Unity Roadmap

This is great news.

 

Awesome news, thank you so much all the team

 

Wow, can't wait to play with all these new features!

It's great to see that you are working on Perforce/SVN integration and the debugger!

 

I have a question about the SVN integration you are working on. If you plan on making Unity work with SVN/Perforce, won't that mean everyone who has bought and is going to buy the unity assets server kinda getting screwed since the assets server is basically Unity's own "SVN" application?

 

Excellent roadmap, all the critical things I'm currently missing are on it (profiler, debugger, SVN). Unity is already so good, but it's going to become godly

 

Thanks for the info!

I have been pushed away from game-making for far too long, but will be returning to Unity again very soon! Can't wait. Hope I'm not too rusty...

 

Sounds awesome guys. I love the openness. *high-five*

 

I'm happy that folks are enjoying the road map information so much!

 

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me the roadmaps are really about the business nature of using Unity. Almost all businesses have a need to understand where their core technology investments are going (I suspect you do keep an eye on where Mono project is headed). While personally, the details are interesting tech points, knowing what You (the Unity team) are focusing on, helps me plan and budget/target my time.

Folding in lessons learned from fusionfall is huge if I am looking at networked games! Knowing you're adding better animation tooling helps me decide if I need to get another tool for animation right now, or wait and perhaps spend the money differently.

All in all, I think these roadmaps are fantastic, and I thank you for taking this approach.

Thanks,

Galen

 

Want to second that question.
The license fees for the Asset Server are definitely not nothing (500 per user seat, not per company), so I would like to know what the plans are for those who invested the $500 into the Asset Server support, which was mentioned several times to be in development and get more common features.

Is it fair to assume, that for fairness, the possibility to use SVN and Perforce will be restricted to those owning an asset server license?

 

Regarding SVN/P4/Unity Asset Server, there are a few approaches being considered but we're not public with those just yet. Suffice it to say we want to introduce things in a way that avoids making people feel "screwed" in any way.

 

Great stuff, and kudos for the new push on dev visibility and openness.

Looking forward to future releases.

-Jeremy

 

thank you
Not that I assumed that that is the idea

 

Do you already have an idea when we will see updated PhysX libraries in Unity?

Other than that, great with the openess and sharing the info with us. Greatly appreciated!!!

 

Concerning Visual Studio Integration:

I ran away from Windows screaming at the gods vowing never to return. Now that your embracing the beast please don't forget to give some love to your Mac developers. We are also in need of a good script editing tool (code folding, auto-complete, etc). Don't forget your roots 8)

-James

 

I am sure when MonoDevelop becomes stable enough they will do their best to support it as well, but the fact is that VC# is the best IDE for C#, and there is currently no comparable solution for the mac (yet).

-Jeremy

 

I read around here that doing an upgrade to that and Mono isn't simple at all, so I wouldn't expect it before 3.0. But.... I love to be wrong about stuff like this!

 

The openness is very much appreciated.

I felt like making gambles to anticipate features was not a healthy way to develop (like 'client side caching of webplayer assets', or 'Unity networking on the iPhone').

Having an idea of what is on the roadmap helps with planning projects and will save time.

 

Joachim,
This transparency is great, and very welcome.
Cheers for changing a core UT policy to make life easier out here in the wild.

Most appreciated,

AaronC

 

It goes 2 ways though, doesnt it.

If its licensed in a way where you have to pay money to use a free tool (SVN in this case), some people will feel screwed.

If it goes the other way with someone having purchased AS client seat license, and suddenly its "free to use", then that guy would feel screwed maybe.

My personal oppinion is - and I *did* pay AS client license already - that is should be used as a differentiator to buying the pro version. Meaning it should be free for pro users.

Yes I did pay extra to get the AS client license - and so what. It was money well spend until now, but easy integration with SVN and Perforce is much much more important for Unity as a whole. Its only $500, and I have then been able to use asset server for a year until now vs. not having had the ability. So the money has been well spend for me.

And if Unity wants to reimburse people, they can give AS client license holders a rebate coupon for the 3.0 upgrade some day.

My €0.02 worth of oppinion

 

+1 Thomas! Good thoughts.

 

Now that is a good idea. I can see the people who have used the assets server for a long time already not feeling as "screwed" when SVN/Perforce integration is released, but what about people are are in the trail/just bought a copy (and I assume there are quite a bit of them since the new release to windows). I am ones of those and was planning to buy the assets server (only because SVN is not supported) and now I see the SVN support is going to be release before 3.0 so now I am really conflicted because spending and extra 500 on an add-on for an application that is going to be integrating a free version of the same functionality (and the 500 dollar add-on functionality is not as good as the free one from what I can read).

I agree with Thomas's idea of giving credit to people who purchased the assets server on their upgrade to version 3.0. I am going to be very reluctant to purchase the assets server until I know the full details on how it is going to be effected by SVN integration.

 

+1 Thomas

 

how about add ActiveX allowed in programer? like VB C# office and so on.

 

Quite some features in there are very welcome, others, well, i don't care this much about.

What i'm missing in the post 2.6 listing are some features which contribute more to the smaller developers and/or ex/parallel director devs. Game fun enabling features like soft bodies (the whole physics system could use some rework), two mice support (for the local multiplayer games that actually make fun), Ruby (for the less C++ minded), shader editor (still very welcome), runtime switchable AA (business), softsynth (filesize&fun), ... such things .

Anyway interesting read and i wonder what hold you back so long doing so.

 

Too bad there is no plan to have better audio support. Because right now, I think it's one of Unity's biggest weakness

 

The roadmap is a good thing to know.
NIce move, UT. Rock on 8)

also +1 Thomas

 

Note that completely new features are often introduced in major releases (like 2.0, 3.0, 4.0), while the minor releases (like 2.5, 2.6 etc.) are more about fixing problems and improving (and maybe extending) what we already have.

The roadmap only discussed 2.x features, but that doesn't mean we don't have other things on our radar too, which we however are not ready to talk about yet as they are much further down the line.

(In case it wasn't clear: This post did not promise anything of any kind.)

Rune

 

Nice use of small print Rune

But yes, this roadmap doesn't go further than what we plan on doing in the immediate future so the absence of that killer feature you've been waiting for in this roadmap does not mean that it's not on the plate of things to do. 3.0 and beyond probably will not be talked about as openly until we get closer to these releases.

 

3.0 and beyond discussions are in fact _not_ being shared just yet. For now the door has opened to show where we're going with the current product line, how we'll handle what you have paid for and are using. As Ethan and Rune noted, when we get closer to 3.0 we'll share some bits around that but for now, no.

And guys, about the Asset Server, I already said we're looking at ways to avoid folks feeling screwed. Much of what you've said has already been discussed in some way. I'm not committing to any "answer" here, I'm just noting that we are looking at a very wide range of options already.

 

Awesome news, awesome team... thank you so much !!!

 

svn for unity3d? oh my god, heaven on earth

 

Thank you Unity team! With all these new features provided as part of Unity 2.x it really provides a lot of value for the money I spent to purchase Unity Pro. The list of new features looks like a Christmas list, which is scheduled to arrive before Christmas

Brian

 

To finally respond: Cool. I have my own little wish list I need to dig out and compare with the roadmap (along with some "lettuce" to help things along hehe), but it looks sweet. The main thing that stood out that I've been clamoring for, that seemingly is not that hard to fix, is to let me have photoshopped font textures in the 2.0 GUI skins. I've never even got any hack to work for it and I really miss my photoshopped GUI fonts.

Cheers,
-Jon

 

Hmm i don't think so as a) this is a matter of definition and b) when looking at the roadmap's featurelist there are also examples like the Debugger and Performance Profiler which for sure are more new features instead of fixes/smaller improvements, so i really don't see how a two mice support or enhancements on the physics front would count as new features compared to those.

It's more what you prefer focusing on and were you see the greater lack/demand for Unity. As for instance i said often enough, all the MMO stuff is rather oversized for the majority of the smaller developers but those tiny but small features can make a difference in game design which every developer can make usage of.

I mean isn't it really a pitty that you even can't do a fair and well steerable two player pong beeing played at one computer due to the lack of missing two mice input?! To be fair you'll have to use the keyboard which on the other side sucks compared to a steering via a mouse for the more analog input, etc.

 

You better not only listen to what the majority wants as depending on the experience of your audience this could mess up your product. Secondly it's not that simple because you shouldn't forget that certain kind of features also bread certain type of games, so if you're implementing interesting stuff then you'll mostly benefit from it as well. I would welcome more gameplay enabling features.

 

Awesome roadmap! Thank you!

I've put it on the wish list a while ago but I would love 'git' support along with SVN if you guys ever get around to that -- if I ever have the choice, I always pick git. (hah that rhymed!)

Look forward to the next versions and definitely looking forward to more features on the networking side!

 

what does it mean, that you will support VS 2008?
does this mean, that you will support code intellisense in VS 2008 with Unity 2.6?

 

That already works today - check the wiki on how to do that

 

thanks
you mean this topic in the wiki?

Documentation for UnityEngine.dll and UnityEditor.dll

in
[url]http://www.unifycommunity.com/wiki/index.php?title=Setting_up_Visual_Studio_for_Unity
[/url]
but this is for Unity 2.1

is this file somewhere for 2.5

 

I also payed Pro+Asset, and I'd prefer that Unity creates a better Asset Server (i.e. with proper versioning, tags, branches, etc) than doing a refund.

And if in the future they add something (say version 2 for Asset Server) that does a better art workflow (e.g. you check differences between images by really seeing them side by side, and the same for models / prefabs, maybe storing notes like a asset merging tool from the XSI guys that I saw, assuming that it needs changes in the Asset Server and not just on Unity's Editor side) then _maybe_ they can still make it a payed upgrade, maybe they can drop the price tag a bit, depended on the changes.

Regards,
Afonso

 

Is there a Mono development mailing list we can subscribe to that the Unity folks are using to communicate with the Mono folks about the Unity Mono Debugger?

 

Both versions of the documentation files are there in the wiki. The 2.5 files are at http://www.unifycommunity.com/wiki/images/d/d2/Visual_Studio_docs_2.5.zip and the DLLs are in your Unity install directory.

 

I'd figure: mono-devel-list@lists.ximian.com

But you must be using another alias...

 

Have you looked in the C# port of rawmouse? Maybe it is of use for you?

 

Nope, because it won't help you with the webplayer.

 

Any idea as to how close things are getting to Unity iPhone 1.1 release?? Of particular interest is 1) downloadable content and 2) bluetooth networking.

 

Where did you see that downloadable content and bluetooth networking was included in Unity iPhone v1.1?

The roadmap said some of those elements MAY make it to 1.1, but definitely don't count on any of it until you see what ships.