Did I miss something? I heard rumours of real-time shadows in free a long time ago, then I went under a rock for a while. Recently I loaded up an old unity project (standard) and I noticed it had real time shadows. They were just on.
I looked for the thread about this on the forums but I can’t find anything.
Is this really happening?
“Now free: realtime shadows (one directional light only; hard shadows only).”
http://unity3d.com/unity/whats-new/unity-4.2
And to remove all of the rocks you have been living behind, soft shadows and dynamic global illumination for all. 
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/200024-Shadow-Softener-Official-Thread
Navmesh too. FYI
Head explodes*
Hard shadows and one directional lighting work for my foreseeable needs, but this looks awesome.
Now they just needs a freaking GLOBAL SAVE FUNCTION like every other game dev program in existence has, even game maker. Just steal Shiva’s environment save function.
The directional light shadows by themselves are pretty terrible. They work fine for some early tests and stuff but the free system as is certainly leaves a person wanting more pretty quickly. I suppose there is nothing wrong with that, its just a little confusing when you see “free shadows” but then realize how handicapped it is.
Free shadows are not different from Pro shadows (for a single directional light).
Honestly, I’ve ragged on the lack of realtime shadows in Unity for a long time, and this turn of events has really placated me on that front. There’s a LOT of aesthetic and gameplay possibilities that open up with even just one directional real-time light that we never had before in free without using some really inefficient and slow systems.
File > Save Project doesn’t work?
Right, I’m just saying that the directional light sucks and leaves you wanting more from the light system. Its great to an extent, but you hit that line quickly.
As opposed to the old system where… you literally did not have any shadows at all aside from blob shadows?
Does this mean built - in pathfinding is a Unity Free feature also?
In it’s most simple, basic form, yes.
I mean for the player to save their game when playing the game you made. Most ‘game dev programs’ have a simple way to add a save feature to your game. In Unity you must manually add every single variable you want to save and load into massive save/load scripts. For some types of games, that is very annoying and time consuming.
Why would you think I’m talking about saving my project?
That is why I asked. It has come up before that people didn’t know about that feature.
Player side “global save” over whatever isn’t really practical though. Too many variables and scenario’s based on game design and needs. That is something the dev want’s/needs to have full control over how/when/what/where data saves.
I don’t buy it. Other engines have it. It’s practical for them but not Unity? I understand letting the devs have more control, but there should be a general feature also. At least something that just saves variables, and then the player starts at a checkpoint. How about a high level function that saves all variables in a script with one line of code. Jebus, gimmie something.
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