Which version would you pick as a beginner looking to learn the systems in depth?

News & General Discussion
1

Hi,

I’m a C# developer looking to dabble in Unity. I don’t have any particular game ideas… I’ll probably never even release a game this is mostly just for a hobby.

Anyway, are there any exact summaries as to which systems are changing between 2019.3 and 2020.1b / 2020.2a? I want to learn some of the unity systems in depth but a lot of videos/posts I’ve seen talk of the newer systems/pipelines being worked by the Unity team obsoleting old systems with little/no skill transfer overlap.

Since for me at the moment this is more about learning the systems rather than making a complete game
I’m a bit conflicted if I should start with the stable 2019.3 or jump straight into 2020.2a which I know would be less stable, but knowledge learned is less likely to be obsoleted?

Thanks in advance for any advice, hope my English is understandable.

2

i would say go with LTS version, but u can always try different versions. There is going to be slight diffs along the way. most recent version is going to be most unstable.

3

2019.3 Will become the LTS version soon. I would stick with that.

Tech releases are mainly for experimentation.

Alpha and beta releases are mainly for people to help out Unity with quality control.

4

If you want a stable, straight-forward install, never download any version with “a” or “b” in the version number. These are alpha and beta preview releases, so they are not completely developed.

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5

Use 2019.3. No point in chasing bleeding edge, because it will take months for it to be stable.

6

Thanks for the replies,

I already work as a developer (C++ & C#), I’m aware about software release cycles, I know alpha/beta releases will be less stable, at this time I’m not too bothered about stability.

What I am more bothered about is learning systems that are already in the process of being obsoleted (i.e. game objects vs ECS). Looking at the roadmap slides more maybe I’ll just wait for 2020.1 final release. 2020.1 looks like it adds a few of the missing DOTS systems rather than 2019 which seems to be more an overwhelming mishmash of old/new systems.

7

GameObjects are not being obsoleted.

8

This. While one of the long term goals is to make it possible to create a game purely with ECS it’s very much the case that you’re intended to be able to use both systems at the same time. Unity has no immediate or long term plans to discontinue GameObjects and MonoBehaviours.

9

I think GameObjects will be here for 5…10 more years.

Meaning that by studying 2019.3 you won’t lose anything.

10

Unity 2019.4 LTS is available now and is the release you should be using if you haven’t already downloaded 2019.3.

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11

Then you should also be aware that Unity has a habit of launching new features in alpha/beta/preview that never actually get released. Check out the Unity Networking system. It was pulled almost as soon as it was launched.

If you want to learn systems that won’t become obsolete, you are better off sticking with the older core features.

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12

Maybe not IMGUI for ingame rendering, though. :slight_smile: Though UGUI probably will remain useful for a while yet, even though it is officially dead and no longer supported.

But in general I agree with the sentiment. What Unity calls the “Legacy Animation” is still supported, and according to Ian Dundore’s talk at 2018 Berlin is still the most performant animation tool, and is not going away anytime soon.