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Unity acquires Bolt

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by AskCarol, Apr 30, 2020.

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  1. IllTemperedTunas

    IllTemperedTunas

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    If they go all out and make this scaleable, we'll have the option to create this in 3d while going backwards in time. By backwards in time I mean -Time.Deltatime of course :D.

    I've never worked in a top down environment for node based systems. Always worked horizontally and enjoyed it that way as the monitor and human FOV is designed for a horizontal environment, but i'd welcome being pleasantly surprised by a vertical environment that was easier to work in.
     
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  2. hippocoder

    hippocoder

    Digital Ape

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    The problem with horizontal is that you are required to do your reasoning on the same axis as you're doing your flow, and this means reason and flow become spaghetti. Spaghetti means you forgetti.

    In short, if you can make reason along X and flow along Y you're solving the problem in two dimensions instead of one, which requires less organisation by default.

    You can do the job in both, but if one will be easier to reason about (such as a ton of game-like inputs) to make progress then it would be easier to give it an axis.

    There's a ton of ways to solve this though, and I respect that.
     
  3. TextusGames

    TextusGames

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    I completely agree with this statemate.
     
  4. Marc-Saubion

    Marc-Saubion

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    Not really. Playmaker allows you to access and change exposed variables or use a public void. The reason why you might end up with an custom action dedicated to it is mostly because it's a lot more convenient to use if you need it often. That said, you need to know C# to do that and that's why you mostly hear about Playmaker when its users are stuck in their game development or when they ask for custom actions.

    See how many thinks Unity is bad because they only see the Unity logo on amateurish bad games and not on AAA products. Playmaker suffers from the same reputation bias. I know because I've been using it non stop for 4 years now but nobody know that because I don't ask for help much and people who don't see what's under the hood just assume my work must have been done in C#.

    There are only 2 drawback I can find with Playmaker.
    1) It's not a Unity standard. I can make the best FSM ever, if you aren't also using Playmaker, I can't share it with you.
    2) It only works on Play, so you can't make editor scripts with it.

    These are the 2 main reasons I'm looking for Bolt 2 but I don't think I'll give up on Playmaker soon. I don't see these two as competing but complementary tools: I see Bolt 2 as a way to make C# programming faster and Playmaker as a way to use said scripts with comfort and convenience.

    PS: When it comes to updates, Playmaker has been pretty bulletproof so far. When I have errors locking my project, they come up third party assets using outdated APIs or having missing scripts (often standard assets references) while my FSMs stand up the test of time. The reason for that is that even if I use an action a thousand time, it's still the same one C# script behind and like every well organised project, it's easy to maintain and update.
     
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  5. NeedsLoomis

    NeedsLoomis

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    That would be the easiest way with the current api.

    One could also say with C# you really need to understand at least some Bolt or you'll get lost. At the end of the day, Bolt, C#, Playmaker, and etc are all just one more thing to learn.

    At least with Bolt, you kill two birds with one stone, and the entire Unity manual is relevant, so you can do anything, have official instructions on how, and take advantage off years of community Q and A to solve problems. Playmaker leaves you with their action and support, and when you hit a wall (which you will) you'll have to go learn C# to make custom actions anyhow.
     
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  6. PanthenEye

    PanthenEye

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    Vertical also makes the most sense in Bolt 2. The original dev specifically outlined vertical as the default and horizontal as legacy. When you place both the graph and C# preview windows next to each other - both flow vertically so you read them in very similar ways. Having one in the horizontal and the other in vertical doesn't make much sense. It's also how connection spaghetti is solved via port proxies, which don't make as much sense in horizontal but are a natural fit in vertical.

    I never really got the flow splitting argument in favor of horizontal (I believe this was one of the main reasons of DOTS going horizontal in recent drops), you can still split and merge flows vertically. Granted, you have more screen space horizontally than vertically, but I believe vertical enforces better practices by default and spaghetti is if not eliminated then at least significantly reduced.
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2020
  7. Marc-Saubion

    Marc-Saubion

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    Hi.

    I've seen people mentioning they had access to bolt for free on the store.

    I had the same thing but already purchased it from Ludiq 2 years ago. If some are still wondering about it, this is probably the reason behind it.

     
    AlanMattano likes this.
  8. PanthenEye

    PanthenEye

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    Yes, Bolt 1 is free for existing users only. It swapped store pages from Ludiq to Unity Technologies, hence the reason to reacquire it.
     
    LaurentGibert likes this.
  9. dre788

    dre788

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    Hello, I mainly use playmaker but hearing this news changes things. I already own Bolt (and other visual scripting tools) and I've been waiting for Bolt 2 since it looked more capable than other solutions available. I wanted to ask if Bolt or Bolt 2 has the ability to create custom inspectors/editor windows? Also, could I use Odin with Bolt or Bolt 2 to make custom windows?

    1+ for Bolt being freely available. This would greatly help everyone with access to a native feature rich visual scripting tool right out of the unity box.
     
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  10. PanthenEye

    PanthenEye

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    The answer is negative. Bolt or Bolt 2 are not capable of that right now. You could request Unity folks to implement this but I don't think this will come anytime soon if ever.

    No, these assets are not compatible, Bolt does its own inspectors. The original dev briefly discussed a possibility of integrating Odin Inspector's attributes within Bolt 2 since the serialization tech is the same and have both work together but now that Unity have taken over, that's unlikely to happen.
     
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  11. TextusGames

    TextusGames

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    Maybe it is time to aqcuire Odin too). Especially since some yesterday's unreal news.
     
  12. TechnicalArtist

    TechnicalArtist

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    Hi,

    Below error coming with Bolt v.2.0.0a10 & unity 2019.3.13f1,How to resolve this ?

    MissingMemberException: Member 'UnityEditor.EditorWindow.ShowModal' not found.
    Ludiq.LudiqGUIUtility..cctor () (at Assets/Ludiq/Ludiq.Core/Editor/Interface/LudiqGUIUtility.cs:150)
    Rethrow as UnityEditorInternalException: An error occured while accessing internal Unity Editor functions. This might happen if Unity makes backward-incompatible changes in their newer versions of the editor.
    Ludiq.LudiqGUIUtility..cctor () (at Assets/Ludiq/Ludiq.Core/Editor/Interface/LudiqGUIUtility.cs:182)
    Rethrow as TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for 'Ludiq.LudiqGUIUtility' threw an exception.
    Ludiq.ConsoleUtility.WatchConsoleActivity () (at Assets/Ludiq/Ludiq.Core/Editor/Utilities/ConsoleUtility.cs:72)
    Rethrow as TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for 'Ludiq.ColorPalette' threw an exception.
    Ludiq.Bolt.BoltToolbar.Draw () (at Assets/Ludiq/Bolt.Core/Editor/Toolbar/BoltToolbar.cs:132)
    Ludiq.Bolt.BoltToolbar.DrawExtension () (at Assets/Ludiq/Bolt.Core/Editor/Toolbar/BoltToolbar.cs:120)
    Ludiq.UnityToolbarExtender.ToolbarExtender.OnGUI () (at Assets/Ludiq/Ludiq.Core/Editor/Dependencies/UnityToolbarExtender/ToolbarExtender.cs:118)
    Ludiq.UnityToolbarExtender.ToolbarCallback.OnGUI () (at Assets/Ludiq/Ludiq.Core/Editor/Dependencies/UnityToolbarExtender/ToolbarCallback.cs:72)
    UnityEngine.UIElements.IMGUIContainer.DoOnGUI (UnityEngine.Event evt, UnityEngine.Matrix4x4 parentTransform, UnityEngine.Rect clippingRect, System.Boolean isComputingLayout, UnityEngine.Rect layoutSize, System.Action onGUIHandler, System.Boolean canAffectFocus) (at <95b42489e2e04430a87c3760aa29fca2>:0)
    UnityEngine.UIElements.IMGUIContainer.HandleIMGUIEvent (UnityEngine.Event e, UnityEngine.Matrix4x4 worldTransform, UnityEngine.Rect clippingRect, System.Action onGUIHandler, System.Boolean canAffectFocus) (at <95b42489e2e04430a87c3760aa29fca2>:0)
    UnityEngine.UIElements.IMGUIContainer.DoIMGUIRepaint () (at <95b42489e2e04430a87c3760aa29fca2>:0)
    UnityEngine.UIElements.UIR.RenderChainCommand.ExecuteNonDrawMesh (UnityEngine.UIElements.UIR.DrawParams drawParams, System.Boolean straightY, System.Single pixelsPerPoint, System.Exception& immediateException) (at <95b42489e2e04430a87c3760aa29fca2>:0)
    Rethrow as ImmediateModeException
    UnityEngine.UIElements.UIR.RenderChain.Render (UnityEngine.Rect viewport, UnityEngine.Matrix4x4 projection, UnityEngine.UIElements.PanelClearFlags clearFlags) (at <95b42489e2e04430a87c3760aa29fca2>:0)
    UnityEngine.UIElements.UIRRepaintUpdater.DrawChain (UnityEngine.Rect viewport, UnityEngine.Matrix4x4 projection) (at <95b42489e2e04430a87c3760aa29fca2>:0)
    UnityEngine.UIElements.UIRRepaintUpdater.Update () (at <95b42489e2e04430a87c3760aa29fca2>:0)
    UnityEngine.UIElements.VisualTreeUpdater.UpdateVisualTreePhase (UnityEngine.UIElements.VisualTreeUpdatePhase phase) (at <95b42489e2e04430a87c3760aa29fca2>:0)
    UnityEngine.UIElements.Panel.UpdateForRepaint () (at <95b42489e2e04430a87c3760aa29fca2>:0)
    UnityEngine.UIElements.Panel.Repaint (UnityEngine.Event e) (at <95b42489e2e04430a87c3760aa29fca2>:0)
    UnityEngine.UIElements.UIElementsUtility.DoDispatch (UnityEngine.UIElements.BaseVisualElementPanel panel) (at <95b42489e2e04430a87c3760aa29fca2>:0)
    UnityEngine.UIElements.UIElementsUtility.ProcessEvent (System.Int32 instanceID, System.IntPtr nativeEventPtr) (at <95b42489e2e04430a87c3760aa29fca2>:0)
    UnityEngine.GUIUtility.ProcessEvent (System.Int32 instanceID, System.IntPtr nativeEventPtr) (at <35bab3c7b0dc4999845bcfccc7758d96>:0)
     
  13. PanthenEye

    PanthenEye

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    Downgrade to Unity 2019.3.9 or older.
     
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  14. JohnC_Unity

    JohnC_Unity

    Unity Technologies

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    Hey TechnicalArtist,

    Thanks for the post, this is caused by an incompatibility issue introduced in 2019.3.1f13. It's fixed in Bolt 1, available now. The Bolt 2 fix will be in the next release.

    The only workaround for the moment is to use an older version of 2019.3.

    Sorry, I hope that helps somewhat, thanks again for posting.
     
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  15. TechnicalArtist

    TechnicalArtist

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    Thanks for reply,OK I will install older version for now
     
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  16. Vectrex

    Vectrex

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    PLEASE don't go horizontal layout just because 'other' editors use it. Look at professional editors like Nuke and Houdini to see that vertical nodes are actually the professional standard (even the kids Scratch editor does a good job). If we just go with what's popular ZBrush wouldn't exist (my professional 3d friends at the time hated it!)
    Also I'm a teacher and the more similarity to text code the better.
    If you think the left is clearer than the right then we can't be friends.
     
  17. williamian

    williamian

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    Bolt 1 is in maintenance mode so will not likely see any new features. Bolt 2 already has the option for horizontal or vertical flow.
     
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  18. TextusGames

    TextusGames

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    It was so before unity acquired it. But now we do not know will they support both layouts or not. I think there is even a possibility that the name Bolt 2 will not exist anymore, and instead package will have new name. Basically we can expect anythink to happen)
     
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  19. Yukken

    Yukken

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    Not making it free seems like a slap in the face. Visual scripting is useful for programmers too. I want to replicate Unreal's code+blueprint approach in Unity. But I can't afford an $70 asset for that.

    A lot of beginners will also be intimidated to buy an asset if they aren't sold on the engine yet. Especially if they don't want to do coding. And with the new pricing advantage Unreal has, I'm seriously considering to jump ship.

    Maybe Bolt sells so much that they don't want to give up on the revenue. But being stingy like that will just make Epic look better.

    I also don't think everybody will want to use DOTS. Not all games need the performance boost. Make Bolt free and make it the official visual scripting method for Unity.
     
  20. TomateSalat

    TomateSalat

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    Cause of the StateMachines. Just did a project without bolt (cause only free assets were allowed) and I really missed it.

    Another benefit would be the community-support.

    I've bought bolt last year and I really would love to see it become available for free to everyone.
     
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  21. TechnicalArtist

    TechnicalArtist

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    they said asset store version (bolt 1) is not free but i don't think anywhere mentioned upcoming version of bolt 2 its paid as per my knowledge
     
  22. PanthenEye

    PanthenEye

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    Product manager said Bolt 2 pricing is not final so it could go either way.
     
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  23. TechnicalArtist

    TechnicalArtist

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    okay got it
     
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  24. profuzzy

    profuzzy

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    It's a shame that I was never alerted about the Unity Asset store sale in April.
    I'd have bought Bolt for $35 just to have it for a rainy day.
    /// I just checked;
    1. I do have "Offers and promotions" emails selected in my settings.
    *AND*
    2. I filtered my Gmail account for Unity ... BUT not 1 email about the April sale.
    -
    I received roughly 20 emails from Unity in April. Updates for products I own..and information about seminars..
    BUT NOT ONE EMAIL ABOUT THE SALE
    *SIGH*
    ..it's not surprising that certain people received Bolt for free. I can't even get an email about a sale!
     
  25. RealityDotStop

    RealityDotStop

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    To my knowledge, the only people who received Bolt for free where a few copies through twitter promotions from the original developer.

    The only people receiving Bolt for free now are those that already own Bolt. Due to a technicality in the Unity Asset Store, Unity needed to rerelease the Bolt asset under their own accounts and control. Thus, all people who already owned Bolt can "redeem" a free copy of the Unity Technologies version.

    However, Unity haven't announced their long term plans for pricing on Bolt. It may be free for all users in the future, it may not, we don't know at this time.
     
  26. sinjinn

    sinjinn

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    Will Bolt be free soon? I'm just about to learn PlayMaker. But I can wait a couple of weeks. nod nod, wink wink.
     
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  27. PanthenEye

    PanthenEye

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    We don't know yet. Gotta wait for official Unity announcements. We all wish it was free though - better for everyone that way.
     
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  28. Ruchir

    Ruchir

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    I'm part of that plan but I haven't received it till now, it's been a month now,
    Is there something I need to do in order to get that?
     
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  29. sinjinn

    sinjinn

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    I'm trying playmaker, but I have my eye on Bolt, especially if DOTS VS isn't ready.

    This is very confusing. I'm guessing Bolt is the new standard, if Unity has bought it. But is it just for the moment, before DOTSVS is ready?, or is DOTS VS going to be integrated into Bolt? or visa versa.

    These are all questions that I don't even want to consider, but somehow they take time in my mind, to weigh up stuff.
     
    Last edited: May 31, 2020
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  30. IllTemperedTunas

    IllTemperedTunas

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    It doesn't appear as though Bolt will become a standard, from what information has been released: an outside team poured a lot of time into the tech of bolt 2. Unity jumped into the ring with their own visual scripting solution while Bolt 2 was in development, and they didn't want team to go empty handed (It's not a good look for your 3rd party support to get burned) so they bought bolt 2 and will be slicing it up and extracting whatever cool stuff they can from it, it's likely the best win/ win for both developers moving forward.

    The team that supported bolt 2 are no longer developing it, nor are they part of Unity (at least this is what we are told, all sort of invisible maneuverings can occur to save face), which to me says the new DOTS based solution is the standard 100%. And when you think about the situation emerging with competing engines, you have to figure Unity is going ALL IN on their visual scripting solution, but that could just be wishful thinking.

    Blueprints and Unreal will continue to evolve and improve, do not forget this recent developement:

    This is a literal game changer that has the potential to radically shift how we develop games over the course of several years, it's hard to describe just how broad the ramifications this sort of usability will have on the industry as it empowers a great deal more people to participate in and learn code at a level that makes them "dangerous" and as more high end programmers start working with the system, it could eclipse modern IDE's in many ways. Super exciting stuff going on.

    Unity has a few niceties like prefabs and drag and drop functionality. And they have the usability of C#. This is a paper thin lead if Unreal continues to innovate on the usability front and the portability to mobile devices will evaporate within a few years as those platforms improve and require less unique development pipelines and become fully functional platforms.
     
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  31. PanthenEye

    PanthenEye

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    There’s a lot to unpack there, but that's not the impression we have over at Bolt Discord server. While the original coder has stayed independent, Unity hired Bolt’s community manager. Unity also have assigned at least two engineers to Bolt full time both for Bolt 1’ technical support and to finish Bolt 2. Lazlo, the creator of Bolt is helping these new engineers with knowledge transfer right now. They also pop up in Discord from time to time to answer some questions the community has.

    There’s not a single sign that Bolt was bought just for slicing it up, as you say. Bolt 1 manual is already added to official Unity docs. There’s a dedicated section for Bolt related bugs on issue tracker. And are you forgetting the Bolt 2 beta thread? Why would they do that if Bolt is not to become a Unity standard? And correct me if I'm wrong, but there's very little that's common between OOP monobehaviour based scripting and DOTS/ECS based scripting. What could they even take from Bolt 2? They're completely different architectures and Bolt 2 is based on the current/old UI system, not the new UI Toolkit that's in development so they can't even take the UI part of it.

    My understanding is that both ECS and DOTS VS are nowhere near production ready - it’ll take them years to finish these new tools and get them to a point where they’re ready for mass adoption. Therefore Bolt offers to fill that visual scripting tool gap for the existing OOP architecture. And even if both ECS and DOTS VS are production ready in a few years, it’ll take a long time for studio pipelines to adapt these new tools since they would have to rewrite all of their tooling. Same for asset store devs who are entirely OOP based. DOTS might be the future but Bolt is production ready right now and Monobehaviour will be around for a long, long time, 5-8 years at the very least if not for longer.
     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2020
  32. IllTemperedTunas

    IllTemperedTunas

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    This is a direct quote from the lead developer from Ludiq: https://ludiq.io/blog/unity-acquires-bolt

    "Ludiq is proud to announce that its flagship visual scripting solution Bolt has been acquired by Unity Technologies. This acquisition will empower Unity developers worldwide with a production-ready visual authoring tool that helps artists, designers and programmers collaborate on their game or application. Thanks to Unity's involvement, Bolt will benefit from a wealth of resources and experience in middleware development, while its users can continue to rely on the same level of quality support and trusted new releases they had come to expect.

    As the lead developer of Bolt to this day, I am thrilled about the potential of putting this tool in the hands of more creators and allowing them to concretize their ideas in a visual way. Bolt started as a solo endeavor nearly four years ago, and over time, our team and community grew to welcome thousands of visual thinkers. Today, passing the torch to Unity means Bolt will enter an exciting new phase of its life. While letting go of a project you love is never easy, I have met the amazing people at Unity who will carry it forward and I am confident that Bolt is in the best of hands.

    We are working closely with Unity Montreal to ensure a seamless transition. Support for Bolt 1 will continue uninterrupted and development of Bolt 2 is progressing on track. We want to make sure there are no sudden or unexpected changes for existing users. In the meantime, we want to address any question or concern you may have."


    It sounds like we're mostly on the same page here. But from the above it sounds like the Ludiq team isn't THAT involved. I'm just reading off this link.

    I'm trying to read between the lines as best I can, but take this with a grain of salt as I don't know any more than anyone else here. Why did they sell to Unity as they announce their own visual scripting solution? Why are they no longer directly involved in the development? I would imagine they were investing into this thinking they would be the primary visual scripting platform for Unity and the Unity supported DOTS solution deflated these plans.

    I haven't spoken directly to anyone involved, but generally speaking these topics wont be covered unless they are exciting and purely positive. Considering the lack of information i'm assuming for Bolt this was a bit of a let down where they kinda abandoned the project and Unity saw an opportunity to release something in the meantime to sustain them until the dots solution is released and brush up on such a product by having direct hands on access as they adopt some of the usability of the tech into their own solution.

    I've heard nothing but good things about Bolt, and hopefully Bolt 2 is a worthy successor that people can use to make some neat things in the meantime.

    For us the end result is exciting. They will be releasing a high powered visual scripting solution that is powered by DOTS and hopefully it will have exiting new features that doesn't treat visual scripting as something on a list to check off and they plan to innovate on expanding on the concept. Just going to be a bit.
     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2020
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  33. NeedsLoomis

    NeedsLoomis

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    Because as previously mentioned, and it appears you agree, Unity's visual solution is DOTS based. DOTS is under heavy development, and it changes everything about Unity. It won't be production ready for years, meanwhile most other engines have a visual solution now. Unity was likely in the market for a meaningful visual solution that fits in with the current workflow and doesn't take resources away from DOTS development (which a ground up solution would).

    For most of its life, Ludiq was pretty much a one man team, later adding a community manager. That developer, Lazlo, has *many* large projects on his table that required support, updates, and further development. AMong them are Chronos, Peak, Bolt 1, Bolt 2, and an original game. Lazlo is a very skilled individual who was very involved on a personal level with the Bolt community, all the way up to its last day, but it was getting pretty clear to us that Bolt 2's progress was being held back by a lack of resources, and older projects were getting neglected even more.

    Only Laz and Unity know the truth of his situation and their decisions, but IMHO we had a perfect storm of a large community desperate for updates, a dev eager to free himself of some burden, and a company in the market for a project that would put them in the visual game.

    For the above reasons, I think that's probably not the intent here. Its possible Bolt solved some problems that their engineers have issues with, or lack the time to develop, or perhaps they want a starting point for some aspect of standardization, but that's all hard conjecture.
     
  34. UnityHas

    UnityHas

    Unity Technologies

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    At the moment, we are focusing on ensuring continuous support for Bolt users who need visual scripting for projects not using DOTS, for the lifecycle of our current LTS versions. We want to provide solid visual scripting workflows for both DOTS and not DOTS projects, and Bolt 2 is potentially playing an important role in achieving this goal. The development team is working on this now and wants to finalize the development of Bolt 2.

    While we are doing this, we will be discussing how to get Bolt and DOTS Visual Scripting work great together, more information to be communicated on this in the future.
     
  35. sinjinn

    sinjinn

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    This sounds interesting. Very interesting. More information on this please.
     
  36. TextusGames

    TextusGames

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    Hello. Where do you get this screenshot. Is this official unreal development or some kind of plugin?
     
  37. PanthenEye

    PanthenEye

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    They're called Magic Nodes. Free extension on the Unreal Marketplace. Unreal awarded the guy the Epic Mega Grant to continue development. It's an interesting approach but also technically challenging, he's basically developing his own IDE inside the engine - custom autocomplete, custom everything. It's sorta like Unity's Script Inspector, but inside a graph node.
     
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  38. guybro_thunderboots

    guybro_thunderboots

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    If I recall correctly, and I possibly don't, in order to develop custom nodes for Bolt 2 you are required to write a C# generator per node. EG, if I want to make some very clean nodes to wrap Unity's new Input System logic, beyond writing the nodes I'll have also write code to generate C# containing the logic of those nodes -- a daunting and not particularly productive task compared to the final output.

    With Unity acquiring Bolt, will any of that change in the future? I'm asking as I believe developers as well as asset authors will want to have tighter integrations with Bolt beyond "just use the C# API on this MonoBehaviour in Bolt", but that's not feasible if developers are expected to write their own code generation.
     
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  39. RealityDotStop

    RealityDotStop

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    Regular C# integrates for "free", which covers most use cases (as all existing assets expose a C# api). There are a few places where this falls flat, such as if the asset is expecting you to derive from a class or use Attributes. While Bolt is generating C# in the final build, it (currently) isn't able of incorporating either of those.

    Which is where the custom nodes come in, and yes, since they have to be able to generate valid C# code for the final build, the node author has to describe how to generate the end product code that should be added to the users project for the node. There isn't really a way around this (how else does the output build know what to do? It has to run something, Only the original node author can provide that)

    The old developer of Bolt was of the opinion (and I agreed with him), that the better solution was to make the other methods of extending Bolt (macro libraries, classes, C# integration) needed more features to make Custom Nodes required less frequently, rather than making it easier to use them. Ideally, the user would never need to create Custom Nodes (and indeed, the overwhelming majority of Bolt 1 users never did), even for custom asset integrations because the other methods are simpler, and the features would cover the use cases.

    However, with a whole Unity team on hand to provide solid documentation, it will be interesting to see the direction they go in.
     
  40. nightmoon10

    nightmoon10

    Joined:
    Jun 2, 2020
    Posts:
    1
    If I buy Bolt1 now, won't I get access to Bolt 2? (Because today June 3).
    If I will not get automatically access to Bolt2 if I buy now Bolt1, when will Bolt 2 will be ready? I think I have no reason to buy Bolt 1 if Bolt 2 comes out soon.
    Thank you.
     
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  41. PanthenEye

    PanthenEye

    Joined:
    Oct 14, 2013
    Posts:
    2,037
    As per acquisition FAQ, recent Bolt purchases after the 31st of May won't get Bolt 2 upgrade for free. That's all we know for now. We're still hoping Bolt 2 will be free for everyone, but that's up to Unity.

    As for the release being near, I wouldn't bet on that. Unity are still in the middle of knowledge transfer and last alpha before the acquisition was quite unstable. If I had to guess, I'd say Bolt 2 will get stable by the end of this year or early next year. Definitely not in a month or two.

    As a rule of thumb, you shouldn't wait for new tools for which you don't even know the release date for. Work with what you have now, otherwise you'll always be waiting for the next big thing that's just around the corner. Bolt 2 has been just around the corner for a year now.
     
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  42. saarwii

    saarwii

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2014
    Posts:
    24
    Hi! I've been working in bolt now, on and of for a couple of months. I dont know if i am missing something super obvious but i dont seem to get my builds to work. Like, they start up and run, but behaviors in the game is not as expected, things not scrolling like they should, values and variables not updating or lerping as they should. I hade the same problem on an IOS build i did, then it was just that i forgot to do the AOT Pre-build step....but now (on a different project) it's the same behavior on android, ios and PC standalone builds... It's not easy for you guys to say exactly what im doing wrong, i was just wondering if anyone have had the same experience and how they fixed it

    it seems that my flows and graphs are not updating either, not in the right order, not at all or partialy. For example i have a graph that does ads a small amount of Torque when a custom trigger fiers...it also ads some force etc etc on the object....it ads the force, but not the torque....i also have a menu where i can change variable in game to try out different values...when i change stuff there, values that shouldnt be affected gets affected... I also have a scrolling texture flow i did in bolt, when i first start the game it does not work, but after a while when i have changed the state a couple of times it kicks in! I am wondering if i am missing doing some very obvious assembly, prebuild step,.....yea...anything
     
  43. sinjinn

    sinjinn

    Joined:
    Mar 31, 2019
    Posts:
    149
    I dont know if this might fix your problem, but I had similar things while using Playmaker for a few days now. state not switching to next one.

    So the answer was that I had Enter Play Mode Settings checked, for the faster reload times. So i guess obviously thats not a good idea while working on scripts. Maybe that is your problem, maybe not.
     
  44. saarwii

    saarwii

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2014
    Posts:
    24

    Thanks for the response, but that was not the problem. Enter play mode is not check. The problem is not in the editor, but when i build the game for different platform. It's hard do debug the states since you dont see them in a build game :/
     
  45. guybro_thunderboots

    guybro_thunderboots

    Joined:
    Aug 27, 2015
    Posts:
    45
    I have to disagree: the way I write C# is radically different from the way I wrap that C# in higher-level constructs that drive gameplay. To be clear, I'm not interested in Bolt as a C# replacement, but as a better way of driving my gameplay logic and tying together the disparate pieces into one cohesive flow.

    The most direct comparison I can think of is my usage of FlowCanvas, another flow graph tool similar to Bolt. With it, I can create nodes via a simple API that marks their input and output ports, and invoke those on demand via regular lifecycle methods (Start, Update, ...), event-driven logic (hooking into a C# event or what have you), or basic invocation (invoked by another node).

    For example, I have a "Move 2D" node to drive 2d movement on a grid, taking into account limitations of the grid, the possible existence of certain "data-only" MonoBehaviours on the object, as well as other considerations such as tracking internal state and activating different output connections whenever certain events happen. I could have written this as a single locomotion component in C#, but then I would lose the ability to arbitrarily target any GameObject in the world and have it be driven by the same logic, as well as have to wrangle event-handling and everything else that comes with a MonoBehaviour or straight class-based implementation.[1] It's a non-trivial exercise.

    Again, while I believe as a C# substitute Bolt is fine, I am hopeful that Bolt 2 will move toward enabling higher-level functionality to be built on top of it without requiring code generation or having to re-create the C# equivalent in a macro graph, both of which are time-consuming and unnecessary in certain situations such as my example.

    [1]: I did this once. Non-trivial is an understatement: there's a lot of things you have to take into consideration when implementing a behavior like this that go away when you're baking it into a framework like FlowCanvas. The FlowCanvas version came out to be much cleaner by virtue of being able to leverage concepts inherit to visual scripting such as multiple flow outputs that support asynchronous execution.
     
  46. nagasaidandu

    nagasaidandu

    Joined:
    Sep 26, 2015
    Posts:
    3
    I got Bolt today. Will I still get Bolt 2 licence ?
     
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  47. Dark-Link

    Dark-Link

    Joined:
    Jun 3, 2015
    Posts:
    3
    I also would like to know that. Will people who buy BOlt today also get Bolt 2 license for free?
     
    LaurentGibert likes this.
  48. profuzzy

    profuzzy

    Joined:
    Mar 13, 2015
    Posts:
    46
    I see the price is $21usd but no info for if upgrade to v2 included or not.
    Sigh,.. how can something so basic to a salable product be so easily overlooked ?

    AKA:
    V1 only, no upgrade to version2
    OR
    Includes V2 update
    OR
    we're giving away v2 with unity 2021, but we would like some extra loot.. (I'll happily pay)

    .. but I'm not giving any money without knowing what's up.
     
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  49. RealityDotStop

    RealityDotStop

    Joined:
    Mar 4, 2013
    Posts:
    42

    The idea was to extend Bolt's ability to generate nodes from C# (which it can do, but only from a method level, and there are some limitations, such as only one exiting control flow) so that it would support most of those things without ever touching the Custom Unit API, exactly to get around the need for code generation and the "fiddly bits". Instead, you'd make a new class, add a few attributes and *poof*, you'd get a node that would call your C# and the extra markup you're adding instructs Bolt on how to handle the extra bits of information. But it's still calling your C#, and there's no need for the user to ever have to worry about codegen.

    Ironically, Bolt 1 operates much closer to Flow Canvas and does support creating custom nodes without the need for codegen, because it doesn't generate code at build. I wouldn't call the API simple, and there were perks to each of the styles. I discussed this on the forum and on discord with the creator at length, and you can see some of the differences here:
    https://support.ludiq.io/communitie...-and-why-custom-units-might-not-be-the-answer
    and his thoughts on what direction to take things in the future.

    When the Bolt 2 design spec came around, he'd expanded on the comments he left on that post, but I don't think they're available for viewing anymore since the acquisition. But the idea was to continue extending through markup the ability to call C# so that you have more control over how your code gets handled by Bolt, but it's just that, your code, with instructions to Bolt in how to call it and the multiple input/output delegates, whether it requires coroutine (such as accessing Waits), etc. But it's still calling code that is present in your project, not needing to to generate code to inject. Custom Units can't get away from that, because Bolt 2 is running 100% generated code, and funneling users that direction is much more complex, as you have noted.

    Again, Unity might have different design goals, and I'm not even trying to disagree with you. I'm just here to explain why Custom Units are the dirty laundry, why almost no one ever needed to use them, why they require code gen, and the original plan to arrive at a point where 99% of users never needed to dabble in them at all because the features expanded to a point where they overlapped. We currently aren't there, which is why we're in a position where we have to think about how we would accomplish tasks like you highlight.
     
  50. RealityDotStop

    RealityDotStop

    Joined:
    Mar 4, 2013
    Posts:
    42
    Purchases through the 31st of May honored the original developers promise that Bolt 2 was a free upgrade. Unity have not announced their intentions with regards to pricing, other than they aren't changing anything immediately. When it arrives, Bolt 2 could be free, $500, or anything else, we don't know as they haven't announced any decisions.

    Based on what we do know, however, purchases now are not guaranteed to include V2 for free.
     
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