Wouldn’t it be neat if there were a website-managed prefabs library? A way to fully interface the work of scripters with artists?
Is there already a prefab database somewhere?
You know, say particles are your thing - awesome, much like photoshop and gimp artists create brushes, I think this is what unity has in mind when making sure everything is pure object and the use of prefabrication.
If your thing is car physics, or ai, etc, there should be a place where you can upload prefabs as add-to-scene-and-change-meshes/collision, it could be incredibly diverse.
It would be ALMOST like modding except the community shapes the whole entire thing and rather than a shipped and bound game, you have a wide range of possible objects to put into the world.
Does it already exist? I’ve seen script samples and stuff, but like, that doesn’t really help to better interface the art community with the coding community, usually it just confuses me (sorry Busby, loving the videos but code is the drool for me!).
I do understand unity more and more, and with that I yearn for prefabs to bring to life, and if there is already a place, I’d love the link! If there isn’t one, I’ll start one! Let me know, especially if it already exists, thanks!
Not that I know of, but something like that could be of great use. Without going into specifics we’ve chatted about some ideas around the office here as we see the need, only time will tell what happens with those discussions.
By gosh this idea is awesome. It would be very good for all developers of unity3d. Me being a scripter, and my brother being the artist we still need sounds, and this would probably be a good way to help.
How would it work though? Would you pay for stuff? Or would it be a mix of people contributing for free because they are nice and paid stuff because it took a long time to do?
If this were up I would definitely contribute a lot.
Great idea, you could put this on the wish list!
I think the iTunes model would work perfectly for this. Most everything would be in the $0.99-2.00 price range. Possibly have a second tier in the +$50.00 range for advanced tutorials, game levels, and complete micro games.
Whomever constructs this would have to form a business relationship with a micro-payment provider, as PayPal and Google Checkout fees would take to high a percentage in the lower end price range.
I’ve thought about this a lot, although it was for a completely different purpose unrelated to Unity.
The other issue I keep stumbling on is the fact that whatever service you sell through becomes largely responsible for all aspects of the sale.
What might be a better solution for the seller, buyer, and store provider is if the store is actually just a product aggregator like Nextag.
So all the sellers would have their own virtual storefronts and pay solutions but (Unity) buyers would go to one website to search for the prefab they were looking for. When they click on the item of interest they are redirected to the sellers storefront.
That could be asking too much of sellers to create their own store front and to find a payment method. I imagine a lot of potential sellers just finding it all too much effort for something that might not even sell.
But as you said, it does put a strain on the service provider. So to make it all worthwhile for Unity Technologies they could perhaps charge a seller fee?.
Heck, then if it’s successful then they could even give Unity Pro away for free and make their millions from their marketplace!
Let’s face it - this is how Second Life became so popular. It’s a relatively low tech platform/world, yet so many people create for it because they like to make money!. Take the money away and I reckon Second Life’s user base would be halved over night!
Even if they did make lots of money from the market place, I don’t think they should give unity pro for free. Maybe make it a little less expensive, but free is not a good idea.
I actually kind of dislike the idea of it becoming a marketplace instead of just library of free contributions. I mean, there are already lots of places selling models. If the prefabs were free I think I would have a look and possibly modify them and contribute something myself. If the prefabs have a price tag I would probably ignore the whole place and rather do something myself but that’s just my 2 cents.
I second that, what GorrylIard said.
Not so much because of the price itself but due to a deep-rooted distrust towards PayPal and the like. :?
Well, I guess one could have both at the same time, but if there’s going to be only one of them I vote for the free solution. (It’s much less of a problem to set up, anyway)
Why are those mutually exclusive notions (free versus paid)? The AppStore is a current example of a place that supports both free items as well as for-purchase items, I think there’s room for a similar approach around Unity-related assets. Besides, there are already free exchange areas available, one being the Unify Community Wiki.
I agree with HiggyB, it should be both.
I would contribute things for free, but if I made something ultra-cool, I would defenitely share it, but I would like to get something from it.
Damn, writing this with my iPod-touch is annoying.
For everyone, first off, I meant for this to be FREE and supported only by onsite advertising…
For the WHOLE Unity users base against the world, NOT each other…
Turbosquid is for models, this is for prefabs which still require models to be applied…
A way for all those people who script for fun to get use out of their code and be credited and perhaps discovered to be on a paid team, but not to charge each other.
A database won’t happen for many reasons. Here are some.
1). Think of this in the companies perspective, if they are going to do this it has to be worth there time. Advertising revenue wouldn’t cover it, probably not even the server costs.
2). We would get a lot of stuff, and a lot of it would be high quality. But if there is nothing in it for the developer of the prefab, then there won’t exactly be a lot of great stuff that is really awesome.
3). There would be a lot of people going there just to take something put it in there project and carry on, not caring about contributing.
Beside, if we make it a marketplace all those people who are really good at scripting or something of the sort but just can’t make a good game can still make money because of the time they put into it. And the marketplace would still have all the free scripts anyways.
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, but if the idea were put to use it would be developed and slowly die down because no one is contributing to it.
I agree with Killer, ad revenue wouldn’t cover server fees and maintenance.
We all want free crap, but someone has to prosper from offering the free crap. Even Unity is making money off of offering a free version, because as you grow to love it (and you will) you will want to upgrade the software.
If it’s a site with free prefabs and no payment system then why not just make a simple search database that lists prefabs and the links to get them (where everyone hosts their own data).
Flay.com (plugins section) is a simple database where a user can search for a Lightwave plugin using keywords and option check boxes. The user is then provided a list of results, just like any search engine. When the user clicks on a given search result they are presented with a nice little page giving a brief description and a link on where to download it.
It would be very easy to do, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. I still think the producer of the content should have the ability to offer a product for free or a fee of their choosing; and whomever is providing the site and payment system require a cut.
Charging people isn’t somehow being “against” them. I have no problem paying people for their time and effort. It’s pretty disrespectful not to actually.