, but a gaudily-painted, diamond-encrusted, steel axe is still an axe. But I've had that rant already, back when the forum was painted a different colour.)

*

Unity 3.1's Asset Store is indeed the Big Thing UT have claimed. The only people complaining about it are those who don't need it, but they will. Oh yes. Mark my words...

The Asset Store is a necessary step in the process of integrating Allegorithmic's Substance technology. Being able to test a Substance material in-engine is essential. Substances have no theoretical limits to their complexity, but, like vector art, they need a bit more processing power to render than a simple bitmap. The more complex your Substance, the longer that rendering will take. The only way to know for certain how well a Substance will perform in Unity is to see it running in Unity first. Preferably, before you buy it.

There's no way of telling whether a Substance on TurboSquid is usable in a real-time engine. The metadata displayed doesn't include the information you need to know to determine how long it will take to render. You have to buy and download it first. Integrating the Asset Store into the Unity Editor is therefore a Very Good Thing Indeed®.

The usual "it'll make all games look the same!" argument against services like the Asset Store no longer applies when a single Substance can generate literally millions of materials on demand. So, yes, I'm pretty sure many of the nay-sayers in this thread will end up eating their words once Substances appear in Unity.

(Disclaimer: I've spent a big chunk of this year writing and maintaining the end-user docs for Allegorithmic's Substance tools. And very good tools they are too! They're available now, from all good companies called "Allegorithmic".)

 

Interesting, didn't know that. I'm intrigued by Allegorithmic's Substance technology but the details of it and how it will be integrated into Unity has as yet been a mystery. So will we only be able to -buy- substances or will we be given an editor to create our own?

 

Ah well. 3.1 is hardly Unity 3.5 or Unity 4.0 - seems reasonable to me as a bug-fix release. I'm sure we'll all be excited when Unity 3.5 or so rolls around with some cool new stuff.

 

It's not a bug fix release, because it doesn't have a lot of bug fixes. I would be jumping around with joy if we got a bugfix release. It is an asset store release and that's okay. It's just that a lot of people (me included) were led to expect much more. (oh and I don't like the asset store, but that's another story).

 

According to the September announcement on the Allegorithmic site re: Unity Integration:

We will work together on making the world's closest integration of Allegorithmic's Substance Engine into the Unity Engine and Editor. This will be available to all Unity 3 users later this year, free of charge.

Emphasis mine

 

I don't know where this idea comes from that if you're making video game, 100% of your assets need to be created by yourself.

I'm sure quite a few studios at the very least contract out certain art assets. If you're indie or working on any project for a client with a deadline, all the more reason IMO, so long as the asset can work with or be modified easily to be used within the visual style of the project. It's done all the time for prerendered Cg, why not video games?

But otherwise, I would think things such as texture libraries, trees, and well crafted additions to Unity's functionality ought to be very welcome in the asset store.

My only worry is the loss of great free additions to Unity that benefit the whole community as a result of how easy it will be to just churn a quick buck.

 

Quote of the day for me (good post too).

I expect the altruism movement will be largely unaffected. As will the showing-off movement

Besides which, I think the best help for less capables is teaching through example... help them with their own code rather than hand it to them on a plate. If they want to pay for it however, that's another story some would say.

 

Exactly. I just watched the keynote address, and it was nice to see the applause for the Asset Store, so I think most people get it.

--Eric

 

Good interview with David Helgason for anyone still wondering about Asset Store what and why

((free) subscription required)
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-11-10-the-unity-asset-store-interview

 

Aye... altruism and supporting a family are not incompatible. if you find me on the pier, I'm happy to share what bait I'm using or suggest a good rod to buy. If you want me to catch you dinner or to give you a half-hour lesson, we'll begin discussing rates. Not everyone wants to learn to fish. Some would rather focus on becoming great at cooking or painting or playing the piano and leave fishing to the fishermen.

 

I think a large part of the negative feedback was setting time aside for watching the keynote online, but not being able to, then being fed snippets of information.

The Asset Store seemed very underwhelming compared to the hype, but is a bit more interesting after being able to watch the keynote. I wonder how many existing providers will raise their price so that the user ends up paying the 30% Unity cut? SM2 appears to have risen in price although I cannot confirm that due to Unity crashing every time I try to access the Asset Store. I also worry that Unity may de-prioritise new features if covered by a third party in the Asset Store. The 2D engine as an example.

Union has great potential for those with successful games, but isn't the 2D engine I was hoping for.

 

I think the Asset Store is a great addition. But when he says "We just don't want to see the prices go into the ground. I think it would be sad for everyone", I'm not sure what he means. Sad for who is selling something that a group of users develop for free, maybe. Not for those who contribute to or use the community solution. There will be market for both -- free "community driven" solutions and commercial/supported solutions, and if there's any plan to limit how much of the store can be "free", then that makes me sad. Having an official market for assets is, anyway, awesome. There's no way this won't improve the ecosystem and help the platform to evolve.

 

That could be long way of saying "not now I'm busy". Not everyone's community-minded - of the 230,000+ Unity users around now I'm pretty sure there's only a tiny handful have time to even grace the forums. I don't all that often myself - two years in and I have way fewer posts than most. But there'll always be folks eager to lend a hand; Jessy's a good example with his shader insights. And of course we can always learn something from the mistakes (and ideas) of others, even if it's only how clever we are.

 

I think they mean they don't want the value of professionally written high-quality assets to be lost in a sea of poor work, eroding value to the state where it is difficult for experienced people to see a return on their valuable time. See the Apple App Store for this in action.

 

I think he means driven down to a point where it discourages people from creating stuff for the Asset Store in the first place. Supply and demand should drive the prices, not people experimenting with low prices out of blind panic (as happens in Apple's App Store a lot).

As Ostagar not-so-subtly points out, people still have to make a living. If you take away financial incentive, you'll drive away the talent. At the very least he's aware of it as a possible hurdle and happy to talk about it - good luck getting anyone like Apple to say anything on pricing policies or goals!

 

This is a tough subject because curation is subjective. A poor free solution for you is a good enough one for others, etc. If there're people offering assets for less or for free, something should justify the price others are charging for. It is inevitable that people will offer good enough solutions developed in collaboration, specially in terms of scripts and code.

Ideally, the store should have excellent mechanisms to filter / search for what you want, not only by price ranges ("I want free", "I want for less than $100"), but by provider reputation and several technical aspects.

Inevitably it will have unmaintained or incompatible assets at some point (they may have thought about this), and trying out a working solution could be as painful as maintaining a growing list of assets in a constantly evolving platform. I believe that the less curation interference is the better, as long as the store is rich enough to let us filter and track what interests us.

 

I think curation is fine if it's goal is to ensure that the description matches the product. Even with free stuff, you still want the label to describe what's really in the tin.

Curating prices is probably only neccessary to ensure nobody deliberately tries undermining the rest of the market. Price fixing never has a happy ending. Just ask a bank manager.

 

Asset store is perfect idea. Theese things are going more and more popular and quality of such assets grown tremendously during last years. And if you dont like it, dont use it. No problem.

 

Right now the asset store could be a website which would require exactly one extra click to use 'open'. But I see future potential. ie the ability to actually preview any paid asset in YOUR game, but just not be able to save it until purchase.
Until then it's integration and 3.1 tag is meaningless. Integration means more than saving a few clicks.

 

Excuse me guys,, but i think 3.1 is good enough for me... taking in mind, my project is really ambitious, Unity meets my expectations for now... what i read here is every people has their own needs... therefore there is a wide range of opinions... be patient

 

But its no ones business what price the seller sets, except the seller. If I make something and whether I set the price for free or $100 should be no ones say except mine. And if it undermines someone elses product, then too bad .... thats free, open, and democratic business.

 

Yes, and is possibly one of the reasons why democracies are so prone to recessions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_price
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)

 

Homeplay, what do you expect from people paying for the trip and the show? Standing up and shouting kiss my shiny little ass whilst waving their Shiva licences? And, no, before some carbon units attack me again, it don't think it's a stupid idea, many tools have such marketplaces either integrated in the tool or on their website. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Depends a lot on the media but then again games are also kind of special. The timing just wasn't perfect.

 

Something tells me you're having trouble using those two things together...



Timing is never perfect if you're expecting something else. But then time is exactly what is needed for many of the things most of us are expecting... now that's a chewy paragraph.

 

I'm glad i don't understand everything posted on this forum and before my imagination might get a chance grasping it, i'll immediately drink some beer.