So who has tried Unity?

site: http://unity3d.com/
demo: http://unity3d.com/gallery/live-demos/index.html#tropical-paradise

30 day developer demo: http://unity3d.com/unity/download

From Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_%28game_engine%29

Unity is an integrated authoring tool for creating 3D video games or other interactive content such as architectural visualizations or real-time 3D animations. Unity is similar to Director, Blender game engine, Virtools or Torque Game Builder in the sense that an integrated graphical environment is the primary way of authoring the game.

The editor runs on Windows and Mac OS X and can produce games for Windows, Mac, Wii, or iPhone platforms. It can also produce browser games that use the Unity web player plugin, supported on Mac and Windows. The web player is also used for deployment as Mac widgets.

Major Features:

* Integrated development environment with hierarchical, visual editing, detailed property inspectors and live game preview. Unity is also sometimes used for rapid development and prototyping.

* Deployment as Microsoft Windows executable, Mac OS X executable, on the web (via the Unity Web Player plugin for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Mozilla, Netscape, and Camino), Mac OS X Dashboard widget, Wii executable and iPhone application. Deployment to Wii or iPhone require the user to acquire separate licenses, which vary in price.

* Automatic asset importing - assets load into Unity and automatically imported, and are re-imported if the asset is updated. Although many popular 3D modeling applications are supported by Unity, its integration with Maya, Blender, Cinema 4D, and Cheetah3D are the most complete. Support for other formats varies.

* Graphics engine uses Direct3D (Windows), OpenGL (Mac, Windows) and proprietary APIs (Wii).

* Support for Bumpmapping, Reflection mapping, Parallax mapping, dynamic shadows using shadow maps, render-to-texture and full-screen post processing effects.

* ShaderLab language for using shaders, supporting both declarative "programming" of the fixed-function pipeline and shader programs written in Cg or GLSL. A shader can include multiple variants and a declarative fallback specification, allowing Unity to detect the best variant for the current video card and if none are compatible, fall back to an alternative shader that may sacrifice features for broader compatibility.

* Built-in Support for the Ageia's PhysX physics engine (version 2.6.2).

* Game Scripting via Mono. Scripting is built on Mono, the open source implementation of the .NET Framework. Because of this, programmers can use JavaScript, C# or Boo (which has a Python-inspired syntax).

* The Unity Asset Server - A version control solution for all game assets and scripts, using PostgreSql as a backend.

* Audio system built on OpenAL library, with ability to play back Ogg Vorbis compressed audio.

* Video playback using Theora codec.

* A terrain and vegetation engine, supporting tree billboarding.


I just heard about Unity and grabbed a copy of the developer demo. It seems very interesting. Have you tried it?

_

nobody?

Seems aimed at game creators, not Virtual World enthusiasts. So unlikely many have.

I've used it a little bit. But Darien is right - it's a game engine, not a Virtual World.

Well people should.

I've been messing with the developer software and this thing is amazing. The multiplayer capability, the speedy development time, the deployment options, the shaders. THIS is far more capable of being an SL killer than Blue Mars any day.

It sounds more like a Blue Mars killer than an SL killer.

Yep, creme de la creme game engine in terms of ease of use and productivity. Nothing to do with killing SL mind you! A new virtual world / chatroom based on Unity3d is Friends Hangout:

http://www.friendshangout.com/

A neat 3d multiplayer games site also based on Unity:

http://musegames.com

Edited to mention the Unity licensing structure is a little oppressive IMO, there is too much cut out of the indie version, which is still a little pricey.

-w

OK I took a look at FriendsHangout.

It;s just like "There" with possibly better graphics and no users. Nothing to do, no point to being there. Moving from one "room" to another is like logging in to SL from scratch.

All the shadows were baked in. The only thing you'd really need in SL to beat it would be custom Linden plants.

I would recommend checking out some of the demos on the site such as

http://unity3d.com/gallery/live-demos/index.html#sewer

As far as what there is to do in the environment, that's really up to the individual developer.

I don't think the FriendsHangout is really a good indicator of this things potential.

http://unity3d.com/gallery/game-list/

Lots of games, look like some interesting ones. I've already looked at WolfQuest, as well, so I guess I've already "tried Unity". I don't really see what any of them have to do with SL, or even Blue Mars. They're games, not worlds. The platform doesn't seem to have the ability to create anything even vaguely comparable to SL.

Yes, games, also known as virtual spaces, are made on this platform. I'm betting that pretty much anything SL has can be programmed into Unity and shared, monetized, whatever.

The building is not done in a live sandbox collaborative fashion like SL but I'm not sure why that matters.

A 3d game is not necessarily a virtual space. A virtual space is not necessarily a virtual world.
Except for the "Life" bit. Each game you play, you take on a new avatar and identity (if the game even has a concept of an avatar... not all the examples are like FriendsHangout or even WolfQuest). There's no continuity of space... even to the extent BM has such a thing... let alone self.
For Blue Mars, that matters. For this... it's so far removed from a virtual reality that there's no point even going that far down the list. This is a game engine, like Cryengine or Havok, not an environment or a world.

Wow Argent, same obtuse song and dance, different topic. This gets old.
You're gonna have to start thinking outside of the box.

The ability to spawn a "world" with Unity is probably easier than using Blue Mars for your "city". These "worlds" can and will soon pose a threat to platforms like Second Life. Its ease of use for both developer and end user will be the first obvious incentive. There are many more.

People will not always be spoon fed their virtual world and they will seek to create what they want the experience to be like, just like everyone and their brother is a "webmaster". Closed platforms like SL and Blue Mars are history. Unity and engines like it are the future of virtual worlds. Mom and pop experiences for the masses.

Sorry to be "obtuse", I'll try to make my comments more "acute" in the future.

There's hundreds of 3d video games out there, maybe thousands. If Unity is a way to create new 3d video games faster, that's great.

Possibly, but even Blue Mars provides a mechanism for me to log in to one city and visit another one and retain the same identity and avatar, even if that can potentially be blocked by the city owner.

No more than Warcraft or Tetris or Bubble Bobble or Alchemy, in that they compete for people's entertainment time with other video games, Second Life, Cirque du Soleil, Lawn Darts, Hot Air Ballooning, and House. They may be a competitor for certain games people play *inside* second like, like En Garde, and 7 Seas, and Sin Invaders. They're not a competitor to SL itself, because they're not in the same category of entertainment... any more than snowboarding and shopping are.

In a virtual world there's no true distinction between "developer" and "end user".

I'm no where near as experienced with 3d graphics, modeling or programing as either you or Argent. But I do know that developement of any technology springs from "thinking out of the box". So what if this platform is built with the gaming industry in mind......some determined, inquisitive developer or programmer will find a way to use the software to make something no one else thought of or thought possible. Post It notes was the joke of 3M several years ago...........look what it is to every office in the world now. Don't pooh pooh something just because it appears that that something is not the right something for what you know at the moment you make yours statements......you'll likely eat those words very soon.

There are several alternatives to SL right now. And almost everyone here finds a reason to avoid those alternatives. The reasons range from "there's no abiltiy for user created content", there is not "an economy", or it's just a clone of SL. The closed mind, not being able to think outside the box keeps them here.......and a good percentage of those same people will remain here while the world passes them by. As long as you keep saying "it won't work", "it's not the same", or "it's 3 years behind SL" (etc), you'll never venture out long enough to give any future competitor of SL a real trial.........a log in or two is not enough. Going to any one of those "worlds", games, whatever, and staying for an hour or two (or is that minute or two?) and saying you have tried it and you know it's not something that will rival SL is being very small minded. And one day you'll wonder "where have all the flowers gone".

Here's thread or two on using Unity as the front end for Sun's (now Oracle's) Project Darkstar:

http://www.projectdarkstar.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,44/topic,908.0

http://www.projectdarkstar.com/forums/index.php?topic=908.15

http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=19273

I believe that FusionFall, which some call a virtual world, uses Unity.
Here's the Unity tag from the FusionFall forum:

http://forums.fusionfall.com/tags/unity%3Bjsessionid=E038A005CFA0253E0F2459799A9AB035

As I understand it, the system that store, search, and return all the user accounts, user inventories, account balances, inworld objects, etc. and send chat messages, conduct inventory and financial transactions, store group data and perform group related transactions, etc. are the hard of a virtual world. That's the part that Project Darkstar up to provide.

Might be of interest to research FusionFall more. It gets called a virtual world but I'm not sure if it's not more of a big 3D MMO game.

I've used it for a 3D room walkabout in my 3D animation class once. Good program.

Ewwww and yech! I do not think I have ever closed a tab as fast as I did just now after opening the Cartoon Network FushionFall website!!!!

Hmm, I'd already tried FusionFall; seems like an ok thing if you like games, possibly better suited in general for people several decades younger than me. I don't recall what the intial web page looked like.
What I meant to research was how it works. What the backend is.

I think that LL's openness about how their system works is in general not shared by those providing MMO's, virtual worlds, etc., although I've not researched it much.

At the moment, I'm trying to get some follks to join a Zenbe Shareflow I created a few minutes ago because I'm a social networking junkie. Zenbe Shareflow appears to be a bit like Google Wave. I'd like to see some Second Life users trying out these newfangled communications systems. However, I digress.

Without getting into the semantics of virtual worlds, Unity 3d is by no stretch of the imagination a virtual world in itself. Run it with something like http://www.smartfoxserver.com/ or project Darkstar and it becomes something closer to a virtual world, at least an MMO.

Another interesting project is http://www.evolver.com/ where you can create an avatar and plug it into a variety of virtual worlds as you like, this is fully integrated with Unity 3d and FriendsHangout.

Re: comments on Friends hangout, mostly agreed. Although I think there is potential in this model, it seems totally non-cool to me. Maybe they need to spice up the web site. One thing to realize is that its browser based 3d, this is one of the area where Unity 3d excels, but it may sacrifice some of the shinies to get there.

To drill into the definition of virtual world now, to say that it is dependent on being able to create stuff collaboratively in world is a big stretch. That would mean there are only one or two VW's in existence today, a claim that would be pretty hard to defend in the current 3d virtual climate.

If anything I would argue that SL is not a virtual world but a glorified sandbox, chat room and online content store. The immersion levels are actually quite low with the SL 'all in one' client. Having the building tools, menus, pop ups, and what ever else crammed into the client breaks the continuity for me. It means I can't feel like I'm in the virtual world even if I don't want to build stuff.

And to continue rambling, a little quip about the notion of SL killing in general, silly, completely silly. Its only in these forums that the notion of SL killing ever crops up. Like y'all are so anxious for SL to be dead that you jump on every plausible bandwagon and denounce it as not being and SL killer and therefore worthless... this is a ludicrous position to take. SL is not going away, and is in fact very small potatoes in the larger picture of 3d entertainment. Did it ever occur to you naysayers that other VW's, MMO's, or game engine what ever you call them on any given day don't want SL's users? It seems that even SL at times doesn't want its current user base.

There are a limited amount of hobbyist 3d artists, programmers etc in the world. SL will serve for a long time as a gateway to 3d development. Perhaps the reason why you are so anxious to find alternatives or replacements for SL is that you sense the inherent limits to this glorified sandbox technology.

Its not so much about SL being killed as its quality creators getting bored and moving to a less limited environment, maybe even making real world money at it.. imagine?

The catch is though that even if all the decent creators left SL, it would roll on I think. The casual user in SL obviously does not know good content if it hit them in the face for a couple reasons, one because they have crappy PC's and can't run at any kind of decent detail settings, and also because they are not typically gamers and are coming here looking for social interaction. I see this more and more over that last few years.. less content, more social.

Finally full circle back to Unity 3d, its fun, its pretty accessible and the games/worlds you make are easily distributed. What Unity lacks right now is user base in terms of players. This is where a platform like Cryengine2 and ergo the Blue Mars VW has the advantage. Millions upon millions of games have been sold, from the original Crysis, to warhead, to Far Cry 2, even to Entropia. It is a proven AAA game engine, where Unity might be a AA.

-W

First, that's not even an issue in this thread... this thread is about Unity, not Blue Mars.

But, if you want, I'm happy to defend that claim, because I've been active in virtual worlds since long before there was even the potential of making them 3d. There are hundreds of virtual worlds in existence today, but all but a few are text-based... MUDs and Mucks. In the 3d realm? There are a lot of 3d virtual environments but very few of them have the characteristics of a world. In the real world you have building tools as well as collaboration tools and games. A 3d game that you can't have an effect on is just a ride.

Look around you at the real world. What are the characteristics of reality? What are the characteristics of the environment you live in? What would your home be like if you personally couldn't create or modify anything? If you can't take part in the creation of the world, it's just a stage set, a ride, a hotel room. If you can't have an effect on your environment, you're a prisoner of it, an actor on a stage, an animal in a cage.

What are the characteristics that most distinguish our species? Talking and toolmaking, and in recent millennia recording information. Our world, the real world, is the product of every one of us building and modifying it as we move around in it.