A Letter To Unity Technologies

[ATLAS-INTERACTIVE]

Hello, my name is Kyle Briggs and I am a graphics designer currently in my final year of a 4 year design course, I have been using Unity since 2011, and have seen it progress first-hand.

I think what Unity Technologies (from here on in referred to as UT) has managed to achieve is truly staggering, and the progression in physics integration, graphical enhancements and even platform compatibility and ease of use is incredibly impressive; it is safe to say, I like Unity

This public (hence the forum post) letter to UT and the Unity staff is here to ask 1 simple question, and hopefully receive a formal answer to said question, which I am sure many are wondering:

Are you likely to release the project files to the GDC (Game Developers Conference) 2016 “Adam” Realtime Technology Demo, and if so, when?

This should be in no way interpreted as impatience (bad wording maybe), but I feel that the previous GDC demo (“Blacksmith”) was released as a project far sooner than this after the event (I may be wrong about that of course).

The Adam demo is one of the most impressive and professional demos I have seen in a long time, from a graphical, and technical point of view.

The sheer attention to detail, lighting, models, layout and the addition of a small piece of storyline combined in a beginning cutscene manner is very impressive, and I thought the Blacksmith demo looked good!

For those in the Unity community who have read this far and have a puzzled look on your faces, I do apologise; the demo I am talking about is embedded below so you can marvel at the graphic fidelity.

Unity GDC demo - Adam - Part I

I feel like this is quite an important question for the community as it would give many of us a better understanding of current industry graphical techniques within Unity, and how to optimise scenes and projects to look this good and also run in realtime with a good framerate.

Myself, I am most interested in the volumetric fog, which as mentioned in the Unity Special Event video, isn’t included with the Cinematic Image Effects Pre-Release, I would love to see how that works, and see it in a scene of my own, hopefully you may get around to adding it to the pack, or even releasing the entire project in the no-too-distant future.

Unity GDC 2016 Keynote

I look forward to any replies I may receive.
Thank you all for your time, staff and community.
Kyle Briggs.

[Ippokratis]

I guess this will happen at some point after Unite Europe in Amsterdam, May 30.

[N1warhead_1]

Yeah I’ve been wanting the Volume Fog from it LOL. But yes it is to be released after May 30th sometime.

[landon912_1]

Considering that they haven’t yet completed the demo; as @Ippokratis has said, it will likely be after Amsterdam when they will showcase the rest of the demo. Give them a few weeks after May 30th.

[Arowx]

What if they turned that logic on it’s head and released the earliest working version of the technology to the community, not the demo per-se but the shaders and lighting effects via github.

I’m guessing that the more talented community members would probably be able to help the demo progress faster with improvements and tweaks that the very talented original developers might not have time to focus on.

A demo technology Beta, similar to the Image Processing/UI/Unity 4.5 beta processes.

If not at least Unity will pre-empt lots of threads like this one and be able to reply with a single link.

[electricpaw]

May 30th! That’s a jolly lot of time to wait.

[landon912_1]

@electricpaw

May 30th! That’s a jolly lot of time to wait.

Not really… They’re still working on the other half. It’s also considerable work prepping a project for public display. Some stuff may be hacked in, and they will not be able to release those parts until alternatives are found or they can simply remove that coupling.

Another dependency is making sure all the assets are up to standard and not encouraging the community to use bad habits.

[hippocoder]

@Arowx

What if they turned that logic on it’s head and released the earliest working version of the technology to the community, not the demo per-se but the shaders and lighting effects via github.

I’m guessing that the more talented community members would probably be able to help the demo progress faster with improvements and tweaks that the very talented original developers might not have time to focus on.

A demo technology Beta, similar to the Image Processing/UI/Unity 4.5 beta processes.

If not at least Unity will pre-empt lots of threads like this one and be able to reply with a single link.

It’d be pretty tricky given the technology for it isn’t available to you right now. 5.4 b16 is the minimum where things start to work like TAA.

[TylerPerry]

They are being more careful then with the blacksmith demo, they actually still haven’t released the whole blacksmith demo as it relies on features like the sequencer that are not out yet.

I actually think it’s a pretty misleading practice that each year Unity shows a demo at GDC(ie. to sell to developers) but uses features that are not going to be included for years if ever. When you see a demo you’d expect that to be showing off the engine ya’ know?

Parts of this demo are actually based on asset store stuff (The cloth and pipes) so I don’t think we’ll ever get the demo in it’s entirety. I haven’t checked out the asset so it is possible that it exports FBX files and that’s what they are using.

[Kiwasi]

@electricpaw

May 30th! That’s a jolly lot of time to wait.

You weren’t around here when we were waiting for Unity UI.

[ATLAS-INTERACTIVE]

@Kiwasi

You weren’t around here when we were waiting for Unity UI.

Amen to that ;D

[electricpaw]

@Kiwasi

You weren’t around here when we were waiting for Unity UI.

I was here, @BoredMoron. Just under a different name. And Kyle, your studio’s great. Dammit, I can’t get the italics to go away. I use a tablet, you know.

[zenGarden]

Take example on Epic, they released all Kite Demo files and features
Same for Paragon game character and graphic features, all will be available to users.

[darkhog]

@Arowx

What if they turned that logic on it’s head and released the earliest working version of the technology to the community, not the demo per-se but the shaders and lighting effects via github.

I’m guessing that the more talented community members would probably be able to help the demo progress faster with improvements and tweaks that the very talented original developers might not have time to focus on.

Yup, the magic of the open source. It fosters innovation unlike copyright monopoly.

[Kiwasi]

@darkhog

Yup, the magic of the open source. It fosters innovation unlike copyright monopoly.

Except history has proven otherwise. As a general rule giving a monopoly to the innovator, and hence driving profits to the innovators, has produced more innovation then any other system.

[darkhog]

@Kiwasi

Except history has proven otherwise. As a general rule giving a monopoly to the innovator, and hence driving profits to the innovators, has produced more innovation then any other system.

Don’t tell that to ancient egyptians, ancient Chinese and ancient Greek though!

[JamesLeeNZ]

Unity does have a tendency to release showcases using tech not available, which I have always considered been pretty deceptive on their part.

Here’s our demo we created using a bespoke 64 bit version. Sorry, you cant have this version for another 6 months because we also hacked part of the engine internals, which you definitely cannot do. ps lolfu*kyou

[zombiegorilla]

@darkhog

Don’t tell that to ancient egyptians, ancient Chinese and ancient Greek though!

Good point. Nothing beats good old fashion slavery when it comes to getting things done.

[UniqueMindsGroup]

Most likely, they’ll release parts of the demo similar to how they did the blacksmith demo. Never the full project, although that would indeed be great!

[Arowx]

@JamesLeeNZ

Unity does have a tendency to release showcases using tech not available, which I have always considered been pretty deceptive on their part.

Here’s our demo we created using a bespoke 64 bit version. Sorry, you cant have this version for another 6 months because we also hacked part of the engine internals, which you definitely cannot do. ps lolfu*kyou

Language please! where are the mod police when you need them!

This is why Unity should either go completely open source or start writing their own games.

Even Blender a 3D Modelling tool has gotten into the habit of making 3D movies to test and drive improvements through their system.

I’m guessing that working at Unity must be quite boring and uncreative for most as the majority of the staff will probably be working on what feels like an endless supply of bugs. With only the chosen few working on new features with new bugs.

Imagine the motivation they would have to fix bugs if they were making games, or take the motivation the community has for making games and let them fix bugs as well.

As a matter of fact I think Unity should go open source and start making games. It seems to be working for Unreal!