Unity Roadmap

+1, we have not publicly committed to those in appearing in the 1.1 update.

 

Should've been two separate questions:

Q1.- Any idea as to how close Unity is to releasing iPhone v1.1?

Q2.- Downloadable content and bluetooth networking part of v1.1? Based on Tom's response I'm guessing this is still not nailed down at the moment.

 

A1. Nothing firm to commit to just yet, "soon"?
A2. Not nailed down at all, bear with us and we'll see what, if anything we can do. But assuming nothing, that way we can only exceed expectations.

 

For the Unity 2.6 update. What updates will be for the indie version and what updates for pro version. Or will it be for both. Just curious. :?:

 

Both...there are no separate Indie and Pro versions, it's just one program.

--Eric

 

Will the Animation Timeline window be part of the update for indie to?

 

Yes.

 

No new platforms? Or is that going to be saved for a 3.x?

 

The 2.6 is a point-release update for the existing product as such it's not focused on new platforms.

 

And what better thing to do that update a bug fix an already great product !

 

When the approximate output of 2.6 version?

this bug fix needed http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=24265&highlight=direct3d

 

end of summer from what mentioned.


But before 2.6, there will (according the informations given) first be a 2.5.1 bugfix release.

 

Quoted for truth. The 2.5.1 release is imminent (as in we are days away) and we're already underway (internally) with 2.6, but we don't have a firm release date to share so the best we have to offer is "later this summer".

 

there are definite signs that summer is turning to autumn over here. Any news of 2.6 dropping of the
unity tree? I'm really looking forward to the animation tools, so I'm getting itchy.

 

Patience, young padawan.


Seriously though, I hope it's released soon.. like tomorrow. Are there going to be tutorial updates in it as well (since they are under "Started" status in feedback forum)?

 

Given the past two years, "summer release" typically means the first day of the Unite conference. :wink:

 

Damn, they're onto us!

Disclaimer: this in no way implies that 2.6 will come out at Unite...

 

Hello

I would like to know if Unity3d will support other file formats in the future besides FBX
Unfortumatly I have had a lot of issues to import FBX into Unity3d , to such extent that I had to quit with Unity3d , getting back to my old engine, even thouigh Unity is in my opinion the best game engine around

Thanks in advance for your answer

 

Unity supports FBX really well, so usually problems with FBX is on the exporting side. Which app are you using to generate your 3D art?

d.

 

Fragmotion -> .ms3d -> UltimeUnwrap3d -> FBX -> Unity3D -> troubles

No problem to load the .ms3d animated files but I come across the same problems even with other engines, if I try to import the FBX files

I dont blame Unity3d for such issues
I suppose that FBX is a so complex file format that most of the converter / exporters are not reliable

However I think that unity should support other file formats since you can not expect that all your clients can afford Maya or Max and / or are willing to fight with the user enemy Blender

 

I just use Cheetah3D on my Mac. Who needs Blender? The conversation's getting off-topic, though.

Looking forward to 2.6 like crazy!

 

cheetah does not work for windows
Why off topic ?

 

Its just as off topic as yours.
As for your problem: from what I remember you can actually use UU3D from command line and Fragmo has superior scripting capabilities for its price, so you can create a straight pipeline if you want (and LUA is dead simple to learn and use actually)

Also, there are more than just maya and max that support fbx, significantly more.

By supporting FBX, Collada and OBJ all major industry format. at least one of them is supported by any somewhere current application thats meant for more than just hobbiests.

 

LUA ...Comand line...scripting capabilities ??????

What are you talking about ?

"Also, there are more than just maya and max that support fbx, significantly more"


Really ? tell me one

 

There's a nice, helpful, incomplete list, at the bottom of this page, for a start. modo is not mentioned there, but you can add that, too.

http://unity3d.com/unity/features/asset-importing

 

I find Blender really user-friendly once you've gotten to know it. I've become Blenderfied to the point where I'm unable to use any other 3d app unless I set up the keyboard shortcuts to be identical to Blender's.

 

All the 3d packages quoted in the list are quite expensive except Cheetath3D but it is only for MAC and Blender which many people dont like
Carrara can not export FBX animated files
The table should be fixed
Not to mention that even the high end packages are not bug free as far as FBX is concerned
SoftImage was obliged to withdraw its exporter , being a disaster
Modo ? we will see , the amimation module is quite new


I agree that ,in principle should be wonderful to have one only standard for data exchange
I know that FBX has many other advantages over other file format but we must also face the bloody reality :

Most of the converter / exportes are not reliable

In my opinion Unity should support in the next edition other file formats just as back up files
If FBX does not work than you try with .ms3d ( Or others)
As simple as that

However , a part from personal opinions, this is a road map thread , I dont think that my question is off topic , as someone said

I would like to know if Unity3d will support other fill formats in the next editions

Thanks in advance for your answer

 

FBX is a discreet format primarily, what do expect from it.
All have to use (or use) their crappy library for conversion and exportation.

Optimally unity would prim focus on collada, making FBX and Obj secondary options because Collada is an open standard so no damned broken exporter can mess it up.
Also from collada, unity could actually import much more material and physic setup data than from FBX.

Really hope that at latest by 3.0, FBX is the secondary format, not the prime hell

 

Yeah, capable 3D packages tend to be like that.

Mac.

I don't really like it either, but it's the best option I have, so I do anyway.

Preach on, brother. I'm with you.

 

Our plan with Unity is to focus on supporting shared industry standard file formats, we're just not interested in supporting tool-specific formats. Yes, that means it's up to the modeling tool companies (primarily) to do a good job at exporting files (FBX or otherwise), we can only fix so much on the importer side of things.

To answer your question, there are no other file formats specifically on the radar for Unity right now. I'm not sure about the details of your experience but we have a huge number of people having great success via our FBX support and so we're not seeing anything that compels us to switch to tool-specific file format support.

 

The importing is no problem, for me. However, there have been several times when I have thought, "hey, that's a really interesting thing that was done with this .fbx file", in regards to content in a Unity example project. Problem is, I can't go investigate that for myself, considering Blender has no FBX import.

 

Yeah, I can understand that but in terms of modeling tools you can't complain as you're getting what you paid for. Zing!

 

True that! :-D

 

HiggyB wrote:
we have a huge number of people having great success via our FBX support and so we're not seeing anything that compels us to switch to tool-specific file format support.

Well you have also a lot of people having a lot of problems with import / export
Just go through your "Tool" forum

Anyway , I do appreciate your clear answer
Thanks a lot

 

We stand by our plan, supporting industry standard formats is a much better way to go. Is the Unity/FBX world all peachy and perfect? No. Is the Unity/FBX world a terrible train wreck? No. But none of that is compelling enough to force a change of path on us, we're going to stay this course for now and work on smoothing the road whenever we can, but I just don't see us breaking off in a different direction.


Oh, and duplicate post deleted while you were typing the above, I didn't mean to nuke your reply!

 

(quote)
Oh, and duplicate post deleted while you were typing the above, I didn't mean to nuke your reply! [/quote]

It was my fault

 

I wouldn't characterize FBX as an industry-standard format, particularly a file format. It's a proprietary Autodesk SDK with an ever-changing and undocumented file format. Even their doc says the file format is undocumented and you should not try to write your own parser but instead always use the SDK. Collada, by comparison, is a standard published file format.

 

right but if you visit Collada web site they warn you to strictly stick to the specifications ( some thousand pages) otherwise if you may have problem ...Shame on you

Actually a lot of people , even experienced guys have had a lot of issues with such a " monster " file

In my opinion rather than supporting industrial standard you should support what it is strictly necessary for your application

FBX and Collada mainly target " Virtual reality " rather than games
Despite the progress of the hardware game specifications are still low

HiggyB said that Unity will not " switch " but I did not ask to "switch" I asked to have also an alternative....just in case

A file format such as MilkShape is quite simple being designed specifically for Low poly animated characters

I myself designed an importer some time ago for my opengl engine
I was still young and I thought, at the time, that everybody can develop a game engine

You may for example use FBX for maps and .ms3d for animations

 

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of Collada, but it is the first fully-specified 3D standard that I know of (even formats like OBJ are de-facto standards - it's pretty easy to write a parser that won't work with all app output). While I was converting HyperBowl assets I started using the FBX SDK, couldn't figure out what was wrong with my generated FBX files, started writing a Collada converter using the Collada SDK generated from the spec, and then decided I didn't want to bother with the materials part of the file format, which is pretty involved. But by inspecting the Collada files, I was able to figure out what I was doing wrong with the FBX export.

 

So you basicaly confirm what I said
Moreover, the pipe line is

Application -> converter / exporter -> Unity3D

I pretty sure that Unity is not responsible for these issues but frankly speaking I dont care who is responsible
I know that I have had a lot of issues, that's it

Big companies can supply reliable converters ( but they have had also a lot of problems ) think of Cinema 4D for example, or Carrara
Fine, and the small ones ?

Should I understand that Unity3d is only for professional people , as some one said her in this forum ?

Come on..the Indie version cost 200 usd

 

Not so much! UT says right here that this is not true of Cinema 4D.

The Blender exporter does its share of really stupid things, but I account for that by scripting the Unity Editor and using lame workarounds in Blender itself.

 

I was going to purchase Cinema 4D taking advantage of their special offer ( I have Carrara Pro ) but I gave it up because some members in the tool forum claimed that it is almost impossible to export animation to Unity3d

By the way, I have been programming , as an amateur, games for 6 yeras

I have never had, I repeat, never had, a problem to import an asset in my engine

Now I have an engine in my hands which is miles away from the ones I was used to but I can not make simple things such as having a bloody low poly character moving on my screen ( Unless I buy Max , why not ? )

I hope you do understand my frustration

 

@AlbertoT - The people to talk to about compatibilty with Carrara is Daz. Their exporters (C7Pro supports both Collada and FBX) either (as in the case of .DAE and .FBX) don't support animations or (as in the case of .FBX) just doesn't support anything but meshes. I've updated the wiki listing for Carrara this morning and posted a note to Unity Tech to correct their webpage on this matter.

What you can do to help is to post on the Daz forums and bug the product managers at Daz to get those exporters working.

As for Blender, unlike Jessy I haven't really had any problems getting it to work with Unity. Ask GusM, our resident Blender animation guru and I suspect he'll tell you pretty much the same thing.

 

No, I haven't had any problems either, in terms of simply getting things to work. However, there are a few bad choices that were made about how to export things. For example...

• Empty objects do not come through. In order to parent objects to an Empty, you have to actually use an empty mesh (and delete that mesh in Unity if you want greater performance).
  
• If you have multiple instances of the same mesh in Blender, instead of using that mesh for all the objects it should, multiple meshes are created (duplicates).
  
• If you parent one armature to another, that hierarchy comes through. But the parented armature is also duplicated at the root level of the file. WTH?!?!?

Like I said, this is all correctable in the Editor, but it's been a pain for me to have to "fix" all of that and more. Especially when I wanted to submit my game for the Unite contest.


Edit: Ug. I just tried to come up with a workflow using dupligroups. It's even worse than with parenting armatures. The dupligroups are instantiated into the scene, at the root level, and the actual hierarchy/object naming is totally thrown out.

That's total garbage. What user would desire something like that?! :evil:

 

The Blender fbx exporter does what it was designed to do:

http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/HOWTO-ImportObjectBlender.html

And it does it very well, but of course there are a lot of things that Blender (and any other 3D app) can internally handle but cannot be exported to Unity properly.

-You should use bones instead of empty objects. Just parent your meshes to one or more bones in an Armature. You can actually use parented objects and meshes if you really need it, but you don´t get any advantage this way, and you loose a lot of posibilities that armatures and bones can offer.

-Instancing is a Blender internal operation which cannot be exported to Unity, but I guess it is the same with any other 3D app. Just use some placeholders (bones) and then manually setup your final model in Unity (you will only need to do it the first time if you build a prefab with it), or write a short script for this. But note that inside Unity you will get also the same effect you see in Blender: even if you are using the same prefab several times in a scene, you still will need to render all the copies, as each one will take also their own draw calls.

-Instead of parenting two Armatures, use just one Armature and parent things with bones inside this.


I think this kind of problems are not bugs someone need to fix, but more a matter of some user misconceptions. The same with dupligroups, this has never been a supported feature to be exported with the FBX format to Unity. Neither are booleans, or SDS, or curves, or ligths... and a lot of other complex tools any 3D aplication offers but cannot be translated easilly to another different one. Thats why you need to work also inside the Unity 3D editor if you want to get the same effects in your Unity game.

 

Well, I am not that expert but what you said sounds me right

Some complex tools ( 3D application and file formats ) have been designed for movies
(FBX stands for film box)

Specfications for interactive real time animations are still much lower

Dont you think that all these issue depend on the fact we try to adapt some tools which are not fitted for the task

Game programming need simple but reliable tools

 

GusM, thank you for your input. This Blender stuff is off-topic, but I would really like your advice. If you could chime in at this thread, I would greatly appreciate it.

http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=211868#211868

 

will there be a 2.7? what is planned for it?

 

@amy:
We will post information on other future releases when such is available.

 

You guys slipped up by a day!!! :x

:roll: