Also note: there is one further interesting event: there is now a Windows Internet Explorer Web Player plugin!.
We are very excited about this.
The Windows web player you can download here:
www.otee.dk/unity_beta/UnityWebPlayer.exe
The web player will stay in beta beyond Unity 1.2.2; it’ll be relased to coincide with the next big Unity release, expected in beta shortly after 1.2.2.
Both Unity Pro and Unity Indie can publish Web Players for Windows. However games made with Unity Indie will display a small Unity watermark. Obviously Unity Pro does not do this.
Auto updating and automatic plugin installation of the Windows Web Plugin has been disabled until we release the final. If you find any bugs, please use Report Bug.app to report them as soon as possible. Always attach the .unityweb file to the bug.
All web player data files that were built with Unity 1.1 or later can be loaded in the Windows Web Player. However the HTML template created by Unity 1.2.1 or before didn’t support the IE plugin. The Unity 1.2.2 beta has the correct template.
If you simply want to see one of your already published web players work on Windows, you can use the HTML template that’s attached to this post (simply replace UNITY_WEB_PATH with the path to the unityweb file.)
I was under the impression (assumption ), that we would publish our web players as usual and the windows plugin would be able to read and use the .unityweb format. I didn’t think it would be a seperate publishing task. Seems to me that this would work much better if this was a universal data format, and the end-user plugins themselves are responsable for platform-specific stuff, the .unityweb file just containing the data.
I understand cutting off full windows standalone publishing to only the Pro version, but why the watermark on the web? It seems weird to me to allow full Mac web publishing, and just watermarked windows web publishing. It seems to be all in the same. Web is web and it should be as universal as possible. (IMO)
Another quick question, how small is the watermark? I can’t DL the beta, so I can’t see for myself right now.
What version is the windows web player going to be added to as this is just a feature preview? 1.2.3? 1.3? 6.5?
Yes it is the same publishing (just hit “publish for the web”). The only thing is that the old generated HTML template did not include tags required for IE to render the content.
In other words: you can just take the html template attached, install beta IE plugin on windows and your old web players should Just Work.
Since the .unityweb data format is the same for Mac and Windows, it follows that from now on all Unitys will be able to make Windows web builds.
However, the Windows Plugin will be in beta until the next big release of Unity, which is going into beta soon after 1.2.2. That the Windows Plugin is in beta means that it doesn’t autoinstall or autoupdate (because we need to avoid mass distribution of beta-quality software).
Why there isn’t a watermark in the Mac web-player? The answer here is that we find it rude to add a watermark where there wasn’t one previously (of course, you can make your own watermark if you so wish: it’s really simple using a GUITexture).
I’ll edit the original post to clarify it a little…
The part I don’t understand is why there is a watermark at all. If there is not a watermark on the mac web plugin, why should there magically be one on the windows web plugin? Also when it loads the plugin it displays the Unity loading data splash anyway doesn’t it? It isn’t that big a deal, it’s just a watermark, but it really doesn’t make that much sense.
And also my previous question, what size/style is the watermark going to be?
All-in-all great work guys, I really didn’t think you would have this much done already.
I’m sure you guys have thought this out a little bit, but this seems a little extreme and almost shooting yourselves in the foot as far as getting the word out about Unity. I myself will not put out a Windows page that has a watermark on it, it compleyely ruins whatever aesthetic I’m going for. Admittedly I haven’t seen this watermark yet and it might be very small, but I’ve never seen one that isn’t obnoxious (that’s their purpose). If your purpose is to advertise Unity with the Watermark then the “loading” screen seems to be a good place.
If you have to do this then you might want to consider a new License… “Indie Web Developer” or something and charge us another $100 for the Windows plug-in publisher with no watermark.
Is your fear that people will use the Windows Web Plug-in to publish full games on CD that just play through the Plug-in? Maybe limit the file size that the Plug-in will allow for the Indie license? I don’t know, it’s a pickle
I’ve seen tthe watermark already and clearly the Unity folks don’t intend for you to publish with it, as it all but obscures part of the lower righthand screen.
I think they are just trying to give Indie owners a chance to preview the Windows web-player’s functionality before the (expensive) upgrade to Pro. Personally, I’m grateful for it. I fully plan to upgrade to Pro, but not until I can see for myself that the Windows web-player works and I’ve had a chance to play with it a bit. If that’s what you’re after, the watermark shouldn’t get in the way, so to speak.
While it might seem to be a bit lopsided now to have a watermark on one web-player and not the other, I just read this as a reflection of the fact that all Mac deployment on Unity comes at the Indie price point, as part of the Unity cost model. This model also affords that Unity developers seeking Windows deployment as well pay a higher price, presumably to offset the added R&D costs associated with producing Windows export.
Some strangeness with the file sizes (compare windows to universal binary sizes), but otherwise It’s working well – my happiness factor has gone up immensely.
I might be looking at this the wrong way, but to me the mac/windows web plug-in should be universally accessible by all licenses of Unity. Like I said earlier the problem is someone could publish an entire game into the plug-in and thus circumnavigate the pro license. So OTEE is looking into the near future when all games are available on-line with our fat broadband pipes? So I could sell my game to both platforms without shelling out for the pro license. I understand this view for game publishing/selling, but there’s another completely different market of on-line content that has little to do with games but very much to do with 3D web interfaces and small interactive widgets (for lack of a better terminology). Shockwave 3D has all but died out and I’m excited about Unity succeeding where Shockwave 3D failed. What happens if/when Unity is ported to Windows? Does this subject become moot? Would Windows users of Unity have to go pro to publish to Mac? Of course not. It’s a lop-sided deal… “if you want to access the other 95% of computer users then pay the price”. I agree 110% about pro users only being able to publish a Windows executable game for sale, but web publishing is a little bit of a grey area. Again, I’d be more than happy to pay an extra fee (Indie Web Developers License) to be able to get to show my stuff to the rest of the computing world. I’m not complaining really, I know this is a complicated situation and I respect OTEE’s position… and if I had the money available I’d buy Unity Pro in a second.
Just wanted to express my own opinion here, that the watermark solution is a reasonable compromise. It’s been a given all along that the Indie version does not let you deploy to Windows. Being able to do so via a browser was never promised, and could possibly invite abuse of the system. (For instance I could see someone deploying a Windows build consisting of an HTML file that runs the player.)
Sure, I’d love to be able to demo my projects for friends with PCs, but I can see OTEE’s point of view on this one.
I do see OTEE’s point of view on this issue. It is dificult to secure something like this. But magically having a watermark when the same game is played on a windows browser, but not on a Mac browser doesn’t seem fair at all.
Internet is internet and there shouldn’t be any difference between windows web and mac web. It should be all in the same. I would understand if they already had a watermark in the mac version, but they don’t. I will not put out a game with a watermark, and I won’t pay the price of pro just to get that feature.
OTEE already has a huge, loud “Unity Loading Data” screen on the web players, so I really don’t think they need a watermark for advertising. It seems like it was just a quick fix to keep people from publishing to windows standalone with a web page. I think limiting the file size of an indie-built player to what you would normally use on the web is a better solution. Anyone making a standalone game for windows is going to want more than that.
I simply won’t make a game with a watermark, and I think adding them now is a bad idea.
