UNITY, you are losing so many new devs to UE4 due to Oculus support

Simply....amazing. You can afford it but begrudge the folks at Unity for not gifting you. Priveleged much? Do you get paid for your IT consultancy? Do you disrespect the work product of your subcontractors by devaluing it based on your whimsy? Probably not or you would not be in the business long. Folks like to get paid for what they produce or they wouldn't be in that line of work. This sounds like a Rift problem for their paying customers as noted earlier in the thread. Captain whizbang Carmack could whip a wrapper out for the paying customer to utilize. Doesn't he care for the people who spend their hard earned money on his corps tech?? 'Nuff said.

 

Are you even reading what I'm writing?

Whether or not Unity decides to incorporate VR in free is of no consequence to me. As I said, I don't even have a rift. I don't do VR development.

This is not about me and whether or not I'm able to purchase Unity Pro. This is about those who want to do VR development as hobbyists or in education, and don't choose Unity since others offer a better deal for this purpose. VR in Unity doesn't need to be free, it just needs to compete.

Basically what you're saying is that these users are worthless. I disagree about that. I think just having users in the community adds great value - not only in the form content created in the community, but also in the form of asset store purchases, which makes it more attractive to asset store publishers, which increases the amount of features available to developers and saves them time, and so on and so on.

Also, what do you think these users are more likely to pick up if they decide to do a commercial project at some point? A tool they're used to and worked with in the past, or something entirely different they don't have any experience with?

Having these users move on to a competitor definitely does Unity no good.

 

Nice try sister with the way you twist concepts. Strawman much? I am saying if you want tools of high quality and extended ability you usually have to pay for them. If you do not have the money then work for it. If you do not want to work for it then STFU and stop whining all over the www about it. Not too hard of a concept for a moderately advanced brain to parse into place. Secondly IMO it is Oculus failing their paying customers and not Unity failing their free users.

 

Sorry ipp, but you're getting overly aggressive about things you seem to be misreading or misunderstanding.

This line of conversation in particular was not about exposing RenderTextures. The suggestion - a pretty reasonable one in my opinion - was for Unity to offer VR functionality in the free version which handles whatever is required of RenderTextures internally. The API for this could look something like:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. VRSettings vrSettings = VRSettings.Default;
3. Application.SetVRMode(VRMode.OcculusRift, vrSettings);
4.  

Yes, under the hood some RenderTextures have to get used, but that does not mean that Unity free license developers need to be given direct access.

In the context of the thread I think it's a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Yes, they're "asking for something for free", but in the context of offering a suggestion that gains Unity users without giving away anything new, it's a potential win-win. And I'm not seeing the plus side of jumping down people's throats about it...

 

I am a blunt fellow and do not beat about the bush and a cranky old fart to boot (this week anyways). But I ain't dishonest and I grew up in an era and family that if I wanted anything I had to work for it. Even my 25 cents weekly allowance was not given without chores..Gave me a work ethic. If Unity did this as per your suggestion...fine. If they don't then it is up to Oculus to satisfy their paying customer needs and not Unity to shore up the Oculus Rift bottom line while gaining nothing on their bottom line from that and having to pay the dev team to boot to figure a way to expose it for only that purpose and not leave hooks where it can be easily exposed by anybody using free. The main issue that got me involved in this thread is the UE4 FUD and threat mongers and I hope they felt a little uncomfortable with the glaring light of realistic expectations on them. This forum has been hijacked by UE4 whiners and threats for a few months now. Second is this gimme gimme I am entitled to free stuff attitude or I throw a tantrum. Whew! Seriously. Guarantee you give them render textures then they will not be able to finish their game until they get realtime shadows and etc..etc..etc.. They want the tools then pay the man for his work.

 

To which I can only remind you of this:

Your own words.

I'm getting tired of you mocking and attacking me, personally, and not my arguments.

IMO, it's "not too hard of a concept for a moderately advanced brain to parse into place" that losing users to a competitor is bad for Unity. Nor is it a hard concept that users themselves provide value, even though they're free users.

 

Well I've got my fingers crossed for Unity 5.x having built in VR capability with the Free version. As at least based on my limited experience the Unity 4 rendering engine tech can struggle to provide VR level fps (60 - 90 fps) in stereoscopic mode and the Unity 5 engines multi-threaded job system should really give it a boost.

Rumour has it that the CV1 beta will arrive mid 2015.

But did you notice that Unity has released the pro version to Sony Developers for FREE and Sony are working towards releasing the Morpheus.



It looks like 2015 could be the year consumer VR begins.

 

Exactly. It could be the year VR begins, but without having a company trying to push it for their console the Rift itself could die out.

Some state that being bought up by Facebook will make it successful, but what if Microsoft had bought them up and targeted the device for their XBox?

Actually wonder if the consoles are powerful enough to put it to good use though.

 

Good point on the console graphics processing power, but maybe VR will push the industry to be more creative?!
Already we are seeing to the metal GPU drivers giving us modern lower level access to the GPU. Mantle, Metal, Samsungs VR Gear, DX12, OpenGL, Nvidias Drive VR are all approached to provide a faster way to tap into the power of GPU's which is good for VR.

But games are always about giving the user an experience, and often 'optical illusion' techniques are routinely used to reduce the graphical power needed to play the game, skyboxes, imposters, levels of detail, corridors, level design, streaming of levels all techniques that get around the problem that even high end modern GPU's can't ray trace an entire world and simulate it's physics.

Think about it which games gave you the most memorable fun experience, a AAA blockbuster or a fun Mario style game?

 

It would probably be Minecraft (both with and without friends). Though Skyrim is at 357 hours played.

 

This is exactly how i figured it might be added, its a perfectly reasonable solution and its not like its an enormous overhaul of the entire engine just to have that feature there, when that feature is causing movement because those moving know how powerful a potential vr has - they want to be on this right now. The only people i've ever seen anti-(modern) vr are people who havent even tried it, those who HAVE tried it have disliked some of the DK's shortcomings but i dont think its Oculus that is the big thing here, its the whole concept of VR and its effect on your perception itself

 

If anyone cares, few minutes ago at "Oculus Connect" Oculus announced support for Unity 5 (optimizations, building to Oculus Rift platform), both free and pro.

http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2gyr9n/unity_5_free_will_support_the_rift
live stream: http://www.twitch.tv/oculus/

 

Oculus just announced they have partnered with Unity enabling publishing to Rift as export to Unity 5 pro and FREE versions.

They're adding stereo optimization including optical warping, RealSpace 3D audio.

As a side note, Nate Mitchell announced that 90% of the Oculus VR content is made with Unity.

http://www.twitch.tv/oculus/

 

Amazing. This is exactly the right decision.

Unity 5 is going to be so sweet.

 

I agreed with the concern that people experimenting with VR would be pushed away from Unity. I'm very happy with this announcement. Good job on getting this done, looking forward to Unity5!

 

http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/09/20/expanded-oculus-rift-support-in-unity/

 

Aaaand boom goes the dynamite.

 

I honestly thought I was the only Unity developer that ever had to sign a NDA. That's why I can't say what I've worked on (I wonder who started this NDA trend, it's gotten really our of control). With school (being back in session), freelancing and a family, making my own games to release to the public is really hard. Their is not enough time in the day.

that is all, please continue your conversation about VR.

 

did i lit the fuse too soon???

 

So what will the next topic be about that is in pro and not in free that should be in free but isn't and there is a HUGE pay wall in order to get that item that is in Pro that should be in free but isn't in free but you can get it in the other engine that is soooo much cheaper then this engine but you like this engine and don't want to leave this engine due to you liking this engine but they are loosing sooo many devs due to not having that item in their free that is in their pro but should be in free cause it would make it so much easier.

 

I am really excited by this news. I think some people in this thread will be very excited too!

 

A great move by Unity, and another reason to look forward to Unity 5!

 

Just awesome for indies and people that own Occulus.

 

Aye, count me amongst the excited!

 

Thanks you UT, it's awesome

 

That's great news! It appears that UT does appreciate the potential here.

Morpheus is exclusive to Sony, while OR is specifically for desktop computers and (currently) has no plans for a console port. It's more of a symbiotic relationship - if one succeeds, they both succeed because interest in VR grows. And you're right, VR games will definitely look better on PC/Mac.

In other news. check this out:

http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/20/oculus-vr-announces-new-prototype-crescent-bay/

And a live Oculus conference (which can be viewed with the OR):

http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/20/watch-the-oculus-connect-conference-live-right-here/

- EDIT -

He's talking about mobile VR. Visions of exploding devices in my head...

 

That makes an interesting decision for me in January: Unity, Unity or Unity. Free, subscription or perpetual?

 

Truly, a first world problem.

 

Hell yes!!! Booya! Free support for Oculus and actual target system built into Unity 5!

 

Or alternatively that OculusVR saw the potential. Unity is popular enough that they may have felt it worthwhile.

 

From the official announcement:

It sounds like UT and Oculus are both actively involved.

 

I'm simply saying Oculus could have been the ones to approach UT first.

 

I've created an official copy pasta for the unimpressed. Who wants one?

 

I guess, the point of this thread is slowly dying

 

I think Unity brought the dynamite. And the thread is all better now - OP's concerns addressed.

 

I've created one for those who understand the Rift is not the sole product for VR anymore than Microsoft Windows is the sole OS for computers.

 

@all - sorry we had to leave you guys posting on this thread all week without letting you know what was going to be announced at Oculus Connect this weekend.

 

See what I mean? That's a what if.

Oculus is the desktop VR market right now. I might also say:

"I have my doubts about Unity. Because other game engines can succeed while Unity may not." But I'll keep right on using Unity anyway!

Forget the "what ifs" and just use what we have. And for desktop VR development, that's clearly the OR right now.

 

Yes, if you're in the market for a development kit. No, if you're in the market for a finished product.

Unity has proven itself on the market. The Rift has yet to hit market. It isn't a fair comparison.

 

It's certainly not a perfect comparison, I'll give you that. (Any engine which facilitates the creation of a successful game is worth using, period). But the overall point still holds - we have Oculus available right now, they are leading the way in VR development, and there is no reason to look elsewhere for desktop VR. You can "what if" your way out of pretty much anything if you try.

That's entirely true, but they are certainly leading the charge. Who knows how well VR will sell initially and how long it will take to catch on? These are exciting times to a be a developer!

 

They are leading the way in virtual reality development. Yes, I'll give you that. It doesn't guarantee the product will be successful in the long term though.

Between having easy access to popular game engines and virtual reality, yes it is!

 

It also doesn't mean that it won't be successful. Time will tell. I just know that I'm looking forward to some of the cool VR accessible projects on the horizon.

Circles we're going in, round and round.

 

I mostly want to see affordable options. Still I'll probably start saving up a few months prior to the official release. Which last I checked was supposedly sometime in Summer 2015?

Also it has to support wearing glasses, because without them everything is blurred past a few inches.

 

I think that date's correct. Good point about the glasses - I wonder how well that works.

Here's what they say about their latest prototype. So cool!

"Six degrees of freedom, 360 degree tracking, sub-millimeter accuracy, sub-20 milliseconds of latency from you moving your head to the last photon hitting your eye, persistence of less than three milliseconds, 90 hertz refresh rate, at least 1k x 1k resolution per eye, no visible pixels, a comfortable eyebox, and a field of view greater than 90 degrees."​

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2686207/oculus-announces-tk.html

 

So for those of you who cannot afford an Oculus Rift they have made - DK1 open source

https://github.com/OculusVR/RiftDK1

That said - Hats off to unity tech for making VR part of free.

 

Yes, this was a smart and exciting move by Unity. This will bring a lot of VR developers (especially hobbyists) back into the Unity ecosystem.

 

Unity is so full of surprises. Damn, that's a good move! Let the migration from Unreal to Unity begin!

 

There ya go. Can we now stop with the UE4 FUD now that Oculus has ponied up and partnered with Unity to solve their paying customers issue. Be interesting to know what monies were exchanged and how they will implement it without giving away render textures to the non VR Unity free crowd.. I await the next thread demanding something else from Pro get included in free or a mass exodus will occur and Unity will die in a flaming Viking boat in the Fjords of Blarney and am taking bets on 3 to 1 odds

 

Awesome news. Thumbs up to the people at both Unity and Occulus who are making it happen!

 

Nice move,
ippdev, things are moving fast and it is better for me to see unity reacting than staying static.
I also have some reservations about the rationale of this move ( had to work 2 summers to buy my Amiga 1200 back in highschool, sooo long time ago ) but I believe that the marketing wizards in Unity have weighted well their options, such decisions cannot come because some free clients are complaining. Market share is important, hence the move.