Does anyone know if there are people have been making short cartoons/videos using unity? similar to how we used to have flash cartoons everywhere back in the day. i’ve been missing homestar runner lately, and was thinking i might try to whip something up.
There is really no reason to use Unity when there is other software around such as Flash or the 3D package of your choice. Unity is a game engine. There was a thread a few months ago about making animated movies with Unity, and that thread ended with a very similar answer.
Unity made be a game engine but it’s not limited to JUST games. Sometime I’d love to try and make a short video but right now I don’t have the time… too busy working on games and asset store products. I thought it’d be interesting if shows like Family Guy, Futurama and South Park had an episode fully made in Unity. You’d think it wouldn’t be that hard since it’s cartoony and the most of the animations are repeated in every episode. Plus if you make a cartoon in Unity, you could even have it interactive in some way. Less interactive than The Walking Dead game though because it is meant to be a cartoon/show after all and not a game.
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Go ahead…but you’ll save money buying 2D assets if you wait for Unity 4.3
I think unity isn’t totally ideal for cartoons. I want to do something similar too but I want there to be a global timeline across the entire production, so that either means a really big animation clip that spawns other clips, or maybe a third party cutscene-creator type of thing. But then you can do things like moving objects, scaling, rotating, but what I really want to see is fast vectorgraphics where you can apply animation paths to individual vertices. Thinking of making one myself.
so is there something free that is comparable to what you could accomplish in unity and/or flash?
If you’re just making a normal video then Unity probably isn’t the right tool for the job, but if you are making something special that can’t be displayed only through a video then Unity is right for the job 
Perhaps an interactive movie? Or a VR movie.
Or if you want realtime, better-than-video quality, or you want to take up a lot less storage space.
Here’s another, 3D example. This was strictly a promotional video short. I like it at least.
Using Unity for a bit of Machinima? It’s entirely possible. Part of the issue is going to be where you would distribute the final production. You could host it using the webplayer, or release it as a stand-alone application. Or you could use a program like FRAPS to capture the final produced video. In another couple of months NVidia is going to be coming out with a comparable program that will be able to capture rendered games even more efficiently. (directly through the GPU)
I would say that Unity is a good option for machinima if you are trying to maintain more complete control, need more custom content, and are capable of rolling your own Unity tools. If its rendering features you need, you would do better with something along the lines of UDK. If it’s just frame-based 2D animations, Flash is the normal solution. Unity provides better scope for custom content and tools, and is more compatible with low-cost programs for providing both.
Of course, Project Spark might just blow everything else away when it releases. The current word is that the XBox One edition of that title is going to allow for mo-cap animation recording and playback. Even facial animations. It could end up being the ideal low-cost machinima studio.
Well you could certainly make animated characters in Blender or Maya and export them to Unity, and use Unity as your render engine.
And if you can make the best out of DX11?.. I bet it can compete with many of the non-realtime render engines, and maybe if you play your cards right, to certain degree most people wouldn’t even notice it’s GPU stuff (providing you have a respectable video-card to make it run 30fps).
I can think of two huge benefits… of the top of my head. One is realtime render. Second is the wide range of opportunities that open up once you add in the element of interactivity, courtesy of Unity.
Perhaps not ideal for 3d cartoons, but Unity IS ideal for doing previz work
You realized how old this was right? Topic was long dead year(s) ago almost.