Unity acquires Weta Digital for $1.6 Billion

unity announcement: https://blog.unity.com/news/welcome-weta-digital
Another forum thread announcement: https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-announces-intent-to-acquire-weta-digital.1195474/#post-7643149

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What do those guys do? Movie fx?

 

https://blog.unity.com/news/welcome-weta-digital

Asset library is just a part of the whole thing but it sounds interesting. Sounds like a great start for Unity's own asset library (like Megascans). But that's just my wishful thinking

 

Yup.

It was used in: "Avatar, Black Widow, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Planet of the Apes, Wonder Woman, The Suicide Squad, and more."

In the blog post you can see an intro into their tools & what it does.
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I thought their Asset library would be available for unity users, asset download or the like.
I guess not -- than again, it's probably not game-ready, so it would need some work.

 

I'm wondering if it means that they want to use their software like SpeedTree/Pixyz to process the source content for the full spectrum of targets (lods, resolutions etc.) or just that it will be possible for users to do it 'manually'.

 

Directly from the official Unity blog:

What this exactly results to is TBD; but still very exciting news!

 

A big part unity keeps mentioning (CEO in Q3 webinar), is that they want to get more artists.
Not just for the 'unity' engine, but in general.

 

Whoever did this, I send them a big virtual high-five.
(They say it was made by a Unity employee)

 

I see more paid products like ArtEngine in this acquisition.

 

Unreal: game dev advantage now for free
Unity: Maybe later, for a price, we don't know

Those fornite V-Buck do wonder, it's the superior business plan, unity should use all it's analytic powerhouse to enter this game, you know ... game making game.

 

Seems like Unity's IPO money is burning a hole in their pocket. Buying up a bunch of somewhat related companies for billions each is something which I've seen end in the slow death of the company, when the new acquisitions end up not bringing in large revenue streams and the company ends up so distracted with all their new toys that they neglect their original products and services.

I hope this doesn't go the way I expect.

 

One thing that is giving me hope is:

I just hope those new people are not mostly survey specialists.

 

Thing about Unity buying Weta is their future demo movies are going to be SICK AF.
Marketing wise it's game over for epic haha...

 

Unreal is weta at this point, they already won with Mandalorian when you didn't realized it was all unreal rendering and no on site footage. And it works with game too. Game over for unity IMHO, Godot is the next unity.

 

Hey it was just a joke. There are no winners or losers, however disney no longer uses Unreal for the mandalorian, long since taking the technique inhouse and doing their own version. They're at a scale where they use engines for prototyping.

 

What is also exciting about this is as a character artist, I'll be able to use their character tools such as facial performance capture and apply it to my projects.

For the last few months, I've been QUIETLY getting back into Unity and I've learned so much

 

Yeah but I mean it has signal the know how and practicality to the market, while unity hasn't, it's a proof of concept that's a god damn convincing, and then Lumen and Nanite kind of twist the knife in the wound, even with their current limitation. And lookatchu little metahuman:

If anything Unity legs up is probably in machine learning, if they find a way to be the first on market and democratize neural radiance field (NeRF) type of technique, they win the whole lottery. That's the new next paradigm.
https://www.matthewtancik.com/nerf
It works both as compression, scene representation and rendering. Imagine making complex scene, send them to a server that compress them to nerf, then use that as static scene in game.

They haven't disclose any use yet, just an acquisition, if it was tools like metahuman, I would be excited.

 

Genuinely made me laugh. Good one
Godot is so behind it hurts to think about.
And the community around it doesn't help godot's reputation at all.

 

It is also free and you can modify the source and make it your own, there is much to be said for that, for some people.

 

It is, but baby grow up, the problem is that it sandwich unity between high end like Unreal with mature workflow, and grassroot projects, and it's getting more and more attention as it mature. Unity is quickly becoming good an neither, mostly relying on original inertia. Remember at one point unity was at that same point, I used unity 2.x and I see it going past established engine the same way godot is doing right now if anything goes the same trajectory.

 

Is it though? growing up?
Godot 4 has been coming for so long.
Unreal 5 is releasing, HDRP & URP maturing, and yet godot 4 is still not here. Even an alpha is still not here.
It's development is painfully slow.

You'd think it would have a ton of major changes, tons of features, but it doesn't.
Just low level stuff, and a few features. In the meantime, how many HDRP, URP, Unity updates have been out? Improvements, features, fixes.

Unless development picks up pace, it will always be behind.
Unreal and unity are moving way faster than godot.
HDRP is in a pretty good state right now. Tons of high-end 3d graphical features, performance is improving (and 2022 might be massive for performance) etc. And you get to use unity's workflow which I much prefer. Editor, and C#.

URP is great for the crazy amount of platforms it supports. Consoles, mobile, switch, and others.
It's built to be fast for all type of hardware, with features that can scale down to switch or mobile.

I do agree that the SRP situation has been a mess, but for better or worse, we're deep in.
Both are in a much better state now with 2021.2. You want high-end 3D graphics? Pick HDRP.
Anything else, including if you want to support switch or mobile? Pick URP.
Even URP is still capable of beautiful graphics.
SRP batcher for both is a big performance win too.

And these two are built with C#, completely open to custom changes.

 

I smell a bunch of subscription based services coming our way at high speeds.

I hate "cloud based" software. I have a perfectly good CPU and / or I am more than willing to buy an even higher end one if needed. I don't know why software needs to be cloud based.

The new ArtEngine app is more evidence that things are going this way: Even though the app could store stuff and then let my PC process them, or even better, have my phone do the processing, it is uploading the photos I take, so the "cloud service" can run the seam - fix algorithm. I hate it. Just use my hardware.

 

ask MySpace

 

I mean, I feel as Unity users "thing has been coming for so long" and slow development is something that we can't really hold against anyone else without being full blown hypocrites.

Or do we need to talk about how long it took Unity to,

• Make DOTS production ready
• Create a replacement that is equivalent to Beast
• A realtime GI replacement for Enlighten
• Create a UI system that doesn't suck
• Make an Input System that doesn't suck
• Make an Animation system that doesn't suck

etc etc

(btw the answer is "undefined" for all the above, because they haven't really achieved any of them)

I think if Godot 4 is half the jump ahead it promises to be, it will be catching up to Unity really fast, at least for those that care about making games.

 

Sure, unity is slow in some places. A complete mess in others. (Enlighten...)
but in general, when comparing godot -- we are talking about the state of the engine in general.
Graphical features, performance, tools, animation, etc. All continuously developed with the engine.
People focus on the bad, they forget the good. Which will become quite noticeable if you actually start working with godot right now on a 3D game that isn't something simple.

Unity is so big, there's a lot being worked on. Tons of packages and features.
DOTS being one of them.


I mean let's just focus on 2021.2.
HDRP got volumetric clouds, FSR/DLSS, Lens flare, tessellation, Marschner hair/fur.
URP got a ton of stuff.
Built-in is still there, no new features since the fire nation attacked and it's still far ahead.

These are some of the new features. If we were to include improvements the list would be very long. Same with fixes.
And of course, this is ignoring and unity core improvements/features.

Graphically, unity far surpasses godot. As for HDRP, it's light years ahead.
Unreal, same situation. Far ahead of godot.

Performance? Unity, HDRP/URP/Built-in, unreal, all far ahead.
Tools? Same thing.
Godot's terrain is.. right, doesn't have one.
Godot popular games are.. nevermine, they don't exist.
Stability, pretty sure unity is ahead. Just based on the fact of how many games are out there for both.
No burst/jobs equivalent.

Once you get deep into godot, chances are you'll find a lot of bugs. Not many people are seriously working on games with godot, once it starts actually being worked on, bugs will come to existence left and right.

And development is already slow, this wouldn't help.
Where with unity, it's the opposite. It's being used for games that are small, big, and everything in-between.

By the time godot 4 is out, DOTS 1.0 might even be here. It's literally that slow

 

That's the point where people normally discuss the hourly rate they're going to be paid for doing that.

 

Exactly. Not to mention if I want to fiddle around in C++ I hit up Unreal or if I want a no obligations option then Lumberyard or O3DE. Anything which already has a decent rendering engine.

 

Unity is used for all kinds of games, but most of those games don't really use any feature that Unity has worked on for the last 3-4 years.

HDRP? There are as many games out with it as there are Godot games.

Yes, Godot is unproven. So is every feature Unity has been working on for the last half a decade. The reason people make games with Unity is not because of those, now abandoned features.

IMO Unity is regressing. Godot is improving, albeit slowly. From the perspective of someone who wants to make and release games, I think Godot will catch up soon.

 

Actually HDRP has a bit more
Although admittely it's a close number, not that big of a difference

I see it the other way, unity is improving at a rapid pace compared to godot.
I think many people are using many of the new features of unity.
IMO I see godot as a cool engine to maybe mess around with for fun, but not to create an actual game or serious project.
It's slow to get updates, slow to get fixes, and filled with undiscovered bugs.
Even HDRP, fairly new, has a few big indie games.

 

People always underestimate exponential curve, and how it's harder for big ship to turn.

People focus on their pain point, not abstract marketing cookies

 

I mean, and Godot has the Sonic Colors: Ultimate remaster.

Agree to disagree, I have not seen a completed feature that is actually good from Unity for at least 5 years (although in fairness the completed features are not that many).

I find that these are the same with Unity? Maybe it's even worse with Godot, but for Unity the time from reporting a showstopper bug to getting the fix in a version you can use, is around 9 months in my experience. That is way too long.

Also, every time I delve into a new area of Unity I have never delved before, I find a ton of bugs and weird issues. Doesn't feel like the bugs are discovered (or if they are, they are not fixed in a pace that is relevant to my development cycle)

 

Doesn't look like much, but ignoring that.. godot lead himself said "massive changes" on the C++ side of things made to the engine to make it possible. Also, It was only used as the graphics backend.

And if it was some crazy looking game I'd understand, but it's not.
Ignoring both, that's one single game made by quite a few people.
And from the looks of it, they keep a completely custom version of godot with zero outreach to godot developers (no bug reporting etc). They only found out about it by digging through game files

Not my experience at all.
To focus on one thing, In the last 5 years, HDRP in its entirety is like a new feature, and it works pretty well for me

it's never going to be completed though

I also use many features that were released in 2020 and before for HDRP, including shadow caching, and it works pretty well.

There's also many physx improvements, one of them made kinematic char controllers possible, and I use one (although not made by me) and it's super smooth

 

Finally, when Unity finally finishes and releases the integration with Weta, all of us can finish our Tic-Tac-Toe and Dwarf Fortress clones in HDRP.

 

With lots and lots of VFX, for the true next-gen experience
Cover the entire screen in VFX, who needs a game when you can experience next-gen

 

Sound like any high profile Unity games, even when unity make these heartwarming creator spotlight, anything impressive is highly customized code by specialist ™ like "oh you can do that with URP", "yeah we change a lot of it to make it look like that" or "how do you get rid of stuttering", "we have access to source code". Or you do highly segmented game with colorful gradient and no post processing, dat will show'em!

 

And yet, we call Ori a success for Unity, even though they modified it enough to justify calling it Moonity?

It works pretty well for me as well. Only for Archviz instead of games. I didn't find it that great for games (although it has been a while since I played with it with games in mind).

 

PC Rust, no custom C++ changes as said by garry
Which is a pretty impressive open world game with upwards of 400 players.
Looks pretty damn nice to boot. 3D

The forest, Valheim, Rimworld, etc.
Lots and lots with zero C++ changes.

 

I'll be very happy since I've been designing my custom HMC for performance capture

 

What are the chances it won't be the next ArtEngine? Specialist tools aimed at AAA or Hollywood with an expensive subscription model. I doubt this will bring any benefit to us independent developers. The notion that all these "acquired" experienced engineers will now work on Unity's many pipelines or anything else seems a bit far-fetched. The goal here is profit, and that profit lies in the new subscription service that might not even be Unity based, just Unity integrated.

Certain Unity teams, like most of 2D department, are severely understaffed. And they keep throwing billions at this high end, perhaps not even game related content. Godot and Defold are looking more attractive by the day.

 

I am tired of the Godot boilerplate in this thread about Unity acquiring Weta. This is big and some of you are fussing about Godot and cluttering this thread. Go start another that focuses on your pets thank you.

 

I really wish that unity makes the tools and assets free like unreal.... they can integrate the barbershop tool from weta with this https://portal.productboard.com/uni...ing?utm_medium=social&utm_source=portal_share and the world building tools in the terrain tools package

 

This is not accurate. There were sets, there were several location shots. There was also a lot post production. And Unreal was only used in the first version. The current version of stagecraft has replaced unreal with its in-house engine, Helios. Essentially unreal was used in the prototype.

 

Indeed. No more Godot talk.

 

This Weta malarkey might impress those of you who make little demos and the like but some of us here have a job to do, games to develop & update and Unity's abundance of features that are experimental, half baked or unfocussed for game development doesn't make the job any easier.

It's one thing playing around with features and demos and it's another using it as a tool to earn money and produce actual products.

 

One thing I'm wondering, what is the business potential of democratized movies? I mean, as an aspiring animation studio, how do you make people to pay for your movies?

I mean a small game can blew up and be a constant stream of revenue, because the way game are sold is rather direct, game can be shops too, games can be platform, even within another platform.

But movies? especially small homegrown movies? isn't the business tied to curated platform holder? Which mean platform are a big financial bottleneck? Even at medium scale (say Netflix series) there is probably only a few viable studio number before the market saturated, because of said bottleneck, and even fewer at bigger scale (cinema movies). If unity is banking on attracting new creators with movie, I feel like the market need a rather radical shift in distribution and monetization of movies, and then there is free platform like the Youtubes that suck dry the field a bit of that business angle. Discovery and engagement are being a big problem too. If Unity expect to break big into new market like they did with mobile, I'm not sure that's it, it's more of a marketing power move for clout. Clout don't pay the bills. I hope they use this to bank into the blurring of animation, movies and games.

One reason I turned to game is that animation, as a business, is clotured financially. It's easier to build an audience with games, because games have innate reason to engage repeatedly with them. Games should be the core focus, with animation and graphism as added values. However I think that's one weakness of Unity, they don't know how to create and sustain IP, unlike unreal, that's not a know how they structurally have baked at the organizational level. That's why not making games is a big mistakes, and their demo tend to reflect that too.

 

Well, there's "Blair Witch", "Phantasm" ... "Night of the Living Dead", and probably few others.

Relatively small budget and big success. Relatively small means six figures, though.

 

That's outliers, they still had to go through many gatekeeping middlemen. The problem isn't the budget or the size of an eventual team, it's the market for countless of these team to exist and survive. My point is that games are closer to a free market with at least mostly hands off middle men.

 

But games aren't a market for countless teams to survive. Most projects are failures.

For example, steam has 92 thousand games at the moment. How many of those do you know?

 

It's true, and the point is that it's worse for movies, get it?

 

I think they just bought Weta because of the compatible cultures in both companies.