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Hey guys, so excited... YOU ALL KNOW UNITY3D RIGHT?
Well guess what, unity is on version 4.2!

What's new you ask? Only.. nothing... but... FREE SHADOWS!!!
THAT'S IT PEOPLE FREE SHADOWS... I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR MY LIFE. I'VE EVEN THOUGHT BUYING UNITY PRO FOR THE SHADOWS, AND NOW THEY ARE FREE!

Here's a pic of my game with shadows ON!


There's obviously more news, i think Android deployment got free. And now we can deploy (for free too i guess) for Blackberry, windows phone, iOS (free too).

Here's a quote from their website:

New Platforms and Licensing

Windows Store Apps ("WSA", for both x86 and ARM) and Windows Phone 8 support. Pro version of WSA/WP8 is free for Unity Pro owners!
BlackBerry 10 support.
Now free: all "Basic" mobile licenses.
Now free: realtime shadows (one directional light only; hard shadows only).
Now free: text-based serialization of materials, prefabs, scenes etc. for easier version control.
Now free: NavMesh baking (OffMeshLinks still require Pro).

More information here: http://unity3d.com/unity/whats-new/unity-4.2

I really think this update major change was the shadows turned free.. a 3d game without shadows... that's unnatural and if you look at the first GTA... even top-down it had shadows

Free shadows are awesome, but for my the biggest addition is the "free-ing" of some mobile development. Even if it isn't the Pro versions, the ability to make full mobile products for free is huge.

I personally gave up on 3D game development a long time ago (I just didn't feel I could hack it for my time and resources as a lone dev), but if I did still do it, it would be with Unity. While other 3D game engines are trying to come up with new add-ons to sell, Unity is making more of their premium add-ons free. Just further proof that the Unity team is dedicated to sinking their fangs into and dominating their competitors.

Yes that's big too, i might do "simple" games for android in my spare time.

Also, i do think Unity is one of the best out there, but the best with no doubt is Unreal (UDK)... I think every studio should work with that, even the commercial ones.

I have heard that Unreal is much less user-friendly than Unity, but I don't know that for first-hand experience. I also don't know where it stands today, but I know when it came out it had a whopping 25% royalty fee for any commercial games made with it. That for many indie devs is the difference between a profit and losing money, since that is on gross income and not profit.

so with unity 3d i can build mobile game for amm android?

Jackolantern wrote:I have heard that Unreal is much less user-friendly than Unity, but I don't know that for first-hand experience. I also don't know where it stands today, but I know when it came out it had a whopping 25% royalty fee for any commercial games made with it. That for many indie devs is the difference between a profit and losing money, since that is on gross income and not profit.

I never tried but heard the same, Unity is more user-friendly but i like to think that UDK looks and is more professional, it doesn't have Unity Free limitations and i think the graphics in Unreal are way better.
Example, in Unity when i have 2 lights close to each other, they mess up with each other instead of creating a super light area. I don't know if that's because it's free or Unity itself.

If you look at Unreal games you understand what i mean.. Look at Batman Arkham City .. that game was beast.

Nerfintas wrote:so with unity 3d i can build mobile game for amm android?

Well i don't know what they mean by "basic android deployment", but yes, with the free Unity you can deploy your game on android.

I have worked with both. UDK is less user friendly but it has far more features and is 10x the engine. Do not get me wrong Unity is great but it cannot be compared to UDK. Like comparing a truck to a ferrari. UDK is built for commercial teams not indies even though they market indies their version of a indie is a 100k a year studio or better.

hallsofvallhalla wrote:I have worked with both. UDK is less user friendly but it has far more features and is 10x the engine. Do not get me wrong Unity is great but it cannot be compared to UDK. Like comparing a truck to a ferrari. UDK is built for commercial teams not indies even though they market indies their version of a indie is a 100k a year studio or better.

Like i said Unity is good but for commercial studios or indie beast studios UDK is the way to go.
I would go to UDK but i don't want to learn a scripting language that won't be useful for anything but that.. In unity i use C# and it's useful for raw c# apps

vitinho444 wrote:I would go to UDK but i don't want to learn a scripting language that won't be useful for anything but that.. In unity i use C# and it's useful for raw c# apps

That has always irritated me. UnrealScript? Seriously? And then on Hero Engine it is HeroScript. Why? If you are implementing a scripting engine, it seems like it would have been easier to use an existing language like Javascript and just create an API for the engine-related stuff.

That is good to hear.

I have looked at the Unreal engine as well, and pretty much what has been stated above. It is not really suited for Indies. Cheyenne Mountain tried making SG-Worlds with Unreal for the front end and Big World for the back end, as you can see what the results of that were...
Unity3D I think is useful and given of how things are turning out, such as Shrouds of the Avatar using Unity3D, gives it some credit.