ZGameEditor forum

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

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

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.

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

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!

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

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.

Unity 2.5 is now available on PC & Mac.

K

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

K