questions not found in the faq

News & General Discussion
1

I had some general questions about the Unity engine not found in the FAQ. Thanks in advance.

What’s the license agreement for Indie vs. Pro development? Major differences?

Do I have to pay royalties on anything written with the Unity engine?

Is there network support for creating multiplayer games?

Can I use C# (via mono?) or Javascript or BOO on OS X? What are the pros and cons of each scripting language (speed, oo, what’s preferred, etc)?

2

I know that one of the OTEE guys will answer in more detail shortly, (and will correct me if I’m wrong), but here is some general information for you:

The Indie versus Pro thing has to do with the delivery method I believe. Indie licenses only allow for distribution via web download, while the Pro version allows for games delivered on CD. In the future, there will also be another fee to create Windows standalones. The very cool thing is the Indie license allows you to build Mac standalones, web player games (the player is not yet available, but soon), and widgets! That’s right, full games right in a Dashboard widget.

No royalties at all.

I’ve talked to the OTEE guys about network stuff a ways back and can’t recall what was said. Joe or Nicholas?

Yes, yes, and yes. The preferred scripting language is now Javascript. Boo is a Python-like language developed by Codehaus. C# scripting is also supported. But I think that the majority of smaller game designers will be using Javascript as it’s more widely known and well-supported. Already the beta testers have been writing excellent and small scripts to start doing some very cool things.

You can use a simple text editor like SubEthaEdit (a fantastic choice) or Barebones TextWrangler to write the scripts.

Hope that helps somewhat (and to the Unity folks that I have most of that correct).

3

I don’t want to muddy the waters but here is what I received in an email about the licensing while I was a beta tester:

"There will be an indie version for 399$ and a pro version for 1900$.
For the first few month we will have a early adapter though.
So the indie version will cost 249$ and the pro version 900$.

The pro version allows you to use render to texture and our high speed asset
server solution. The pro version gives you rights to publish anything
commercially. The indie version has some restrictions on what you can
publish commercially."

4

  • We don’t want royalties from either product.

  • Other developers will be able to read all sourcecode of products published with the indie license.

  • Render-to-texture is a pro only feature (reflections, refractions, glow)

5

I sent an email to support before I sent an email to the forum (covering all bases I guess, overkill? Yes. Oh well, life goes on. Below is the email I got from support, guess they’re still working out the details. Either way it looks like a nice product with lots of potential, will have to finish the tutorial before I make any decisions.

the license for Indie and Pro development isn’t explained well enough on the website.

The differences are:

  • Pro encrypts the data files so others can’t reuse your assets.
  • Pro can do render-to-texture which can be used for reflections and cool image based rendering.
  • Indie can only be used by individuals or companies with less than $100,000 turnover per year.

You will be able to upgrade, but the exact terms are not yet outlined.

Hope this helps,

d.

6

I think you’re going to love it, this product is worth every penny! :wink:

Can’t wait to show you all what I’ve been working on with it. Will have some screenshots posted when things get to “alpha” type stage where the graphics look is more pinned down, eh.

Let us know you reactions to it after looking over it for a while if you don’t mind. I’d be interested to hear what the experience is like coming into Unity now with more of the tutorials and community established. I started with Beta 2.

Cheers!
-Jon

7

We are working on it.

All languages are similar performance wise. C# might be slightly faster but not noticably.
Pick the script language you are most comfortable with.
Javascript is certainly easiest to learn and you don’t have to know about classes or other Object Oriented concepts to use it.

8

I’m working on the website and the FAQ still… thanks for the pointers, it wouldn’t be a Frequently Asked Questions if no one actually ever asked any questions now would it :wink:

Enjoy Unity, and keep buggin us with questions whenever you’re not sure of something.

d.