Unity 4 Details

I agree with you. Those "big boys" certainly have many advantages over Blender. I'm not discussing this. What I mean is what you get from any 3d tool when you're working with Unity is the fbx and this is the bottleneck. You can't get all the wonderfull things you can do with Maya or Max when exporting the fbx file. I don't think the fbx generated with Blender is worse.

Of course, you can be a bit more produtive mastering Max or Maya. On the other hand you get Blender for free. It's a matter of choice...

 

Sorry, you are wrong, the balance says: if I pad $800 for iPhone Basic and Android Basic, and then they are giving it for free, I lost my investment so: the balance is -$800

 

I find it ironically how you just jump on that one word and completely ignore the rest of the post.

When ever the GUI topic comes up, UT stuff says "We don't want to release a halfway done feature". But that's exactly what you did in 3.5, then abandoned it in order to charge for the rest of this half-done features.

No one said, you didn't deserve to get paid for it. The point is, that 3.x line is left w/o a usable GUI system and with features that are only half way implemented.

Some of the 4.0 features are nice to have and under other circumstances I'd have considered upgrading to 4.0... at some point. A new product line should be first and foremost be aimed toward developers who want the "state-of-the-art" stuff.

DX11 is one such thing, The Mecanim could be considered like it too, even NavMesh would be a candidate for it wouldn't you released it half finished in the previous minor release of 3.x

4.0 should contain features like: "Wow, that feature is nice. I must have it for my next project." and not "Great... 4.0 contains fixes to 3.x series and I can't finish my current product without upgrading to it.".

But now, instead of considering an future upgrade to 4.0, I am more considering an alternative because I feel like I have paid for something, and only got half of it. After all the UI system was never usable, especially not on mobiles. And I pretty much doubt, that alternatives like NGUI will make it, because I need an UI system which is flexible on different screen aspect ratios and resolutions.

That should have been your top priority since release of 3.0, and NavMesh, the new animations stuff etc. holding back until the UI was done.

You should at least bring the GUI with a 3.6 and fix the broken stuff in 3.5, before abandoning it, even if it means more work and maintenance. After all, it's you (the company/management, not you personally) who messed it up, so you have to stand for it and learn from it for the future.

I've waited pretty long until I got a license too and just got one around November last year, a few months after the road-map for 3.4 and 3.5 was released.

I accepted it, that it didn't made it in 3.5, but I expect it to get in the next release, the 3.6 and not to be an extra paid feature where you have to upgrade to 4.0 product line. This wasn't a big issue on the first project, which was more to get warm, but for the second one a clean GUI system is definitely a requirement, especially due to mobile performance and different screen resolutions the UI needs to be flexible.

The current one is not just bad in performance, but you can't make any complex GUI w/o producing spaghetti code, because it's API-scheme is like 15 or 20 years ago.

There are basically two consequences with UT current decisions:
a) make a quick money form enthusiasts who preorder the new version and lose money in the long term by losing customers
b) swallow it and finish the 3.x line with a 3.6 update which adds the long announced GUI rehaul and fix the other broken things in Unity 3.5 and then move on to 4.x

After all, you announced the GUI System for good two years now. NavMesh, Mecanim and other stuff was never mentioned before (at least I never found any references to it) until earlier this year. So of course people are pissed, that a feature which was spoken of for years didn't made it yet, but the animation system did it.

Not that the animation system is a bad thing, but it was not as long announced as the GUI rework was.

 

I'm very happy to hear this. I appreciate that you guys are willing to hear us out, I know most companies wouldn't be this involved in the forums. I really hope you consider my suggests about making the mobile addons a one time purchase/lifetime license. Or at the very least, significantly reduce their upgrade costs. Something like that would make a world of difference to me. Anyway, I look forward to what you guys come up with.

A few others have said similar things about the upgrade costs. I don't mean to sound like a spoiled child asking for a free toy, I just think the costs are to high this time around.

More importantly, I'm approaching Unity as a hobbyist. I don't try to monetize everything I make. The free version of Unity wasn't around when I joined. It was either pay some money for a version of Unity with only some features or bite the bullet and get the Pro version.

So what do I get for my support? An increase in upgrade costs. I don't know, maybe I'm just a bit agitated right now. I'll wait to see what the Unity guys come up with before I make up mind.

 

I like the feature set... Still though I think it is the most disappointing for a major release. The community was more pleased with 2.5-2.6 upgrade than they are with Unity 4's announcement... Seriously, UT, that's at bad sign. Unity upgrades have often left people feeling "It is worth the upgrade" not this one though. Of course the biggest bummer being the 'all new shiny GUI'.Frankly the only ones rejoicing are NGUI, EZ GUI, iGUI and friends... (Conspiracy theory is they payed off UT to delay the GUI release. Kidding ) Of course they thought pacifying us with Linux support will let tempers calm...but well... guess it didn't.

Even worse... we're still going to be scripting on mono 2.6 for at least another 2yrs. That doesn't sound too bad, @ least till we consider the fact that it's working with a retired GC which has been a subject of concern on too many forum threads. Personally, I think UT's gotten drunk with this AAA Ambition... with all this talk of DX 11 Mechanim... Don't get me wrong they're all great. But i think you've got your priorities twisted. Your competition is not Unreal CryEngine... it's never been and it will never be so STOP trying so hard to be like them.

This should be Unity 3.6, it doesn't deserve to be called Unity 4 and I'm sure most of the guys up here agree to that.
Unity 4 looks something like this:
-New Graphical GUI Editor
-Upgrade to Mono 2.8 with C#(4.0) SGen GC
-Fully Dedicated 2D System with 2D Physics
-CIL Language plugin module
-Native Asset Import API (Develop our extensions for importing other native file formats apart from the ones supported by unity)
-Some of the features on Jason's wish list.

But then again... Unity has a bigger payroll. this is sounds like a quick attempt to pay every one.

 

Sorry if I missed any info or if I'm repeating questions but...

- from what I gather there will not be metro support in Unity 4.0 but it could come in Unity 4.x, correct?

- besides shadows and GUI for mobile, are there any other planned optimizations?

- also for mobile, any forward progress on native 2D support (sprites, animations, etc)?

- are you going to fix the nested prefab problem in 3 or 4? http://feedback.unity3d.com/forums/15792-unity/suggestions/332835-editor-nested-prefabs

 

That's why we didn't use unity3d yet. I just thought version 4 will allow it. Quoting Battelfield 3 doesn't change the limitation of all post AA methods.
Though i must admin Battlefield3 really looks nice.

 

Just a quick sidenote as I keep seeing people mentionning NGUI and EZGUI as an alternative to 4.0 GUI setback, but still mentionning resolution problems :

2DToolkit is managing different resolutions with camera anchors. I've tested it by changing resolution on the run during play, and it's working perfectly. Plus this addon brings all what others do have, and all what you need as basic features : sprite management, source code, atlas optimization, animation editor, tilemap editor, etc, etc ... And it's cheap. Check it out on the asset store, I'm using it since monthes for a complicated UI, and it's great.

(but no addon will be as great as a builtin solution, we agree)

 

I agree with others about the upgrade pricing. But you know what? I'll pay it. And I imagine most everyone else here will, too.

Partly because many of us earn our incomes with this tool, but also because (for iOS devs) this will most likely become a forced upgrade.

Previous 2.x users may remember the workarounds required to build to iOS at retina resolution. Unity 2 was stuck at 480 x 320 builds. To natively build to retina resolution you had to upgrade to Unity 3.

This time, the next iPhone is coming with a rumored new screen resolution, and hopefully we'll get to make Apple TV apps someday. Do you think Unity 3.5 will ever support these new build options? Nope. How about new Apple APIs or app requirements? You will need Unity 4 to stay current.

Unity has grown way past the hobbyist club and into Adobe land, where the tools become something you depend on to survive as a creative professional. I'm not saying this with spite. I'm just stating it matter-of-factly.

My upgrade cost is $1700. On a 2 year upgrade cycle that means I need to make $2.33/day to recover. I think most of us can do that. Yeah, it sucks to face a forced upgrade, but it's part of the deal.

 

A lot of people are burned about the steep price, especially if they have iOS and Android etc. that needs to be upgraded for 4.0. I have been pretty vocal about this issue myself. But there is another school of thought we should consider here; voting with your dollar. Technology is always advancing and there will be ups and downs. If we don't support Unity in the downs, there won't be any ups.

Hopefully they figure out an easier payment method, I think the grand solution as far as ease of implementation is to have a period where the price stands then a period where the price goes down after that. People who want 4.0 right now dish out the 850, or wait six months and they reduce the cost. If it's too much for you, then wait, otherwise if you must have it now then pay up.

 

No, you didn't lost it. You just missed the chance to get it cheaper.

Losing it would mean, someone got in your room and took it out of your pocket

This argument is quite of flawed. I purchased Android Basic around November, because I needed it back then in order to test it (also performance) and debug it on Android. So I could have either waited an indefinite amount of time until it gets free or cheaper or get it when I did, despite the fact it became free a few months later.


A missed opportunity is no loss. It's same as the discussion about piracy. A pirated game is no loss for you, it's a missed opportunity. If this opportunity would ever have resulted in a profit, the company will never knew it (common sense say: Most likely not, because >90% of the pirates pirate games because they don't want to pay for it and they rather not buy it at all if they can't pirate it).

So unless you purchased your licenses a few days before the free offer was available and even if you did, Unity offered a grace period for people who purchased it a few weeks before the announcement.

Your argument is like: I purchased game xyz 6 months ago, but Steam offers it for 75% discount today. I lost 30 EUR. Bullshit

 

We're getting off topic (if there is one besides "let's grip about the upgrade price"), but MSAA = "Multi Sample Anti Aliasing". That's exactly what it is doing, supersampling.

 

Wow, can someone hand me my sword so I can make it out of this thread in one piece?

Seems most of the upset here is about unmet expectations and money, most of which is based on assumptions people have made. There's also quite a lot of people thinking somehow they deserve to dictate what Unity does and when they don't do it they get upset. I think that happens with most idol worship where you start to think you own your idol and they must do what you want or suddenly you hate them. Unity is doing a great job and has been extremely generous in so many ways. Unity Free + iOs + Android free licenses in 3.5 are a huge gift. Unity Free all by itself is a huge gift. They aren't getting much love in this thread and yet several representatives are here trying to answer questions and keep their cool. I think they do a great job on all fronts.

My interpretation of the GUI thing is that to be faster they must've implemented a kind of sprite-sheet thing with multiple widgets on a single texture to minimize draw calls. That should mean that many of the 2D tools on the asset store which were designed to overcome the slowness of Unity's GUI are now somewhat less important. You can probably use the faster GUI system to put together most of the graphics in a 2D game with good performance.

My prediction of future features that Unity 4.x will incorporate are the new WYSIWYG GUI editor, some better 2D support, some kind of cool voxel/marching cubes kind of volumetric terrain system/triplanar texturing or whatever, and perhaps some kind of visual-programming/scripting/shader-editor thingy. But we'll see.

Thanks again everyone at Unity.

 

Take a class in economics, it's called opportunity cost. Glass half full.empty argument, quite pointless.

 

How does Mecanim then allow us to port Facial Animation to re-targeted animation for the rig? Will we be able to use a separate bone structure for the face and then re-target animation in Mecanim?

 

At first I was very excited about Unity 4 announcement and I have to admit I was thinking about a brand new GUI system. I mean, a good one, the one which has been announced for the previous version. But there is nothing about it, only better performance. But it's not what I'm looking for right now. I'm looking for a team who keep its words.

 

Any details on the updates to pathfinding? Will there be the option of multiple navmeshes per scene to support different sized objects?

 

I've been through this thread and I don't believe I've seen anything about the Asset Server mentioned. Has the Asset Server client/seat license been updated? I.e., if we have an Asset Server 3.x license, does it also need to be upgraded to continue working with the 4.x editor or will Asset Server client licenses continue to work since the server component hasn't been updated (or so it seems from what I've seen announced)? If we do need to upgrade, I didn't see any features listed on the site (I'd assume they'd be under the "Workflow" section, but if I missed them, please let me know). Has anything been announced on that front? $500 is a bit steep for an upgrade that only offers compatibility with the new version of the Editor.

 

I think you are right, A better GUI system should be in 3.x.

And you miss a bigger problem.
New features means new bugs, if unity just leave them, like what they did in 3.x, why will people use 4.0? Just look at what they have done to 3.x, then think about the new features again, draw calls may go crazy again, memory may leak, games may be slower, or may crash on PowerVR phones, because of new bugs or some unfixed 3.x bugs, and some of them may never be fixed until unity5.0 some day.

That is irresponsible!

The problem is not the GUI system at all! the problem is the company's attitude to 3.x!

 

Okay then you made the right choice ...
Well, a technique only has limitations if these limitations are noticeable... I mean if you see it screen by screen, you may be able to see the difference between BF3 with MSAA and only FXAA but please... It's not worth the costs. If you are picking on those things there is other stuff that comes into mind, like dynamic global illumination. Such feature will really kick ass, and Unity will most likely not have them for the next 3-5 years. The difference between this and "MSAA vs FXAA" is extraordinary.

 

Well maybe my minds plays tricks on me but supersampling originally is meant to be rendering the entire stuff in higher resolution and then scaling down. MSAA is just about doing this for the depth map. A huge difference performance wise.

 

Hey! I did mention it! ;-) ... there's no upgrade price for the Asset Server this time (so the team license is upgraded for free) - which I think is very fair given that the Asset Server didn't get much love in 3.x (however, I still very much appreciate the Cache Server which is part of the team license). I guess there's a couple of things people would like the asset server to have that it currently doesn't have ... seems like not much is happening there for 4.0 - but maybe 4.x ;-) ... I'm happy with Asset Server ... but ... I'm mostly working alone (in the few cases where I did team projects with the Asset Server, it mostly did what it was supposed to do, so I'm happy).


But actually, I wanted to touch another topic: There's been quite some discussion about "half-baked features" (people used another term but it means the same while being more polite ;-) ). IMHO, UT did the right thing with Flash support: Release as soon as possible, but put a big fat "beta" tag on it. And even more importantly: Don't charge for it.

I think it would be awesome if that could be adopted to other areas. If you add a cool new feature but you know it's not really "complete", yet, give it to us (in a minor release, see below), let us know you're not fully happy with it - and you'll see how perceptions shift from "half-assed" to "thank you for letting us play with it already". Hopefully ;-) Besides: You'll get a lot more feedback, some of which might actually be useful!

Another, related issue: Putting half-baked features into 3.x and completing them in 4.x is probably not a good idea. Instead, put all the half-baked features into the major release and use the +x.1 releases to complete those features. That's what's usually expected in software (major release gives you great new stuff - but take it with a grain of salt because great new stuff has a tendency to not work too well in the first release; usually, if you want stability, you wait with upgrading until x.1 - with Unity, it seems to be the other way round).


Let's take the new GUI as an example: Ok, 3.x didn't work out ... we cried about that already, and maybe not putting it into 3.5 when 4.0 is already around the corner really was the best thing to do. But now with the 4.0 release is the chance: Put "new GUI beta" into 4.0, let people play with it. It's tagged "beta", so if it doesn't work as expected: Well, it's BETA! Then maybe in 4.1 or 4.2, or maybe even 4.3 get it to a state where you can say "ok, we're happy now - the new GUI is ready for production; now, if something fails, feel free to complain".

While the stuff is "in beta", make sure to make it available in Unity "free" (I think that's how it was done with Flash - but I don't use Unity "free", so not sure). So anyone could check out Unity 4 "free" with lots of new fancy stuff that's still beta. When 4.1 or 4.2 comes out, the stuff will be solid and some of it will be tied to the Pro version, so people who wantz that stuff have to buy the upgrade. Everything is much more relaxed and easy.


There's a huge difference in customer perceptions this way: If I have "new GUI beta" in 4.0, it's up to me whether I want to use NGUI or EZ GUI or whatever, which are generally considered pretty stable (but are not "built-in"), or whether I risk using the built-in but beta thing. That gives me choice, responsibility - power. I feel like I'm using a really awesome product. That's what I'm used to from Unity / UT.

The other way makes me feel helpless: I know there's this uber-awesome GUI system in Unity Ninja Labs (tm) but I have no idea what advantages this really will give me. Most people get frustrated and angry when they feel helpless - that's human nature; look at this thread, q.e.d. ;-)


Of course, this may not always work - if there's dependencies with existing systems, adding something that may compromise the stability of those existing systems might be a very bad idea. But then: Let us know! Put it right there first on the forum thread: "Ok, we would have loved to give you the new GUI system, but doing so might break all of Unity, so we have to give it a little more love."

 

I can't really understand why people are bothered with the money either, but I said my view about this earlier...

But feature-wise people really need to kick Unity in the ass, because otherwise they won't get things done and there is a hell of thing to be done if Unity wants to stand any chance against their competitors. Unreal and Crytek aren't so stupid that they don't realize how Unity is taking off and the second they start fighting, Unity better have something at hand or it is dead... And currently I wouldn't know what precislely they have. Their editor is simpler to use but there are so many tradeoffs in Unity, tradeoffs I am often not happy with. Unreal Crytek could easily build an "Indy" version of their editors (one that is easy to use and hides most of the complexity only AAA vendors need), they have the resources... And then... What is Unity going to do about that? I mean I am not related or dependent on Unity, so it doesn't matter to me. All this struggle is to show Unity that they have to push on and we are not really satisfied by this major release.

 

I agreed with Khyrid to an extent. The price of the software upgrade is a little steep for what it offers. It is all about the features.

I bought 3.5 in April 16/17 2012 and now I have to pay an extra $850 dollars for an upgrade (that has few of the core features - i.e. GUI - that I wanted).

I'll stick with 3.5 and look for alternatives I think.

 

Ah, ok, thanks! I realize now that I was looking at the store while not logged in, so I was seeing the new buyer price.

 

Thanks, Ant! Waiting.

 

Totally bullshit... Honestly.

1) You are not paying for 4.0 you are paing for 4.x AND 3.x!!! This means you can use Unity 3.5 and all of the minor upgrades to Unity 4.
2) You don't have to pay, you can pay
3) If you bought a product that was lacking vital features then it is basically your fault. It was no surprise that Unity 4 was in the pipeline and soon to be released.
4) What alternatives (at least in this price segment, which is obviously the main concern for you) ? Good luck anyway.

Either you need a feature or you don't. And as always, if 1000 EUR is to much for this feature (GUI), why not implement it yourself. Guess what, the costs would be at least five times higher. That's what's business is about. Buy everything that is cheaper than you doing it yourself.

 

Who knows indeed? We're now talking imaginary licenses for theoretically supported licenses.

Come on guys

 

"Totally bullshit... Honestly." - awesome ad hominem counter argument

1. What I mean is that I do not believe the upgrades to 4 are worth the price tag.

2. I am not paying - thanks for the advice though

3. I didn't say it was lacking vital features - it does what I need now. I am making my own GUI

4. Stay tuned.

 

Well thanks, but your post was just too much and the dot on the i in this thread for me ^^. So I had to say something neat.

I already answered (1) which you don't seem to understand. You are not paying for the features in 4.0, but for all coming features in the 4.x cycle...
(3) I edited my post, so you can ready the answer to this one there. In summary, it will cost you more than the license ^^. I am also doing my own GUI system based on NGUI, and I can tell you that it far exceeds 1000 EUR, even though I am only doing what I really need. But in my case (I am a student) the business model I mentioned does not apply, since everything I buy is pratically lost money (since I don't get paid), so I rather do it myself. I am still buying Unity 4 for that matter, since it has a lot of features I can't do myself.
(4) I will.

 

The guy has a point...

 

This is a passive-aggressive comment that entirely ignores what the original poster you're responding to was saying. Yes, they could have gone about saying it in a nicer way. Sure, people made games with it. Some of them were pretty awesome. That doesn't change the fact that purchasers of Unity 3 1) never received the full feature list they were told to expect during and after a similar pre-purchase phase and 2) many of the features that were implemented were, in fact, half-assed. Being able to work around limitations of software to make cool stuff is one thing, but that software lacking features that were expected or unfinished features is another.

 

I'm happy to pay for what I use, but Unity Pro has features that I'm paying for but I'm unlikely to ever use. I swallowed this for v3, but as time goes on, and more of these very high level features are added, the gap between what I want and what I am paying for gets wider.

I can't help but think that Unity needs to be more modular in design. Unity would also benefit from this as they would be able to see what parts of Unity are being used and which ones aren't.

Examples of Unity stuff I've never used:
Terrains.
Trees.
Cloth.
Lightprobes.

Things I'm unlikely to use in v4:
Mecanim
DirectX 11 (or at least I don't need it)
Linux deployment

 

Ok so I have the two free basic mobile licenses from the give away in April, plus the standard free basic license.

If I upgrade both of those mobile licenses, would it be $800 for both? Or how much is it?

Would I get two $200 dollar vouchers to use on the $1500 pro version of Unity 4.0 AND 3.5?

 

Once again unity leaving out features...


Is it because things like Unity GUI and other things like the editor not being streamlined that you make money off it when people buy these products in the asset store?

Because it sure does look that way. Look at the top grossing products.

 

My post was "too Much". I thought it was light compared to some.

I understand. I just don't agree. Life is like that - people are allowed opinions. I just don't believe the upgrade content is worth it. For me. It may be for someone else and that's cool. I'm a student too and I do not have the extra cash lying around.

I am well-aware of the trade off between buying somewhere and developing it. I too have a specific set of requirements re the GUI and I am content to work on that myself when I get time.

Anyway, good luck with the GUI.

 

Despite what the posts in this thread might suggest, I think Unity is great, it doesn't mean I cannot have an argument with my lover.

Part of the problem is Unity 3 feels unfinished. 3.5 brought new incomplete features, and along came instability (I have reported the ones that I can reproduce easily). 3.5.2 has improved the situation a lot, but it still feels some way from a finished job. Unity 2 was something that seemed fine to leave customers with who couldn't or wouldn't upgrade. Unity 3 feels a version away, and now that 4 has arrived, has work on 3 been abandoned?

I feel like I have the baggage of 3.5 without any of the benefits (I was only looking forward to the GUI and particle features, one didn't appear, the other incomplete and using a workflow I don't like that is different to the rest of Unity so I don't use it), and now looks as if it will stay that way.

 

well it's not. It's you wanting what they haven't promised to deliver.

 

I'm unhappy! $1700 per seat and NO new UI. A sales rep told me the UI will be released eventually.... in a 4.x ... some day...

BOO

Gigi

 

Maybe you have a point. But then GUI is so special... So many different needs and probably impossible to get them all satisfied, unless you spend like a billion on a Windows Presentation Foundation derivative, just like Microsoft did. But in return, the resulting GUI system might be too complex&clumsy for the average Unity user, just like WPF is. NGUI is better than nothing but really, it doesn't has much to offer in comparison to WPF. There is sooo much work you need to do to get a decent GUI in Unity. Maybe I will put my NGUI extension on Github in one or two months, which would make creating a decent GUI much easier than it is now, but still it is nowhere satisfying.

 

Since I started it, I get to do it again: ^This

Disagree on particle system, which is mostly kind of awesome (though totally incomplete and buggy as all hell).Rendering and GUI updates are why I upgraded. Rendering is better, shadows are better, GUI is terrible (and since someone mentioned it early, so is the input manager).

Complaints aside, I really like Unity. Can't justify that upgrade cost to get features that were supposed to be in 3, though.

If nothing else comes out of this whole thing (40+ pages of comments! Wow! Hope some of those genuine concerns are actually addressed), at least it got me back on the forums after almost two years of working in a vacuum (working on: http://www.pixelmetal.com)

 

Don't speak for me. I have 4 developers. $1700 * 4 is a lot. And I don't even get the ONE feature I really want. A UI toolkit. 9 months ago, they promised it was 'soon'. Now, it's not even part of 4.0.

Very unhappy.

Gigi.

 

"But have no fear, it's still coming as part of 3.x so it will be free as all of our .x releases are." is a statement with no doubt saying it will be part of 3.x. How is that different from "A declaration assuring that one will or will not do something"? It isn't different, it is a promise.

 

enough of the negatives and onto the positives.

I think enough has been said to unity regarding failed expectations, just read 40 pages worth - and this is valuable feedback - unity should and probably will take it on board.

As for the features that excite me, where to begin?

* mobile shadows (expected this bad boy for 4.0, they needed *something*)
* mechanim
* skinned mesh batching (essentially instanced skinned meshes if on same frame)
* workflow improvements (it only took 5 years to get play mode to record changes) - cut n paste (reordering components??)
* polish and fixes to existing features (although lets face it, not worth paying for as we've paid for that for 3.5)

So aside from whining non stop, what do you like about the new release?

 

Just curious. Where do you get your information from that Max, Maya or all the other big boys don`t have FBX, or a broken FBX? Because this is wrong. The big boys have of course a working FBX pipeline. And have the same "bottleneck" than Blender. Cinema for example is as good supported and integrated in Unity as Blender.

For a professional time is money. It`s a no brainer to spend 3000 bucks per year when you would loose 1000 bucks of productive work per week by using Blender because it takes much longer to finish the job, when you can finish the job with it at all. And even i as a hobbyist take care not to use a tool that has the longer production time. As told, i still polygon model in trueSpace because it is much faster and less cumbersome than in Blender.

Back ontopic.

But they DID promise it. That`s the point

 

This ^^

Come on guys, let's say something positive for a change

Mobile shadows look awesome. Too bad I can't afford pro (yet), lol.

 

Webplayer debugging is gonna help me a lot!

 

I'm interested in the lightmapping improvements but appart from that "bake selected" doesn't delete the rest of the lightmap, the other improvements are really, really vaguely worded.

Looking forward to learning more...

 

Besides what already has been said: DX 11 and tesselation as well as the new shaders are definitely promising. I am looking forward to replace this ugly parallax mapping with something neat, as well as a bunch of other effects where I had to use outdated shaders, like metaballs... The new shaders are probably the most important change for me besides the new animation system and linux target.

Wondering why no one has brought this up... Are you all mobile developers?! I mean these shaders were urgently needed. You can't do anything cute with these 20th century stuff. Almost all advanced effects require high-end shaders and improved geometry handling, which also seems to come.