I’m a pretty newbie user of unity. I just discovered it some few days ago, and i cannot hide my enthousiasm about this program. However,i’d have to give just one feedback about it wich i think ( imho ) could be of importance. It’s about the free version limits.
No texture rendering is a real break for unity discovery. I’m still on the free version, and i’m not sure i’ll buy the pro version, just because of those important functionalities i cannot deal with. As u know, most people are ‘visual’, and then they ask why graphics are not as good as on the blabla game they just saw, and you answer them it’s just because of this unity’s version limits, they just say goodbye.
A really good thing for all would be to implement ALL functionnalities in the free version, but cancel some in the ‘compile to target’ process, so that people can really show great demos of their job, but can’t sell it without buying the pro version…
I think this would greatly enhance your users impact on their customers, and consequently, unity3D sales…
What do you think about this ?
Not that I’m in anyway opposed to “free stuff” but considering it’s free I think the graphical capabilities are great. Anyone can use a cool built in shader or effects, (or whatever stuff was taken out of the free version, I forgot) if they have the money to buy the pro version, but it takes a lot of skill to make things look good in the old fashioned way, level geometry and textures. I have been trying to learn that for a while.
But yes, people who are not involved with game development tend to be amazed by silly eye candy stuff, and often dismiss the things which were in fact the hard part.The eye candy stuff is only hard if you have to program it from scratch yourself.
I think you’re using the classic Internet strategy of disguising something you want as a benevolent offer of a superior sales strategy.
I think it’s about as valid as me thinking “I want a ham sandwich” but telling the man in the shop that his sales will go through the roof if he gives me a free sandwich, because I’ll go tell all my friends how great his sandwiches are.
I think people will generally see this for what it is.
I think UT would lose a lot of sales if they gave away full functionality and disabled publishing.
That’s a screenshot from Unity Pro. Your argument is flawed but your point is valid.
Unity, in general, looks way better than most other engines with way less work, UDK excluded. (But UDK will murder your brain if you try to make anything more than a map for Unreal Tournament, so it doesn’t count as a game engine.)
As a free user, I think that Render To Texture effects are, realistically, the last thing we’d get. RTT allows real-time shadows, full-screen post-process effects, reflections, refractions, and generally tons of effects that would otherwise be Pro-only.
you can’t disqualify UDK as an engine for us all, just because you currently have “troubles” with it.
(which is mostly, no harm ment, your own lack of knowlegde of the tools. And being used to Unity’s way of doing things. Which is different to say the least.)
Someone might find it easier for the job, compared to e.g. Unity.
It all depends on the experiences/goals/need.
Unity is an Engine, so is UDK. Although for completely different audiences/markets (UDK for heavy weight projects, Unity for general weight projects (which isn’t a bad thing, mind you!).
Both are good/perfect in their own respects.
Perhaps I was a bit too harsh… what really bothers me about UDK is the lack of documentation. Last I checked, there is not one scripting tutorial that works with the current version version that covers more than the absolute basics. There’s not even an API reference, much less with good samples like Unity has. If UDK had documentation even half as good as Unity’s, I would…
…nah, I’d still use Unity UDK doesn’t even support less than Pixel Shader 3 and it’s deprecating the GUI system that doesn’t require Flash -_-
Edit: Woah, did I actually say that UDK doesn’t count as a game engine? Oops. I think what I meant is that UDK doesn’t fit into the category of Unity as far as the ease-of-use/graphics relationship goes… or I just got worked up in my ranting.
UDK doesn’t even support less than Pixel Shader 3 and it’s deprecating the GUI system that doesn’t require Flash -_-