Why are sw3d users not totally changing to Unity?

Hi,

have you ever thought about what could be the reason why not most of he sw3d developers are changing to unity?

I mean:

- The situation with sw3d is stuck there since more than five years.
- MM lied to their cutomers.
- MM does not communicate.
- These guys already know how to do and sell 3d apps for the web.

So what is missing in unity?

- Are the features just not enough? You know what i badly miss here! ;O)
- Are they sceptical as unity isn't a working product an all platforms?
- Are they sceptical about how long unity will be there?
- What's missing in the way unity works that it's not so attractive?
- Is this a different target audience for you?
- Are they still hoping for a v2 of sw3d before flash is able to?
- Do they better wait for sparkle?
- Is it the fear to step into another propritary trap?
- Does this just take a bit longer?

I could tell you my personal feelings and thoughts about it but i really would be interested in what others think!


Greetings,

taumel

 

I myself have been researching a good, inexpensive engine my self for years and I just found Unity this week, so a lot of people may not know that it exists.

I think also because the engine is new, people are a little afraid of leaving what they know to use a tool that may be buggy or not have good support (obviously not the case) but that's hard to tell at first.

I also know a couple of win pc programmers who almost go into conniptions when you mention programming on the mac. Lol, it seems to be a pattern; I know a very good mac programmer, and he cringes when you mention windows too, I'm on his side though :wink:

I think a lot of people shy away from the mac platform. If the Unity IDE and web player was ported to windows I think we will see a much larger influx of users.

One more factor may be the lack of any large, serious examples of what this engine can do. I was skeptical about Unity until I looked around the forums and read some interviews on other sites.

What Unity needs is a lot more high-end screen shots and videos on the site to show what the engine can REALLY do, and how easy it can do it. What is there now is good, but not quite enough. There are just too many engines that are just university or college projects and aren't proper, finished, professional products.

My 2 cents anyway :wink:

-Jeremy

 

Hi,

>>>I myself have been researching a good, inexpensive engine my self for years and I just found Unity this week, so a lot of people may not know that it exists.<<<

This for sure is not the case with the sw3d developers as they are searching for alternatives own their own and unity was mentioned enough on topic related forums.

>>>What Unity needs is a lot more high-end screen shots and videos on the site to show what the engine can REALLY do, and how easy it can do it. What is there now is good, but not quite enough. There are just too many engines that are just university or college projects and aren't proper, finished, professional products.<<<

It's you know the workflow of other engines isn't just total crap compared to unity. It surely needs some killer content where one could say. Wow i can't do this with director for instance and still sell it. But i don't wanna see this content done by otee as the IDE/shadows would take even longer... ;O)


Greetings,

taumel

 

We do actually have a really cool intern from Austria (hello Raimund) doing demo assets right now. He's got 3 months to get to know Unity, create his assets, and put things together.

It'll be exciting to see what he comes up with (currently he's mainly doing modelling, and it looks awesome).

@Taumel: Your points are very interesting, not much new, but good to have them together in one place. What I would like to know is what you (and other people) think is the priority your points, most to lest important.

 

The Windows web plugin would be a good idea to get out. That way web development with Unity would really be feasible.

Personally I'm getting tired of the Windows IDE requests. Its like finally we have a cool tool only on the mac and all these PC people start crying for it. Expecting you guys to drop your development schedule and just work on the PC IDE. Well welcome to our life guys, Now you have a taste of what we feel when a cool tool comes out and they don't even consider our platform. Which isn't even the case for you with Unity.

I want live shadows and an easy to use network system, snapping (to help in RPG development) and a bunch of other things. You know what order to implement them best so I'll leave it up to you guys. Keep up the great work, this product rox. Jeff

 

Hi David,

i will give you an answer to this at the weekend when i have some time. By the way this was really ment as an serious question from me after i had a talk to a colleague.

Just two notes to outcast:

1) I think it's in no way productive to say: "Now you know how it feels like beeing a poor Mac user..." as you simply won't alter people and turn them into Mac people so easily. You're just loosing market by selling the tool to a fraction of possible developers and you are also loosing presence in the web as Pc users are doing their content with other tools instead.

2) I would consider Network capability at the current stage only if it could be done real quick as a) most of the time users want networking but then only a small fraction of the users can really come up with something interesting so also a small fraction benefits from it and b) it more complicate in terms of programming as for asynchron programming (okay depending on the technique it also could be done in sync but mostly it's not), handling the network stuff and also in terms of beeing sellable to clients if you have contract work in mind.

3) As for Shadows i'm with you! ;O)


Greetings,

taumel

 

Several reasons I think... most sw3d developers are professionals and it takes time to change delivery platforms, which equals money... and why would you? If you know sw3d and lingo you can get some very good results out of sw3d...

A lot of sw3d developers - if not most - are PC based... and again that takes time and money to switch platform if you are so inclined... Also realsise that the number one sw3d asset creation software isn't available on the Mac platform, and for whatever reason - only known to Alias - the sw3d exporter for Mac Maya turned into vapourware... With LW's and C4D's good only for baisc asset exporting... no dynamics, flakey animation support, etc.

Director has a lot to offer aside from and in compliment to sw3d, which Untiy can't compete against in it's current state... and really Unity is for making standalone games at the moment... The web player shows promise, but it will need a bit more work, like hooks into the browser to allow for control from the HTML holding it.

I think it is a bit unfair to compare Unity to sw3d/director at this stage... I use sw3d professionally and I'm very excited about Unity and I'm in the process of porting one of my large sw3d realitme 3d visualisations over into it for tech testing purposes... and seeing how i can integrate Unity into my 2d mulitmedia development pipeline, i'm talking standalone stuff here, not web based.

I will be very happy when I can turn my back on sw3d/director, but that time hasn't arrived yet.

I will have more opinions and feedback once I've got my hands dirtier in Unity

cheers.

 

Poor Mac user? Is that how it went across, sorry, thats not what I meant. Sure there are a few things that its annoying we don't have but they are not even a fraction compared to the enjoyment of a new apple release, the awesome user community that exists (Its like family), and the pure artistic freedom of it all. Part of what I love about Mac users is that we are a minority, the people that use Mac do because they love it. And I think that has something to do with why OTEE isn't as interested in the Market Share. I mean thats the whole mindset behind apple in the first place.

Now not to star an unnecessary war here. I'm all for cross platform, and wide compatibility. I love Open Source Software, and being able to have Lan games between Mac's and PC's. Your right that cross platform is the future and I'll be happy to see Unity on both Mac and PC. But I don't want it to be like it was with Cyan, start on us, leave us in the dust. Same with Bungie. So thats why I'm getting tired of the PC IDE requests. Hope you understand. Jeff

 

Hi Outcast,

>>> And I think that has something to do with why OTEE isn't as interested in the Market Share. I mean thats the whole mindset behind apple in the first place.<<<

Sorry you're totally wrong here and only projecting your ideals but it has nothing to do with reality. Apple is interested so much into a larger market share and they would sell their grandmothers to get it.
And i belive otee loves the Mac platform but they are also very intereted in making a living with their product and see it as a success.

*reread* Or maybe i've just misunderstood you here? :O)

>>>Now not to star an unnecessary war here. I'm all for cross platform, and wide compatibility. I love Open Source Software, and being able to have Lan games between Mac's and PC's. Your right that cross platform is the future and I'll be happy to see Unity on both Mac and PC. But I don't want it to be like it was with Cyan, start on us, leave us in the dust.<<<

Understandable and agreed multiplatform should be available for both platforms. Also understandable that you love openSource, otherwise you would still write these lines on OS9. ;O)


Greetings,

taumel

 

Hi,

i didn't find time to write yet. If you're still interested i try as soon as i have some time left...


Greetings,

taumel

 

Hi,

i haven't found time to write yet. If you're still interested i try as soon as i have some time left...


Greetings,

taumel

 

I am abandoning Torque in favor of Unity.

Torque is supposedly a cross-platform engine that will run on Mac/Win/Linux...

They neglect to mention that they have not released a build that even compiles for Linux or Mac OS in about a year.

I'm impressed by the streamlined development process and IDE of unity. Torque needs to restart for any minor changes to take effect. Also, I'm impressed by Unity's ability to.... you know..... work.

Which is more than Torque does on anything other than Windows.