Unity3D PC

Post by **Kjell** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 3:54 pm

I don't want to vere people away from ZGE ( different demo-graph anyway .. free, open-source, procedural, <64k footprint etc. ), but Unity3D 2.5 will be available soon for Windows ( & Mac of course ).

K

kattle87 · Post by **kattle87** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 4:28 pm

Indeed I do think it's a really different segment of videogaming producing... Let's say 199€ for indie version *might* be fair... but I think JPH is not so much interested in the PRO version, unless he has some spare 1500 bucks

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 4:00 am

it is an interesting system,. any idea what the base size for an .exe would be? all the .net stuff I have seen does seam needlessly bloated,. and why no procedural texture/mesh generation?? I'll read some more about it,. the site is nicely done. Still I would need to sell a lot of ZGE games befor I could afford the indie ver. even, and I can't seem to see what limitations that implies,. . more research.

Post by **Kjell** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 8:34 am

Hi jph,

About 4mb for a empty project. And you can do procedural if you want ( just like in XNA / GM / Virtools etc. ), but the focus is elsewhere obviously. I find their price point quite competitive actually, $1500 without any additional licensing costs for PC / Mac, and $30K for Wii publishing. These kind of entry points where unthinkable for middle-ware just one console generation back.

*Their Indie License is only for individuals of businesses with a turnover below $100K plus it lacks a bunch of features.

K

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 5:10 pm

humm,. not too bad a size for d/l use (+.net overhead of course). I suppose it may be reasonable,. 1500 is just more than I have,

lol.
I suppose I will try it out when they release the win. ver. as they give a 30 day trial,. indie seems rather useless, with no standalone export,. (does it do mac at least ? ) but I suppose if I can build anything usefull I can raise the cash with a prototype to show. However, in practice I have found that most of these 'engine' IDE systems I have looked at sound great as a list of features, however are less usefull when you try to do any work with the actual 'engine'. ZGE is still the bestest for me!

Post by **Kjell** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 6:31 pm

Hey jph,

The current Indie ( Mac ) version actually does allow you to build standalone Mac executables already .. not PC though, but this restriction will be lifted with the 2.5 release ( PC Indie will be able to publish both Mac and PC standalone's as well ).

But yea .. every authoring environment has it's traits and weaknesses

K

Post by **VilleK** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 7:02 pm

I think Unity looks like a great product. However I've yet not tried it.
I am sure we can learn something from it.
(And maybe they from us regarding price and footprint

.)

If anyone tries it out then please post a little review.

Post by **Kjell** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 4:31 pm

Unity 2.5 is now available on PC & Mac.

K

Post by **VilleK** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:29 pm

Download is 100 times the size of zge so I'm expecting it to live up to that in features too

Seriously though I look forward to trying this. I have heard lots of good things about it. Downloading now.

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:51 pm

yeah me too,. i am interested in finding out if it offers anything that I need that ZGE does not currently have,. as most of the features that I am interested in only seem to be avalible for the full $1499.00 price;

-realtime self-shadowing shadows
-ender-to-texture post-processing effects. i.e. Glow, Motion Blur, etc.
-assest streaming,. for endless world stuff,. ..

The basic ver. is still $200 dollers, almost possible.
The ZGE if more ghetto and therefor much cooler IMHO.

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 2:09 pm

so Kj what the verdict? I have not had much time to experiment with the Unity demo,. but is it working well for you? and is it 'better' then virtools as I was looking at their site, and they sound even better,. more built targets i.e. 360, ps3 etc. and some fine features,. so what do you think?

Post by **Kjell** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 2:55 pm

Hey jph,

Ah .. I've been using the Mac version since it was first released back in 2005. But it's nice finally being able to use it on PC ( since XSI doesn't run on Mac )

If I just look at development speed and ease .. I still have to go with Virtools. But because of the differences in pricing / licensing structures I could easily take one over the other under different circumstances.

+ Virtools actually supports more platforms then Unity .. PC, *Mac, Web, PSP, Wii, 360, PS3 ( and Xbox / PS2 in the past ), but Dev-Kits don't come cheap you know

K

*Forgot Mac support

kattle87 · Post by **kattle87** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 3:34 pm

Just wanted to say... I'm not a big fan of those development environments... I mean, I know that A LOT of stuff can be made with them, but somehow I feel that the prices and the features are pretty far from what an Indie developer might want to build.

I never used something like those programs before, so I might be wrong, but I really don't realize if the tools and mesh/textures provided might me sufficient to build up a game like the JPH's ones in half the time he needed with ZGE... If not, well, I do think it's not so much usefull to buy one... You know, even 200$ are worth something

Post by **Kjell** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 4:36 pm

Hi Francesco,

Everybody should just use whatever suits them best

Price is just one of many factors .. for some studios / individuals $10K might be a significant investment, for others it's only a small dent on top of the regular expenses such as employees, rent, equipment etc.

K

Post by **Kjell** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 2:16 am

Unity 2.6 has just been released and they dropped the price of the indie version to absolutely free!

K