Unity is Coming to the iPhone!

I'd guess this means that it can, for example, add or multiply two textures together and do some other operations. So your shader can use texture combine functions which could use the color from textures as a source.

 

Thank you for this. I think the www vs. socket&multiplayer tradeoff is fine. We all want the most for our expenditure, but over and over again, I see your team as genuinely seeking the best balance for us customers.

Keep up the excellent (and inspiring!) work.

 

What that means is that we let someone too engineering focused write that bit of the feature page. It's now been pre-digested a bit into something more friendly:

"Unity exposes the full multi-texture capabilities of the iPhone. All aspects of the iPhone graphics pipeline can be modified through Unity's easy to use shader language."


Refresh the iPhone Publishing feature page and you'll see that I've updated things a bit.

 

I noticed on the features page, under "High Performance Scripting", Javascript and C# are explicitly mentioned. Will Boo be available for use as well?

 

Boo? Yes.

 

Will it be possible to disable the idle timer on the iPhone so that games that only use accelerometer inputs won't auto sleep? Equivalent to the Objective-C code:

Code (csharp):

1.   [ [UIApplication sharedApplication] setIdleTimerDisabled:TRUE ];

Also, will we be able to switch to an Objective-C view (for example an options/info screen), and then back to the Unity game view? Or should we plan to handle all UI in Unity?

 

Check out the demo of our first Unity iPhone game, iSnowboard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsVz8L0zMTY

Hopefully when Unity/iPhone is released on the 22nd we'll see similar performance (fingers crossed!), unless of course the Unity guys want to give us access to a pre-release version... hint, hint

What I would really like to know is if we are in the ballpark here: max tris per frame 5.5k total, no shaders or lights (using baked textures), physics uses a rigidbody and capsule collider for the Player, and mesh colliders for the terrain. What do you think our chances of getting 30 fps is?

 

Can we use the 'pinch' (the two fingers moving towards each other) as an input in the games we make?

And can we use more rigidbodies if we have a really low polygon (less than 2k) count?

 

I keep seeing these questions like "can my game perform well on iPhone." Just download some free and inexpensive demos that look like what you are doing and see how it plays. It's probably your best way to feel things out until you get your hands on the real thing or play some games that were actually developed in Unity.

Just a suggestion.

 

Alright, that's a good plan. But I have seen no pinch inputs on the demos I've looked at (granted, I haven't looked at a whole lot). Can we do that?

 

Was this developed with the BETA?

Looks good!

EDIT: Oops I see it is just a video...

 

Even with the Apple SDK they don't have a 'pinch' event, you have to roll your own by tracking the changing positions of two touch events. Each touch event has a unique ID number so you can access each touch separately.

Will we be able to track two (or more) independent touch events in Unity?

 

Yes.

There will be some ability to use Objective-C UI but I'm frankly not up to speed on all that will (or won't be) possible.

In general yes, you're in the right ballpark, the only thing that stands out there is a mesh collider on your terrain, that could get expensive and be a potential performance drain.

We will have full multi-touch control, if you choose to use that to create a pinch zoom-in/out then so be it.

Fewer polys means lower processor demands which in turn leaves more room for "other things", which may include more rigid bodies. Ultimately as Aaron said it will be up to your testing as to what works (or not) in your particular case.

 

Thanks for sharing the video.

 

Three more days! Man this has been a long wait.

 

what time will we be able to buy it online? 3 am EST? if so i am so staying up!

 

Chill out, relax and it'll be up some time tomorrow leaving you plenty of time to play with it on launch day.

 

and there it is...

 

I BOUGHT IT!!!!!!!!!! WOHOOOO!!

 

Downloading now - do you need to remove the current unity app or just leave it as it is ?


<Edit> nope you dont as is a separate app

 

Is the link to download only available after you purchase? Because in the download section I only see Unity 2.1.

@HiggyB
Btw, I like the new layout of the store. I only have one question, how do we upgrade from iPhone Indie to iPhone Advance? Is it through email? We only have to pay the difference between Advanced and Indie, right? Because atm there is no iPhone license upgrade available at the store.

Regards,
Afonso

 

If your serial number is an iPhone Standard serial, and you are buying iPhone Advanced, it will give you a discount before you check out.

 

OK, I'm ready to buy but first I just want to hear from someone that has already bought it.

Were you able to download something to an iPhone and have it run in a reasonable manner? Does iPhone Unity work at all?

I'm still feeling pretty burned by GG iTGB. :evil:

 

Congrats Unity on the launch! I'll be picking it up soon.

 

Were can I find the documentation that explains the difference between the Standard and the Advanced version of the iPhone?

And does any one know how hard is to negotiate with apple to distribute the game for iPhone?

Thanks!

 

I'm getting my copy tomorrow evening!!! I'm so excited

 

The process to get an app on the Apple AppStore is documented. See http://developer.apple.com/iphone/

I don't have personal experience yet with distributing a production app but plenty of people do. It sounds reasonable. If you're clever enough to develop an iPhone game, you can handle the submission process.

 

Details of differences here ... http://unity3d.com/unity/licenses#iphone

To distribute games is easy (I have three out working on numbers 4 and now with Unity 5 and 6). You have to be a registered developer (minimum $99 fee with Apple) and will need to have Xcode iPhone SDK installed and also all your profile/provisioning certificates in place. The process of signing up withy Apple, being approved, giving them $99, setting up a business bank account, and sending in all the required tax and business/banking forms (to Austin Texas) takes about 3 weeks to complete on average.

 

When you purchase a license you'll get a confirmation email with your serial number and download URL. We won't have a trail download right off the website, you'll need to write as and request one just like you do for Unity Pro.

As Charles said, just go through like you're purchasing a full Advanced license and you'll be able to enter your Basic serial to get the discount. That is not optimal and is something we want to smooth out.

If you look at the Unity iPhone Publishing feature page you'll note that at the bottom is a link to here:

Unity License Comparison

Check that out.

It's not really a matter of "negotiating", you simply submit and are either approved or not. I'm not sure that there's much in the way of bargaining/negotiating to be done.

 

I've read the license page to determine the difference between indie and pro but can anyone tell me if the any of the graphic improvements on pro are available on the iphone pro version?

Does pro allow more complex shaders or shadows or any other graphical advantage?

 

ok posted in the support section the error I cant get past http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=15051

looked up how to go about things in the manual but cant see anything in the manual about iphone stuff - is there a new manual somewhere?

thanks

 

Apparently

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. body.isKinematic = true;

Is not supported on the iphone... .

Is it or just not working for me?

 

That should work, although it should be rigidbody. If you're having trouble then please post a thread in the iPhone Publishing forum.

 

Publishing for iPhone and iPod touch means the same? We work with the same SDK and executable?

Thanks!

 

Phew. Just got my copy of Unity iPhone Standard. Awesome. Still downloading over the hotel wireless here in Copenhagen. Great job UT!

 

I am testing iPhone Unity too, a couple of rooms away I guess It's been a great day and looking forward to more tomorrow!

 

Yes.

 

I'm thinking about buying the Advanced version in order to take advantage of the discount, however the main reason why I want it is built-in multiplayer, which isn't available yet. Will it be added in 1.x updates to iPhone advanced?

Regards,
Afonso

 

Sorry about the slow reply. We haven't offered any firm commitments as to if/when our built-in multiplayer features will make it into Unity iPhone. As such I think that it's best for you to assume the worst case scenario (that it won't be added, at least not in 1.x) and make your decision from there. I'm sorry that I don't have a better answer but it's just not wise for me to falsely promise that it's on the way then have it not turn up and you be angry for having spent your money on bad info from me.