Now that I hear Unity is going to run on Windows, I am having a bit of buyers regret! I have a PC (pretty powerful, I do all my 3d and PS work on it) and I also have all my authoring programs on it.
The iMac feels kind of redundant to me now, as I am a native Windowz user.
As nice as the iMac is, it is now just like kinda turning into a doorstop if I purchase Unity for the Pc.
Is there any advantage you guys can see in having both systems?
If not, I am going to sell the iMac (take a small hit) and use the rest of the money to actually go and do a Java Script course. So I can properly learn to do scripting and not fall about on my arse trying to copy/paste bits of the forum togehter.
So… if you where in my position. Would you sell the iMac and buy some knowledge? Or will the mac come in handy down the line?
If you enjoy using it, hang on to it. I really enjoy the option to work in OSX when I feel like it. If not, I don’t see any reason to keep it when you can sell and put that money back into other development expenses. If it’s relatively new, you shouldn’t be out too much in the deal. Resale is one of the reasons I didn’t feel bad about paying a premium for my Mac.
I switched to Mac even though I knew unity was coming to Windows a few months ago. If you like MacOS stick to it. Other than that - if your workflow stands on one plattform alone: why bothering implementing a secondary system into it?
I don’t know how long you’ve got your Mac, already but maybe give it some time to see if you really don’t want/need it. If you sell it now and find you actually liked it you’ll regret it more than having bought it in the first place
I was an avid Windows user half a year ago and really struggeled with myself whether I was going to change plattforms. Even though I sometimes get the same thoughts you mentioned in your first post (did I really need it - a PC for the same money would have been more powerful) I’d actually miss the Mac more now than I’d be happy about a slightly more powerful windows system.
Personally I also kinda like it because on MacOS I don’t get distracted by so many games as in windows. And I especially like how much less headaches I have in using my computer every day - and how damn fast it boots up and works compared to Windows.
But - nah: There’s no real important thing to keep a Mac if you don’t have any software on it. It’s preference and taste. Most important programs are available on both systems. I have absolutely no problem with Windows but right now I wouldn’t want to switch back.
( For gaming I still keep my 50GB WinXP partition - and it rocks! 8) )
One reason to keep it would be the possibility to test your games on Mac. Another one is being able to have the best of both worlds. Personally, I’ve completely moved away from Windows machines and have my Windows software running in a VMWare now which is pretty fine - with a few exceptions (3D graphics software and sound-software is not that well supported in virtualized environments). For those exceptions, having an actual PC sure would be nice.
Besides: Keep in mind that while Unity 2.5 will be available soon, it’s not available, yet. So, with your Mac, you can work with Unity immediately, while
Finally, if you are interested in multiplayer game development, having two machines is extremely helpful for testing. You can run the Unity editor on your Mac and on your PC simultanuously, which really simplifies debugging a lot.
I think it took me about a month or two until I preferred the Mac over my Windows PCs. Now there’s no way I would go back (except for Office and Visual Studio, which I have the virtual machines for). But people are different, so you might feel differently even after 3 months
For me, the Russian guy, Mac is very inconvenient. It is strongly focused on English-speaking users.
I will go back on Windows World as soon as possible, but keep my OSX. ;0)
Hi guys! From the gist of all the replies, I think I am going to do the following.
Pat my iMac on the head, and “send it next door”
Yes, sad, but I will then have the opportunity to actually go and learn scripting from the money I will get from selling it.
This is my biggest problem at the moment. I am a artist by trade so the pixels don’t scare me. Buy any file with a .js extension gives me headaches.
Mmm… this is a bit of a headache. I was kind of hoping that they would make a true multiplatform system (iPhone included)
This brings me to another point. If we do not have iPhone support, then surely there will be a price difference between packages? Anyone from Unity that can verify this?
Well, I am going to take a while to get my scripting up to scratch. So the practise I can get will be most welcome in the meantime. And a while means… Blizzard or Valve “a while?” (meaning years) or 3-4 months? Anyone from Unity?
So thanks for all the info and views guys! The only thing that makes me a bit hesitant is if publishing is iPhone only. Sounds a bit like shennanigans between Apple and Unity. Or if it really is a tech difference then maybe they can solve it later? It would be a bit of a downer to go and buy a Mac again if that is the only way to iPhone publishing.
If you want to do iPhone development you need to keep the Mac. I can’t see Apple porting XCode to PC any time (and not even soon, just any time).
You could port Photoshop across to the Mac - you can get cross-grade licences, particularly if you are upgrading to CS4 (reduction until the end of March from CS2!).
No, because Unity iPhone is a separate product anyway. You’ll always need a Mac to do iPhone development. They might have Unity iPhone editing working on Windows eventually, but you’ll still need a Mac for the rest of the process.
I’m a programmer and have the same feeling about the .js extension. The .cs extension feels much nicer, though … and you’ll actually find resources on C# that you can transfer for using within Unity much easier than JavaScript (which is probably about 99% geared towards Web development). If you’re not scared of reading long forum postings, you might have a look at this.
You probably noticed that there’s a couple of licenses: Unity Indie and Unity Pro; which is for “general game development” with the target platforms Windows, Mac and Web players. That’s where 2.5 is coming and with 2.5 a Windows version. And then, there’s iPhone Publishing and iPhone Advanced. That’s a separate license that you can purchase as an addon to Unity / Unity Pro.
So, that’s where you already have your price difference. You can buy Unity Indie or Unity Pro, both which you’ll be able to use for Mac and Windows. If you have any of those, you can also buy iPhone Publishing “Basic” - but that’ll only be for Mac; and if you have Pro, you can also get iPhone Publishing Advanced … which is also only for Mac.
Also keep in mind that Unity iPhone “whatever” is a separate installation / application.
I guess if they knew for sure, they’d post a release date. They plan for GDC (which would be about two months or so). I hope so but I guess no one knows
You can’t publish to iPhone without a Mac at all, and as simonre pointed out: It’s unlikely that Apple will change that. This has nothing to do with Unity but with publishing to iPhone being bound to using XCode, and XCode only being available for the Mac. Unity iPhone needs XCode, too - that’s the only way it can publish to the iPhone.
Not really…personally I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, unless you already know it thoroughly, in which case you might as well use it. Programming Unity with Javascript (or whatever you want to call it) is much more comfortable.
Unity iPhone creates a XCode project that must then be built inside of XCode, which is Apple’s Mac-only dev tool. So for the time being you need a Mac in the development loop anyway so there’s not much we can do to bring full-on iPhone authoring to Windows with no Mac needed.
To head some comments off at the pass, yes we recognize that at least being able to edit iPhone projects on Windows, or create the XCode projects on Windows, would be of use so we’ll look at that in the future. But for now it’s not something we’re going to focus on, instead we’ll spend our time elsewhere.
You asked for a company response so here I am, even though I’m going to say the same things as folks have said above. When you buy a Unity license that doesn’t include iPhone publishing anyway so there’s no need for a price reduction. The iPhone publishing features only come after you purchase the add-on iPhone license (either Basic or Advanced) so if you can’t use it, don’t buy it, no Unity pricing adjustments needed.
Yeah, I didn’t get the use money for scripting thing, either.
Maybe you mean buy some scripting books?
I hope you are hearing about the iPhone thing. It’s not a deficiency in the Unity tool that you can’t develop for the iPhone on a PC. In order for your app to show up on the app store it HAS to go through XCode on a mac. That’s all there is to it.
What HAS been talked about by the UT staff speculatively is possibly supporting basic iPhone support on Windows withOUT being able to test on the device (maybe the streamed thing could work?) but you would still need a Mac to test on the device natively and publish. (And AGAIN, this is just idle chatter and speculation about a possibility not a plan or a promise.)
@Eric: I sort of enjoy code completion and real-time compiling in editors for C#. Is there something I can use for Unity’s JS for that? They typecasting in C# is monotonous at times, but there are other features I quite enjoy. Where is that thread about comparing JS and C#… I’d like to go to JS, but I guess C# is more comfortable for me at the moment.
That’s a tutorial to learn scripting (from scratch - targetted at total beginners) inside of Unity (plus some MonoDevelop - but it’s mostly really inside of Unity). IMHO, that’ll be the best way to learn it. And don’t let Eric scare you … JavaScript - just like C# - is also best used when you thoroughly understand it; only that getting to a thorough understanding of JavaScript seems more difficult to me than coming to a thorough understanding of C# (reason is simply that it’s much easier to find excellent and full documentation on C# than it is to find the same for JavaScript … the “old” part of the tutorial linked above is probably the best resource you can find for Unity-JavaScript, I guess with that at your hands, it’ll be easy either way so pick whichever you feel you’ll like better).
@aaronsullivan: Btw, typecasting is (pretty much) history when you use generics; some people have their own “MonoBehaviour” which provides generic “GetComponent”-methods and the like … it’s sad we don’t have generics for Unity iPhone
Not that I know of, but to me that’s secondary. What I’m talking about is this:
Javascript:
function Start () {
var myTransform = GetComponent(Transform);
myTransform.position.x = 20.0;
}
C#:
using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;
public class SillyScript : MonoBehaviour {
void Start () {
Transform myTransform = (Transform) GetComponent(typeof(Transform));
Vector3 temp = myTransform.position;
temp.x = 20.0f;
myTransform.position = temp;
}
}
The best IDE on the planet does not make that any easier to read or more comfortable to deal with. (And yes, I know that you don’t actually need to use GetComponent with Transform in particular…it’s just a quick example, but it does deal with real issues.) I’m not wanting to get into yet another language comparison topic, but some people’s constant harping on C# is getting on my nerves.
I found both responses useful, generics for GetComponent: hadn’t thought of that. The temporary objects all the time for simple object member assignments, I also tend to forget that’s one of the reasons I started going back and forth between the two languages years(?) ago.
BUT let’s not hijack this thread any further. I’m done asking. Go ahead and duke it out in a new Javascript vs. C# thread if you want. I think the final result will be simple. There are trade offs for both and one doesn’t win out in all situations. Investigate, choose, get to coding.
As an artist myself I have to say … I never larned scripting from any kind of course I paid for. I learned some of it at university (which was much different from the ones I paid for which did nothing) and he majority of being an intern 6 months doing on/off scripting in Flash.
Actionscript really gets you going into all that workflow - and there’s TONS of resources out there. Unity is in quite a few aspects similar to Flash’s workflow. It differs from the language itself, of course.
Personally - I’d not give away a Mac for a course that might not get you what you wanted. There’s really good books which won’t cost you a fortune.
I’m not trying to convince you to keep your Mac, here. I’m just stating my own oppinion. If you feel that course gets you what you need and you really don’t need it: Sell it.
Also just for the statistics of this thread:
I do like and use Java Script over C# (because I at least know JS) and I wouldn’t go through all the hassle of a virtual machine for VisualStudio. And I’m an artist - not a programmer.
Interesting post, I too bought a mac to play with Unity when my workflow was all PC based.
In summary here’s what we have:
Pros
Can test/debug games if have both pc and mac including multiplayer.
99% Virus free
Exclusive development for iPhone (not available on pc yet)
If you have the 24" iMac, the screen is simply gorgeous
Hold their value
Bootcamp or VM Ware as PC workarounds
Cons
More expensive than PC equivalent.
Hardware always a few steps behind PC spec (e.g. Core i7 and Gfx cards)
Some software not supported native (e.g. Visual Studio)
As mac are now Intel based you should be looking at which OS you prefer…Windows or OS X.
If its not just about money, I would keep your Mac for it does have advantages.
I recently did a 40 minute video shoot and the Mac handled the HD footage from the camera as true plug n play. We didn’t need to buy any extra software or install drivers, it just discovered the camera, launched imovie and transferred the lot across. We tried to get the footage onto a PC too and it took half a day of faffing about with cables (firewire woes) and software (premiere pro didn’t like the camera) and it crashed a few times during transfer too.
Also, when you say you want a JavaScript course. It wont be “that” helpful. Javascript as a language is simple but programming for Unity is a different beast. JavaScript course will generally teach you how to write code for web based content.
For a fundamentals tutorial on programming with unity see this:
It is based on C# not JavaScript but no course will offer the same JavaScript equivalent, i doubt.
After this thread and all the good advice, the plan is…
Keeping the Mac.
Not going to do a JavaScript course.
Some very nice programmers I know offered to help me as I plough through a textbook for Java script for noobs like me with 0 programming experience. It is only going to cost me a few pints.
Not buy Unity for now, and learn to script first. I would rather learn to drive before I buy a Ferrari and wrap it around the proverbial lamppost.
In the meantime, please do not have any good game ideas as I will be heartbroken coming back in 4 months to see my game already made!
)
