I am developing a web based e-learning solution and I am considering Unity and would like your input.
My solution is for students with special needs thus some features are important.
1)Audio Chat/Messaging. I read that SmartFox Server can record audio via RedBox but not sure if this feature is available to Unity/.NET.
2)Should I use Flash for Audio chat/messaging and connect to Unity Player via JavaScript in the browser? Flash has some excellent audio/video recording/conferencing capabilities. I read a tutorial on using Flash and Unity together and it looks promising. But, are there any performance concerns using two players ( Unity and Flash) on the client side? Would a server side audio Chat/messaging solution be better (ie. using ASP.NET)?
Deployment to Linux. I read on the forums that a Linux Player is on its way, but will this happen?
How many Textures can I use? My game would use 500 textures. Is this possible? Also, how fast do textures load in Unity (compared to Flash)?
5)Any suggestions on using a Learning Management System for the educational content I create. should I use DotNetNuke or build my own using ASP.NET, or JavaScript/Ajax, Flash,???
6)In general, what is the best way to add to Unity’s functionality? Use Unity plugins, use DOT NET libraries, use Mono Libraries, use Flash and Unity together, use Unity and DotNetNuke, use Unity and JavaScriptAJAX in the browser?
As I see it, no one solution offers everything I need. Flash is close, but 3D content works best for my users/students and Unity is best at 3D. So it seems I am searching for answers on using Unity together with some other solutions.
Thanks in advance for your input, it is really appreciated.
i would be interested in which Flash-Unity Tutorial you’re talking about, a link? I made my own solution for this already but i would still be interested how others did it.
Personally i’ve also used Flash for audio messaging. Javascript is the only way for communication between Flash and Unity (beside of server based communication), no local connections, therefore it’s slower but on the other side it doesn’t come with hickups you might have enjoyed when using parallel connections between Director and Flash for instance - which they fixed in the latest shockwave update by the way. Anway it’s fast enough for a click in Flash triggers something in Unity or the other way around or some automated updates if they don’t occure too often, for steady and heavy updates it’s not fast enough.
Linux deployment for sure will take some time, i wouldn’t count on it yet unless you really have a looong project running. I’ve never used 500 textures in Unity but theoretically there shouldn’t be a problem with that and if streaming is allowed you can stream them too. The main issue with streaming content is the filesize and there Flash has an advantage over Unity when you’re cleverly using SWFs but beside of this out of the box you can stream PNGs and JPGs. No idea about the best eLearning solution as this depends on many factors. What’s best depends on your projects needs but generally you should be able to do quite some projects with a Flash-Unity combination. It’s more that certain tiny things can be annoying.
Hey - I have not yet (at all) looked at red box functionality and how it works. So cannot answer that question directly.
In the Unity SFS API (I am the author of that one) I got full regular API + bluebox support.
If redbox uses the regular API with e.g. SendObject or SendXtMessage - then it would work out of the box.
If its not in there yet - and not huge work to get running, then I could be tempted to work on it. But no promise and I would have to talk to the SFS guys also before commiting myself to it
Thanks for your responses. The support is appreciated.
Taumel: Here is the link to Flash and Unity integration tutorial- drawlogic - creative engineering + interactive action!.
Unity and Flash together would be a good solution. Adobe is working on Cocomo which is a very attractive Flex solution for communications. http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/cocomo/. What is your solution for Flash/Unity integration and do you feel there are any performance concerns running two different players in a browser.
Thomas: Thanks for your kind offer. I understand that it may be a lot of work to intergrate RedBox5/SFS with Unity/.Net. Audio Chat integration with Unity through SFS would be the best solution for me. Live audio conferencing is not needed. What I need is a way to record/retrive audio chat messages. This is a key feature given my users/students abilities. If you find it worthwile to work on this integration I am sure many others would find this feature very usefull.
I understand that for Unity to handle 500 textures, the textures will most likely be streamed. For my game, each bitmap texture will only be about 10-15K. and about 50 textures used per scene. The concers is how long would it take to load 50 new bitmap textures for each scenes? Can textures be pre loaded in the background? I know that there are a number of factors that effect download times but using Flash as a baseline how is Unity’s bitmap loading performance?
@Rolandd
Thanks for the link. Up to now i went two routes: Flash interface steering Unity content via Javascript, which works pretty well for the clicking or turntable like inputs but as i said nothing reasonable for frequent updates and secondly feeding unity via sql-server entries which are put into by other different apps. I did not encounter problems having both plugins active on one page.
