Hi,
I am working on two projects for two different companies. One is using v2017 LTS and another v2018 LTS so I have not seen much of v2019 so far. A Toon Shader client asked me recently for v2019 compatibility so I decided to have a look at v2019.
New features in v2019 that could be interesting are missing (network) or are gonna be abandoned (HDRP). Support of the latest platform updates (IOS-AR-VR-MR) does not seem so necessary to me (IOS profitability became lower over the years, AR-VR-MR are not there as products and will not get there soon). v2019 does not seem so interesting to me after a superficial inspection.
What features of v2019 do you find useful - exciting?
BTW, stuff I like so far (including all 2019 versions):
HDRP support
Incremental GC
Enter play mode without domain reload
The new UI is much better than the old small-text gradient one
New Input system looks very good to me
But nowadays the editor versions and packages are separating, so more and more “excitement” will be and are shifting to packages rather than the “new version” of the editor. (like HDRP and Input system, Quick search, Addressables)
Thanks all for your feedback, it is much appreciated.
I should re-phrase this part of the post.
HDRP is still in preview and since Enlighten is gonna be abandoned-replaced, high-quality rendering in Unity is and will be an ugly mess for some time. Practically by removing the Enlighten backend, all the fine-tuning people do to achieve high-quality lightmaps, etc will need to be redone, just as it happened before during the Beast->Enlighten transition period.
I guess you are mentioning UIElements. We cannot use them in-game, only in editor. Why would someone use this to e.g. create an editor tool, since so many projects are using v2017-v2018 which do not support this feature?
You are right. I try to adapt into this new paradigm - packages that are adding functionality instead of Editor features, which is great for adding Editor functionality - the FBX export package is a lifesaver. I should examine the available packages more in-depth.
What I find annoying regarding ECS-DOTS is that I need to re-implement Monobehaviour functionality to use something that might work. And this really sucks. It is easier than writing native plugins to gain speed but still sucks.
Please do not interpret my POV as a nihilistic one - I do not feel like every new feature is worthless, they are interesting. I dislike the fact that most of these features are experimental and in-preview - it’s like “use it at your own risk” - I do not wish to risk when someone pays me for consultancy in a project, so these features are out.
Well, true is, not every feature if for everyone. Some features need start somewhere, before mature. And we are is such pleasant position, we can observe, how these evolve and try as well. We just see lots of previews and experimental stuff, in contrast, what we have seen in past, where you had only given things ready on the table. And yet couldn’t try upcoming stuff, since where “hidden” behind Unit dev team curtain.
In current state ECS / DOTS is in preview, not ready for production. Simple as that.
However, you can use fully functional Jobs, if you consider performance gain. People tends to overlook it.
But that may require redesign part of your project(s), if you far in progress.
Either way, if you in middle of the project, you should focus on what you got, rather what is upcoming.
What are your Unity expectations for new project? Is there really anything you will need, what you can not achieve already in your case?
I’m pretty excited for the improved maximize button. It makes a big difference in how many WTF’s per day are generated when trying to maximize a window.
I respectfully disagree. They have plenty of time to bring to the table either the GPU or the CPU progressive lightmapper. They aren’t in that bad shape (they need some work, but not that bad). You need to follow the change? Sure. But every software works this way. You signed up for this when you decided you’re using an engine instead of rolling your own. Especially if you’re using a preview feature. (The preview-ness of the feature is not a problem, it shouldn’t be, we should be glad to be able to play with these new stuff to learn what will come when they are out of preview)
With that said, I am too have some doubts how this will play out regarding the HDRP, but since the feature is still in preview I wouldn’t bury it just yet. But I’m not that pessimistic. (disclaimer: I have started to play around with HDRP but I decided to not to use it just yet, it’s too preview for my project, I don’t have the resources to maintain it, but that’s my specific situation, HDRP is not worse because of this)
Partly, and the actual editor UI. Those who don’t care about 2017 and 2018. Those, who start a new project nowadays or in the immediate future. I’m not an Asset Store publisher. I don’t need to minimize the work between versions. I do whatever I see fit. I skipped 2018 entirely (other than testing and stuff), when our project will be mature enough, hopefully Unity 2019 will be mature too, until then I am willing to pay the using bleeding-edge-price.
Actually it’s very usable right now. There are some problems with it with specific situations, but again, just started a new project, I can afford to use the preview package. And it’s working for the project so far (currently I do not need anything special in the input front, but the editor and the input handling is so much better than the old input…)
And? Your question was what I find exciting in the 2019. I’m currently running this new project in 2019.1 and in 2019.3 (so far not too many problems but again, this is a brand new project from ground up, will see if the 2019.3 beta will be stable enough to go forward with it or not. Currently I’m cautiously optimistic about this.
This info is very useful, I should check it out when the time comes.
This is useful too (when people disagree). My point is, why invest time with HDRP since it will be transformed at a fundamental level in v2020? I could simply skip HDRP in v2019 to save the hassle of learning HDRP twice and having inconsistent results between v2019 and v2020. Following the change makes sense sometimes, not always.
I really mean this part. The fact that I personally do not wish to use experimental features means nothing at all, I am very interested in other people’s POV and I appreciate the effort of responding in this thread.
I might have overlooked it as well. Could you please suggest some source-link that provides some hands-on useful Jobs implementation besides this one?
My case is that I am a senior Unity developer and I get paid to advise people with serious budgets on questions like “which Unity version shall we use in our project”. One project required Win 7 32bit compatibility - only 2017.1.p3 fitted the bill. In another project the new prefabs system was the deciding factor to jump to v2018 while it was in beta, it worked well, after some minor bumps. I am looking for killer production-ready features in v2019.
I think what Peter77 points to is that now it is slightly easier to hit the icon
I try to decide if v2019 worth it while I am very short in time to explore it and your feedback helps me a lot to narrow down my efforts.[/QUOTE]
If you understand Data Oriented Design and technical aspects, you can figure out tons of applications. Otherwise, if you not familiar with DOD yet, you may need to read something about first.
You can also search Job System Examples.
But as an advisor, that should be obvious, so probably no need to mention.
Yup, Google wanna be my friend, I found this one, looks decent.
Personal recommendations still have a higher value than a google search in my book - if anyone wishes to provide a link to examples that he/she/whatever finds useful, please point me to these examples.
Thanks again for the feedback.
