I think that Unity should go Open Source and also start Developing their own Games, and here’s why:
It must be frustrating working for Unity just fixing bugs all day. So making games will massively motivate the staff to not only make games but also fix bugs as they go.
It is very frustrating as a developer to hit bugs in Unity and not be able to fix them ourselves. Some developers are hobbyists, but some are working as contractors and their ability to deliver a product is dependent upon Unity being able to fix bugs.
Other tools developers have used this approach to great effect, from language developers writing the languages compiler in their language to game engine and tool makers building games with their toolset.
A game developer, who had managed to speed up the rendering in their game using shaders and combining meshes, when asked about DX12 and Instancing in Unity 5.4+ replied: “I’m still using Unity 4.7”.
How many other developers or contractors are not using Unity 5, because of the bugs?
Personally I’m a hobbyist/indie developer who is all for improving Unity and I think I can see a pattern I have often seen in my own development projects; Where a level or threshold of complexity is passed and initial attempts to fix the problem often compound into more problems.
I suspect that Unity is hitting some kind of complexity threshold, as more features have been added over time and then some of those features have had to change, compounding the problems.
When this happens refactoring is often a key way to solve the problems, but sometimes a clean slate is needed.
Maybe UT need to consider a clean slate approach? What is Unity, can it be everything to everyone or should it be a set of technologies that work together and maximise the creative potential of developers on a subset of hardware.
Most people can already guess the thread content when they see it’s posted by you or know how the thread discussion would continue so they don’t bother. Somehow you again managed to get some of your favorite keywords DX12 and VR in to this open source titled thread too…
Additionally we recommend newcomers learn how to make use of Google as it’s a fantastic tool. If we’re going to expect newcomers know how to use it then there isn’t any reason why a veteran can’t do it too and this topic has most definitely been covered before. By the same person who is starting it now at that.
Honestly, I can’t think of any cases where making some engine or game open source is a magic bullet, or even really successful for the community as a whole. I’m not saying there are not cases, I just can’t think of any.
Yeah…you might get a few people who submit bug fixes. And maybe a few who actually COULD do something with the source code to further their efforts. But overall, I figure nothing much will happen.
As far as the state of the code, I just have my suspicions that you are somewhat correct: Unity is very complex, and development time and quality suffers as a result. But really, that’s just a hunch.
A clean slate is of no real long term use unless a better overall design approach is used, and that generally requires not using the same people who haven’t already put that stuff into practice. The idea that the same ideas, experience, and development philosophies can somehow create version 2 “right” is flawed, in my humble opinion.
Sometimes the clean slate, better product just requires it being done by someone else. And, I think that is what usually happens.
Same old faces reply even though they admit to being bored with the topics?!
Weirder.
I hope you never become a manager, as one of the key things you have in existing staff is they will know the domain and will have gone through fixing the bugs while dreaming about alternate solutions. In effect you are throwing away the people you have just spent a small fortune on live training.
Your new people will probably hit the same or similar problems to the ones already solved by the existing staff.
You ask for the engine to be made open source once or twice a week. You have built yourself a reputation as the forum ideas guy. You know what they say about ideas guys…
Yea, topics has been done. Unity is successful at what it does. Sure things can improve, but gutting their entire business and development model on an unproven strategy is just dumb. If it ain’t broke…
So…yeah, what I said was probably not very accurate. I basically meant, if you take the same guys who do things X way, I don’t have much confidence that version 2 will be a huge improvement over version 1. I definitely don’t believe in wasting good talent. I probably shouldn’t have made the entire statement, it’s a bit arrogant overall and I’m just a hobbyist so…
That being said…honestly, I took your question at face value and actually agreed with you on some part of your post (thought not all), I hope you appreciate the value of being considerate on the forums. Makes the world a better place eh?
This depends quite a bit on context - why was version 1 not “right”?
I know that in commercial work you’re often under a lot of time and/or budget pressure. Under those circumstances even good programmers often write terrible code. I’ve done it myself many a time, writing something that I know isn’t as robust or maintainable or complete as I want but doing it anyway because I don’t have the time and/or people to do it properly.
Also, often the first time someone writes a particular type of code they’re not experienced in the area. I know that also describes me for plenty of jobs I’ve done, learning about a particular problem domain as I go. Often I might have tried things differently from the outset had I only known what I learned as I went.
OK the Open Source and Eat your own Dogfood have been raised before but until they are properly tested they are not done as they are still open potential areas of improvement.
Can you really say Unity is successful, it’s a private company with no stocks or shares to indicate how well or poorly the company is actually doing. It’s still here and I have not seen any news regarding layoffs or problems but we have little to no idea of where the company is financially.
But if studios are sticking with 4.x for current projects for stability and to make more of a profit from their Unity license then what economic impacts could that be having on UT?
[quote=“Arowx, post:12, topic: 625255, username:Arowx”]
Can you really say Unity is successful,
[/quote]yes.
[quote=“Arowx, post:12, topic: 625255, username:Arowx”]
But if studios are sticking with 4.x for current projects for stability and to make more of a profit from their Unity license then what economic impacts could that be having on UT?
[/quote]Huh?
Not really. Not here anyway. Unity is still the engine of choice for 95% of the devs I interact with in person. This figure is skewed because it’s mostly indies and small studios. But Unity doesn’t appear to be loosing any real market share.