Unity screensaver framework for Windows soon to be released!

It "Showtime" and it is mine

Just bought it and happy about it!
I find the price right and and even cheap. For such a good tool you have to pay more normaly, just google and you understand.
This together with the power of unity make me smile

 

There's a happy customer.

Do let me know if there's anything you have trouble with - it's probably worth reading through the documentation before diving in because there are some things which have to be set up in the Unity editor for each new project. There's a section in the documentation to do with building a screensaver which lists the steps you need to take to set things up.

Good luck with creating cool screensavers with Unity. You're pioneering a new generation of screensavers!

 

Maybe a stupid question but do i have to buy me now a Windows pc or can i make screensaver for Windows from my Mac?

I know i have to check it on Windows pc´s but do i have it to build on them too?
Maybe i can build/prepare them on a Mac and then make an exe or scr on a Win machiene!?

Edit:
Ok, just read the first line of the documentation and it tell me that it is for windows and i know that before i ask my question.

What i want to know is can i make a screensaver on the Mac and then as the last step load it into a windows machine, go true the showtime steps and create from there the exe or scr. ?

 

@m_stolley

Hmm. Good question. You will need to build on Windows because a) the screensaver builder utility which ShowTime runs to actually build the final exe, is itself a 32-bit Windows exe program, so it will only run on Windows. And b) the final screensaver itself is based on a Windows exe file and while it could feasibly be built by an OSX builder it will only run on Windows as a 32-bit Windows exe. It's not really possible to create an OSX version of the builder utility because it references many Windows API calls via the operating system which are not present on the Mac, so the program for it can't even be compiled.

Like you said, it is currently Windows only, but it's only the build process that is Windows specific, so you absolutely can do all your development on OSX and then transfer it to Windows to build the final screensaver. In fact that's pretty much what I did when creating the 2 example screensavers that come with it - did a lot of fiddling on the Mac and then copied it over to Windows for building.

You can test your screensaver `effect`, whatever that may be, in the Unity editor at any time. Just press the normal `Play` button and it will work. It will assume it is in the `full screen` launch mode. You won't be able to exit the saver in the normal way (application quit doesn't work in the editor I guess). So you can keep developing and testing in the editor without having to make a final build. You can even build your screensaver Unity app on the Mac side as a Mac Standalone application and it will run under the assumption of `full screen` launch mode. I'm not sure if some parts like screen grabbing will work because it won't be able to find the folders specific to Windows. And you won't be able to import a desktop texture or set wallpaper. But otherwise you can test your app on OSX and later copy to Windows for a full screensaver build.

You can even build your Windows Unity Standalone on the Mac and copy it over, like this:

Then copy your unity build to your Windows o/s and run the ShowTime builder. But then you might as well do all the building on Windows

 

Thank you for youre answer.

My problem is that im a creator and not a coder. (and fairly new to unity)
I had a lot of experience with anark but it is very limited (at least to me).
Playmaker made my life much more easier (i even managed to make me a game).
i will drop a example here monday to let you seewhat im talking about.

So im will not be able to create a configuration menu, simple things like press f1 to mute and basic button function wont be a problem.

Looking at the screen grab im afraid i might get blowing out of the water with functions that i dont understand.

Are you going to make some tut's or screencast in the future?

Well i'm not agains piracy either just want a hurdle to prevent people pass it on to each other to easy. so they rather pay the few bucks to buy it than taking the effort to go find a pirate version on the web. a simple serial would do that i think/hope.

or maybe a option that adds a info/about screen with the name of the purchaser.
offcourse this would mean you have to do a build it per customer with can get very much work very quickly.

Still going to give it a try though, $50,- is a gamble i dear to take.

maybe we should huddle together and start a website to sell savers as a group rather than trying getting all spot on the web.

 

@adminsmithee

I understand. I'm fairly new to Unity too, I've only been dabbling with it for about a year and still have much to learn. Creating ShowTime has been a learning curve which almost failed numerous times just through not knowing how to do something in Unity.

Unity makes a lot of things much easier than writing a ton of code to do things like graphics, 3D, shaders, physics etc. Screensaver developers used to have to work in quite a low level of programming in languages like C, even doing stuff like opening screens and getting mouse movement from the hardware themselves. Coming from a programming background with BlitzMax where the basic stuff is already taken care of, coming to Unity has taken an even greater leap in terms of stuff I don't have to write myself. It really does a ton of work for you and probably better than I could do myself.

You don't need to know any programming at all to use ShowTime because it's all set up via the Unity editor and the ShowTime custom inspector GUI. The only place where you need to be able to add something of your own is in creating the actual screensaver `effect`, whatever that may be (a game, a particle effect, a physics simulation, a commercial for a company, whatever). There are lots of third party tools out there which help with creating Unity apps without any programming, such as visual programming tools and visual AI generators etc. Plus the Unity editor has tools like the terrain and tree tools which you could use. The Unity Editor also has animation curve abilities which might suffice for moving objects around without any programming. Maybe if programming isn't your thing you would benefit from one of the third party visual tools on the asset store.

If you switch on the `always interactive mode` in ShowTime, all of the ShowTime features will be always available. You could then just have the same effect show to the user in all launch modes (preview, configuration, full screen), or optionally use the simple global variable ScreensaverFramework.ScreensaverLaunchMode to say like `if in configuration mode, show some buttons`. That would be sufficient to create a screensaver, and then you could utilize any of the other cool development tools on the asset store. You could create entire screensavers without any extra programming. That's part of the power of Unity+ShowTime, you can utilize all the great tools out there to make things easier for yourself.

Think of all the things Unity can do without coding, which would've required a lot of coding before. e.g. How about a screensaver with 3D objects falling and colliding using physics, or a scene with lights and shadows, or a flythrough of a terrain with trees and rocks, or flags using soft cloth physics and wind, etc. There's really a tonne of possibilities right out of the box with no programming needed.

Admittedly from my point of view the kind of screen savers I want to make are going to require extensive scripting but that's just me. I like procedurally generating stuff and playing with shaders and stuff that I can create from code. But now that I mention it I think I might check out the visual development tools soon as well. The Unity platform really has awesome potential for so many creative possibilities.

I think a tutorial/video would be helpful, I'll add that to my list of things to do. I do recommend reading the documentation fully to help you get a grasp of how the system works and what you need to/can do to set things up how you like. You can read the docs in my above post for free.

I think there is opportunity for many websites selling screensavers - I plan to make my own and wasn't intending to show other people's savers on it, but it's something I can consider. It's early days yet.

 

Thanks to another ShowTime user for pointing out the possibility of paying with a credit card. If you prefer that option I can send you a payment request by email using Paypal's service and then this allows you to pay with credit card without having a paypal account.

 

IMPORTANT NOTICE

With the help of a ShowTime customer, it appears there is a problem with ShowTime on Windows 7 machines. The Windows 7 `theme` system has some issues which causes Windows to keep creating custom themes each time the screensaver launches. I had no idea this was a problem and I sincerely apologize. I do not currently have a fix for this and I do not currently understand what causes the problem. I will be doing some research to try to find a solution.

Since this means that ShowTime may not cooperate nicely on Windows 7 computers, which will affect the customers of ShowTime developers, I am fully recalling this product. I have issued full refunds to everyone. All customers have been allowed to keep their copy of ShowTime if they still find that it has usefulness to them. It is still a copyrighted product but if you do own a copy feel free to keep using it at no charge. This does not make it a freely available product for anyone else.

I have requested a cancellation of this asset on the Unity asset store so it will not be available there until I find a solution to this issue.

Again I apologize for the inconvenience and I thank you all again for your understanding.

 

Sad to hear so IH, I hope you will be able to get the kinks out soon.
May the bug gods be gentle on you

 

Thanks, lol. I'm sure there is a fix, just gotta find it.

I probably should have done a round of beta testing beforehand.

It does give me opportunity to improve a few things that have come to light.

 

So far I've found there is more than one issue with this system working properly. Windows 7 has clearly introduced some problems including issues with theme modification as well as the screensaver not launching at all sometimes or launching as if it's trying to install anew every time, which is not right. Also Vista has a theme problem.

While there are probably ways to make this work properly, honestly right now I'm disillusioned with it and am working on something else entirely. As usual I may come back to this again but right now I'm not in a hurry - sorry to disappoint lots of folks but I'm starting to think I'd be much better off staying well within Unity's existing capabilities. ShowTime has been pulled from the asset store submission queue. I wish Microsoft hadn't made things more complicated than they used to be. Oh well.

It would be great if Unity Tech would implement screensaver support. It would not be hard. If Windows standalone builds would automatically include detection of screensaver launch switches like /f /c /p etc and then automatically enter a specific mode right away a) embed itself into the windows screensaver dialog, b) launch in a desktop window for configuration, c) launch full screen, that would be practically the whole system completed (minus handy screensaver features which I could provide as a simple framework). Then any kind of installer could be used to get it installed properly.

But I digress. Wishful thinking perhaps. I'm taking a break from this and having fun with some home-spun vector graphics routines.

 

Sorry to hear so IH.
I really understand youre dissapointment, must be a real bummer to see al your hard work go up in smoke this way.
You must hate MS a bit (more) now
I still hope you will come around and finish it in the near future.

If not you always could consider to share you're work as open source and let someone else finish it.

I also hope the unity devs will implement it in the future because unity is a great engine to build stunning savers on, and savers are always nice to promote a business or sell them on the web . Especially now MS is coming with a App-Market for Windows (8).

If im not wrong 3planesoft are building there savers also on unity.

Anyway i wish you all the best and thank you for all you're efforts!

~Alan

 

Yeah it's a bit disappointing but I choose to experience it as a nudge in the right direction rather than running up against a brick wall. I will certainly keep everything and like I say I might come back to it. But right now it is shelved and I'm starting to work on a fun game which I think has been long overdue. I've learned a lot from this project's successes and failures and that only sets me on an even better path with much more clarity about what to do.

 

Well take a break and make your cool game. Then give us a shout when you come back to this

 

Thanks.

@adminsmithee ... what makes you think 3planesoft is using Unity and not just some other 3d engine or their own system?