I’ve been using Unity for 5 years. I had already taken some beginning courses in C++ and C# when a friend introduced me to Unity version 4. Unity seemed great and it was love at first use. As I’ve progressed in computer programming courses I did so with my friend, Unity.
What has made Unity unusable for me now is the shader compiler. There have been issues with the shader compiler since version 5 for me.
I’ve been working on a project for over a year. Now my project is stopped it in tracks and unless things change it will never be completed using Unity. The code works fine. It just won’t build because of the broken shader compiler Unity has. I’m not using a custom shader. I added the “Standard” shader to the build in the project settings. Building the PC beta would freeze at compiling the shaders. I kept trying again and again and eventually it went through once and after that it wasn’t a problem anymore. For the last few weeks I’ve tried to get a Mac beta out. It wouldn’t get pass compiling the shaders. It would always be an all day affair and I have things to do.
I started this project with Unity 5 and updated to Unity 2018 TLS. I’ve been using 2018.4.8 TLS for several months fearing, as many software engineers do, that if Unity is updated it will break the project. Whats up with that anyway? Why does updating to a newer version of Unity usually “break” our projects?
Yesterday I updated to the latest version of 2018.4.23 TLS hoping that would fix the problem. It made it worse. Now trying to build it for PC freezes at the shader compiler every time. I’m paying a subscription for a engine that doesn’t work. This is super frustrating. I’ve noticed many forum posts about the shader compiler Unity uses where people have to roll back to a earlier engine version to get things to work or take a wait and see approach while Unity comes up with a fix. Why has this problem with the shader compiler persisted in the Unity engine for years?
I added the Unity “Standard” shader to the project settings so users can create and texture 3d models and then export them to their hard drive. That was a planned feature of my project. It works too; for the unfinished beta I was able to build for the PC. But that was a test and needed further coding to fully implement everything I wanted to do. I could still release the project I suppose without that feature but that was a big point in it’s favor. There are other parts of my project associated with that functionality and it wouldn’t be what it has been advertised as if I were to release it without that feature.
So I’m going with the Unreal Engine now. Goodbye Unity. Unity has many amazing features and was an absolute miracle to have. But what’s the point if because of bugs Unity can’t finish a build that contains it’s own shaders?
Unity can still do a lot of amazing things and will work wonders for many users but not for me. Not any more.
If you want assistance, and not just want to vent, then you need to go to actual support section (becasue General is not support) and need to start posting error messages and screenshots of the problem.
You are saying it freezes while compiling shaders. What makes you certain it is frozen and not just taking more time to process? Very often on the forum threads about Unity freezing during the build process turn out to be caused by the user’s impatience rather than an actual problem. An actual build problem usually results in a build failure and error message. A freeze is usually the result of expecting 30 minutes of work to take 10 minutes.
In the past when Unity had the need to recompile shaders it used to take at most a few hours. Or it would finish in that time but I would check on it 2 hours later. When I watched it usually 30-45 minutes. But it had a habit of freezing with Windows showing a message it’s not responding most of the time. Ok, in that case just do it again and come back in an hour to see if it completed the build. When it completes and doesn’t freeze up then the player/build settings window is showing with a message in the Debug Log the build was successful. For the past few weeks it’s been 6-7 hours and after it gets to the end of compiling the shaders it just sits there and Windows gives the message it’s not responding. Let it sit there longer to see if it will change. Come back and nothing has changed. Yesterday from around 11:30am I started the build process. 6:48pm the progress bar is frozen at the end of processing the shaders with the message from windows it is not responding. The Windows build used to work and after updating to the latest 2018 TLS version it no longer works. Not sure how any of this is my fault. As I’m the one with a history of complaining I’ll take my assets and go home.
You need to open a support ticket with Unity and ask them to test your entire project and explain what is wrong. I have done that before with large projects, and Unity staff have offered good help in those times. If it is a Unity bug, that is the only way to find it.
Also, you may want to update your post. The .4 minor version is called “LTS” (Long Term Support), not “TLS”. I have successfully shipped with Unity 2018.4 LTS on PC, Mac, and Linux.
Adding the Standard Shader to the Always Included Shader list will cause Unity to try to compile and include every single variant of the Standard Shader. There are probably tens if not hundreds of thousands of variants of this shader, it will take a very long time.
You are better off making a custom shader that does not use variants like the Standard Shader does.
Unreal has similar “issues” with shader variant compilation, if you misuse it.
Whatever. I’m done with Unity. They’ve had shader compiler bugs/issues for years. One build the release notes stated they made the shader compiler start at a different point in the compile timeline for projects. Which means they don’t know how to fix it. UE4 does take a longer time to build a project, at first, but it never freezes on compiling shaders, never.
Unity needs to make the engine work first before they add more stuff to it otherwise what’s the point? I’ve taken my assets off the store and removed all 7 of my projects off my Unity Connect profile. Nothing serious can be made with their current engine versions. Amazing demos can be made, casual games, but not a serious finished game; not without concessions being made that take the flare out of the game. This shader compiler bug has stopped all development. Unity is useless.
This post was moved because people were seeing it. Unity can go ahead and delete my profile for all I care. They have the same business model as YoYo Games Game Maker. I don’t use Game Maker Studio. Why does YoYo Games make their customers/users pay up front? Because if they charged a percentage of profits from finished games YoYo Games would have declared bankruptcy long ago. Meanwhile Epic’s Unreal Engine gives their engine away and gets money from games/projects made with their engine AFTER money is being made on a released product.
AAA companies used Unity in the past. AAA companies used Unreal Engine before Unity came on the scene and they’re using it now.
I dare the Unity team to release Adam as a full blown game. Not the demo. Finish Adam by turning it into a real finished game any AAA company would expect to make millions off of. Go ahead Unity, finish it using the Unity engine.
I understand what you are saying, but you should submit a support ticket with Unity. Ask them to test your entire project and explain what is wrong. If it is a Unity bug, that is the only way to find it.
I made a backup of my projects and reformatted the hd and reinstalled windows 10. The Unity shaders on my backup USB drive would not copy over. It was taking forever. After more than a day it finally completed. checked the shaders and it appeared they were corrupted somehow. I was concerned about using my backup project at this point I was concerned about a virus so I decided to just start from scratch and improve the code with what I’ve learned since I began. when I compiled the unity standard shaders this time, didn’t use the shaders from my backup even though they should have been the exact same as the new installation, it took about 5 hours and completed. No issues. Haven’t had any problems at all.
So I’ve been a total a?? and need to apologize to everyone on the Unity team and especially those who coded the Unity engine. A 2 year old who throws tantrums would still behave better than I did. I threw shade on Unity and everyone who worked there. It was uncalled for. I’m very sorry.