I know that “realtime shadows” is a Pro feature, but, I was thinking I could get around this by writing my own shader. I was thinking something along the lines of Shader Workshops , which creates a “depth buffer” from the sun’s view and then translates this to shadows from the camera’s view. Pretty standard from what I gather.
Now, I’m new to shaders, so, let me ask you this:
Does generating a depth buffer and then feeding it over to the shadow shader require Pro?
Does something like this require “render to texture”?
Would this shader be attached to the camera and therefore be considered “full screen”?
What is the exact technical differences between Unity and Unity Pro as it relates to shaders?
Realtime shadows are a Pro feature because they use RenderTextures, which can only be used in Unity Pro. As far as I know Lights are implemented pretty much like you described.
go DX11 and try emulating render textures with writable buffers for shadow maps
I’m just guessing it’s possible. I have little experience with DX11.
if you’re smart enough to do the above then you can make something interesting, sell it on the asset store and buy pro license (or be happy with your own solution)
check alternatives to Unity
UDK: you can start free (on windows) with much less limitations to unity free, pay little when releasing initially, at the expense of royalties if you’re successful (go check the licensing)
There are many free (and FOSS) engines that have many features of Unity Pro, but not all the goodies Unity gives you like mechanim or the great noob-friendly community here.
