I really don't understand Unity 3d engine team philosophy...

[Jack Norton]

http://forum.otee.dk/viewtopic.php?p=7746#7746

why the hell they made this very interesting engine with an editor for Mac OS X only?? :confused:

[Gilzu]

These guys obviously don't care much about selling or supporting their costumers.

from their website:
Build rich 3D games with animated characters, sizzling graphics, immersive physics. Deploy to Macintosh and Windows as standalone, for the web, or as a Dashboard Widget.

Apperantly, they forgot to write somthing in their front page about:

The pain in changing, designing and debuging the PC version.
That the editor is OS X only


This just shows how amature they are. If they did want to appeal to the hardcore audience that only like Mac, they would go and emphasise this point. Especially things like what it can give you that Win32 can't (I would have pointed out some great mac stuff as an example, but it isnt really my domain).

[ManuelFLara]

Although I'd wish they had a Windows editor (because I don't have a Mac, otherwise I won't care), I don't blame them for it. They're a small company, that made the choice of sticking to a smaller niche market (Mac game developer) instead of being one more in the world of game engines for Windows.

On the other hand, I think their product is great and having Windows deployment (both standalone and web (coming soon)) is good enough (not having it WOULD BE a problem).

Actually I don't understand your positon Jack as you already have a Mac, don't you? Or it's just that you find their whole business strategy wrong, not targeting Windows users?

[Jack Norton]

I have a mac but is just an ibook G4 1.2 Ghz with 256mb RAM, bought last year (not 4 years ago).
My 4 years old pc is already more powerful, and the last one I got, Sempron 3100 with 1.5Gb of RAM and Geforce 9400 or something with 256mb of VRAM, would SURELY be able to run any 3d editor better and faster.

BTW the ibook costed me 1100 euros (last year as said), while the pc I bought a week ago 580 euros (and is 10x times more powerful...).

APART this, yes, their business strategy is completely wrong. As I posted in that forum, how many mac devs are out there, and how many windows ones? :D you don't need to be a genius to understand that.
THey have already a good engine, the hardest part is done!!!

[NicholasFrancis]

As one of the Unity founders, there are a few statements here I must object to;

@Gilzu:The pain in changing, designing and debuging the PC version.

I'm not sure what pain you're talking about? Have you actually tried the product? You develop and test it on your mac. You hit play in the editor, and what you see is EXACTLY the same you get on Mac, Windows and the Web.

A number of our users are using the windows-standalone in their internal betas, and I've never heard them finding the windows version to be hard. On lesser systems, there might be a difference between the platforms. Not here.

@Gilzu: That the editor is OS X only

- I'd think that'd be pretty apparent from our download page ;-)

@Jack: THey have already a good engine, the hardest part is done!!!

It's not so simple. Writing a good game engine is actually not that hard. It's well researched, well documented. It is a huge job, but 'hard' is not really the word to use. The editor on the other hand IS hard. Only very few editors get near the level of integration we have. It's not very well specified how to make one, either. A lot of people underestimate the size of making a good editor. At the moment, its approx. 40% of our total codebase.

We're not Mac die-hard fanatics at all. We just don't have the resources to go after a windows editor at the moment. I wish we had.

[Musenik]

After exploring Unity's website, I was dismayed to find out, only the $1000 version can publish to PC or use fullscreen.

That's just too rich for my blood. I'm already developing on Mac and publishing to Windows, for free. Can their editor debug remotely? That would be cool, but it didn't sound like it.

Compared to a similar Torque package, their editor had better be one mind-reading masterpiece to justify its $500 difference in price.

Fullscreen isn't part of the basic package? We are not amused... I must be misunderstanding their feature: 'Full Screen Graphics Effects'

They say they support Python, but it sounds like they only support some variant or similar language called 'Boo'. If they support true Python, I didn't see a page describing their support.

[NicholasFrancis]

The 'Fullscreen Graphics Effects' refers to Image-Based-Rendering (color correction, swirling, etc).

You can do fullscreen games just fine with all versions of Unity.

We don't do remote debugging. Never heard of anyone having any need for it. Sure, I can think of a few situation where it might come in handy, but as long as we keep the mantra of giving the exact same results across platforms, I don't really see the point.

We don't support true python for speed reasons. a piece of history: We used to support it and GooBall had all its game code written in Python. We spent 60% cpu time in python code. Then we ported the whole thing over to Mono. Bang - our CPU req went down to 1%.

The Editor is a masterpiece. You get a 2 second debug cycle, can edit your scripts while the game is running. We read photoshop files natively, no need to flatten and mess around with files. If you do bumpmaps as grayscale, you can just save the grayscale multilayer photoshop file. Unity will import it, turn it into DOT3 format, DXT compress it. All while your game is running.

So I guess you can say whether we're worth the price depends on how high you value your time.

As for the engine, if you want to do networked outdoor games that look like AAA titles of 3 years ago, Torque is your friend. Otherwise we beat them on every point. Bumpmapping? Dynamic lights? Physics? All done.

[soniCron]

...we beat them on every point. Bumpmapping? Dynamic lights? Physics? All done. A Windows editor? *sigh*

[NicholasFrancis]

A Windows editor? *sigh*
Touché ;-)

[soniCron]

What's the status with Intel Mac support? Do/will you support that?

[NicholasFrancis]

We're currently hard at work on making this happen. The player will be ready in February, the editor sometime in March. These will be free upgrades (just like all other 1.x stuff)

[soniCron]

Excellent. While I think you could certainly reach a much greater critical mass if you had an editor for Windows, I can understand why you're keeping it Mac-only. In fact, I'm hoping to transfer my entire development environment over to Mac by 2007, so it's excellent you'll be supporting the future of that platform. I'll check your product out when I get there! ;)

[Ricardo Vladimiro]

Excellent. While I think you could certainly reach a much greater critical mass if you had an editor for Windows, I can understand why you're keeping it Mac-only. In fact, I'm hoping to transfer my entire development environment over to Mac by 2007, so it's excellent you'll be supporting the future of that platform. I'll check your product out when I get there! ;)

I personally think that a Windows editor would extend greatly the developers using Unity. I for once have plans to use Torque soon and I would like Torque to have some competition, since I don't think other WYSIWYG engines are up for it.

But if I have to buy more hardware (in this case a Mac) to use another software I'm not aware of other choices but Torque even if I think that Unity looks quite a competitor. It's just too much money to spend.

[Musenik]

Nicholas, thank you for your response. That's just what I wanted to know.


But if I have to buy more hardware (in this case a Mac) to use another software I'm not aware of other choices but Torque even if I think that Unity looks quite a competitor. It's just too much money to spend.

You'll want to buy a Mac if you plan to port your games to it. Might as well edit on it too.

[NicholasFrancis]

I personally think that a Windows editor would extend greatly the developers using Unity.

I quite agree...

I for once have plans to use Torque soon and I would like Torque to have some competition, since I don't think other WYSIWYG engines are up for it.

To be honest, I don't think Torque is up to it either ;-) I guess it all comes down to how you value your time. The moment you begin to put an even remotely real-world figure on that, we win by a large margin.

In the coming days we plan to post a complete game done in 48 hours at a game jam we just held. We think it pretty much shows the power of Unity.

But if I have to buy more hardware (in this case a Mac) to use another software I'm not aware of other choices but Torque even if I think that Unity looks quite a competitor. It's just too much money to spend.

I know the feeling. If there was infinite money, we could port Unity to PC, AND you could buy a Mac. Sadly there is not :(

[jankoM]

Is there any game or demo made that runs on windows? I only see GOOBALL but it seems mac only?

[Ricardo Vladimiro]

@Musenik

You'll want to buy a Mac if you plan to port your games to it. Might as well edit on it too.

You are quite right about that. Quite a eye-opener... I will have to buy another computer sooner or later, why not a Mac?

@NicholasFrancis

I know the feeling. If there was infinite money, we could port Unity to PC, AND you could buy a Mac. Sadly there is not.

I understand... but don't take me as an example since I'm yet to prove my value, if there's any. :D Maybe I'll have a diferent point of view as I finish projects. What now could be considered a cost, later could be seen as an investment, be it me buying a Mac and more software, be it you porting to PC.

One of the next projects will need a WYSIWYG editor, that's more than guaranteed... who knows what will happen until then? Me with a Mac, you with a port? ;)

Thank you for your reply.

[NicholasFrancis]

Is there any game or demo made that runs on windows? I only see GOOBALL but it seems mac only?

Try this one - it's just one of our standard demos, but all I have on my hand a.t.m.

http://www.otee.dk/gallery/living.html

We just co-hosted the Nordic Game Jam here in copenhagen. One of the teams did a job that blew me away, but we still need permission to post the game online. If they do, I'll make a post about it.

Also, we are on track for windows web-player in March, so expect more around that time.