MuseGames.com & Unity Technologies are teaming up for a new bi-monthly Unity “Prefab” based contest called The Fabricator Contest! The contest will be a regular event that will challenge members of the community to show their stuff by creating prefabs based on specific themes, and of course because it’s a contest that means winning entries will earn prizes. What’s more is that all of the project files submitted will be released back to the community, so in the end we think this will result in a lot of awesome new prefab goodness that we can all benefit from. To kick things off we’re challenging folks to create and submit their best flame thrower, and for the winning effort we’re offering two (2) tickets to Unite 2010, an $800 value. So bring the heat and show us what you’ve got! For more information about the contest, including a full set of dates/deadlines and contest rules, please check out the contest page over at musegames.com:

The Fabricator Contest

Please be sure to also keep an eye on the musegames.com blogs as well for contest updates and information, starting with their matching announcement post:

Introducing The Fabricator Contest!

Thanks and good luck to all that enter!

Yup, you read that right, it’s that time of year again, the time to get yourself ready for this year’s edition of our annual developer’s conference, Unite 2010!

Unite 2010
November 10-12, 2010
Montreal, Quebec Canada

Once again, Unite 2010 will bring artists, programmers, designers, researchers, publishers, and other Unity enthusiasts from around the world together for three intense days of learning and networking. The conference will be held on November 10-12, 2010 at the Marché Bonsecours in Montreal, Canada. A detailed agenda is on the way, but tickets are on sale now! Early Bird pricing lasts until September 10th and during that time tickets are only $300, after the Early Bird pricing expires tickets will be $400. If you’re just that eager then go for it and buy your tickets to Unite 2010 today!

Purchase Tickets

If you’re at all like me then you’re out there wanting more information, a lot more information! Well, we don’t have everything sorted just yet but I can point you to the early information that we do have. First let me point you to the press release that we put out just this morning that announced Unite 2010 with some important information and a few great quotes:

Unity Technologies Announces Unite 2010, It’s 4th Annual Developer Conference

After reading the press release you should hop on over to our website for additional information about the conference:

Unite 2010: Save The Date

Our website has information about Unite 2010, including information about where the conference is being held and travel information to help get you there. Our website also touches on the conference agenda which is still in development, but with that comes the opportunity for members of the community (that’s you!) to submit your own presentation proposals as we have an open call for speakers!

Unite 2010: Call for Speakers

I have no doubts in my mind, Unite 2010 is going to be another incredible week during which we’ll get to hang out together, to Unite to share our passion for Unity. Be there!

You’re probably wondering whether you’re reading the title right and for 500 of you, you are! Today we put out a press release offering up some incredibly cool news about Unity and our coming support for Android powered devices. Not only are we now actually pre-selling Unity Android Pro licenses, but we’re going to give a Google Nexus One to the first 500 people to pre-order one! I hope you’re excited about this kind of news (I wish I was eligible!) and so you can start learning more about this offer by reading the full press release:

Unity Technologies Opens Pre-Order of Unity Pro for Android With Sweet Deal

Then stop by our website for even more information, like the terms and conditions of the offer:

http://unity3d.com/unity/coming-soon/android

And then you’ll hopefully stop by our online store and try to be among the first 500 people in order to get your free Google Nexus One:

Go to the store

As always folks, it’s Unity for the win!

Update as of June 29, 2010
I’m back to provide some updated information on the phones being offered as part of this program.  The first 500 developers that buy Unity Android Pro will receive an unlocked Google Nexus One with Android 2.1 or later installed. The phones will not come with any service plan, those that receive a phone will need to secure a service plan on their own (the phones will be compatible with any GSM carrier worldwide). Please keep in mind that these devices are 3G compatible with all GSM carriers outside of the USA, but within the USA they are 3G compatible only on the T-Mobile network, users on the AT&T network will have EDGE service instead.

Today is an exciting day for all of us here at Unity Technologies as we’re now shipping pre-release beta builds of Unity 3.0 to the first 100 people that pre-purchased the licenses since they went on sale earlier this year (reference)! These folks are the first public users (those not on our staff or in our private alpha/beta test groups) to get their hands on the new release, but they’ll soon be followed by everyone else that has pre-purchased a Unity 3.0 license as those will be rolled out in the next few weeks. But what does that mean in terms of a final ship date? Well, it means that we’re closing in fast and we’re now within a month or so of our launch date. So let this be your call to action if you haven’t yet pre-purchased a Unity 3.0 license, on launch day the prices go back to their normal list rates instead of the pre-purchase discounted rates we’re offering now. Get ‘em while the gettin’ is good!

If you’re not up to speed on what to expect from the Unity 3.0 release then please take a look at this:

Unity 3 Coming Soon

When you’re done with that have a look at the following blog posts our engineering team has made that describe some of the new features in more detail:

Unity 3 Feature Preview – Asset Management
Image Effects Video
Introducing some of the new Image Effects
3.0 Upcoming demo
Unity 3 Feature Preview – Snapping & Marquee Selection

What’s more is that we’ve lifted the embargo on public discussion about this new release. What that means is that those who have been testing beta builds already can now talk about the coming features openly so the Unity Community Forums, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are all afire with chatter about the coming coolness that is Unity 3.0. And with that, let the countdown begin!

To help capture a bit of the feeling and emotion from those earliest of days I’d like to share some thoughts from David Helgason, our CEO. The following is taken from a blog post he made late at night on June 6th, the eve of Unity’s official release upon the world, titled “Last Day In This Life” (permalink):

I sincerely love my life.

It’s late again now, I’m listening to Xploding Plastix’ Amateur Girlfriends Go Proskirt Agents of the hateful genre nu-jazz… however it’s completely lovable like anything which is insanely too much.

… yeah… last day of what life? We’re wrapping up the last stuff for Unity, due to be released tomorrow, probably 2pm Pacific Standard Time (utc-8 if I recall correctly)… it’ll be out for the world to enjoy.

Keli is finishing off the webshop so people can actually buy Unity, I’m wrapping up the new Conception designed website, and Joe? He’s fixing bugs at what seems to be an average speed of 0.42 bugs per minute.

Most of the guys have gone home now – they know it’ll be a long day.

I need coffee. Now.

Little did he know just how much his life, and the lives of many thousands of others would actually change…

Fast forward to today, June 7th, 2010, there are now in excess of 170000 developers out there with Unity installed and that user base includes everyone from students and hobbyists on up to major studios like Electronic Arts. Additionally, the founders’ vision involved not just the creation of a new engine, but one that would empower developers to reach everyone, everywhere. As such Unity has grown from a tool that at first let developers target the desktop and web, to one that now allows them to target the desktop, web, mobile devices and consoles. Needless to say it’s been an incredibly exciting five years and we can only dream about what the next five (and beyond!) will be like. So today we celebrate and honor the 5th birthday of Unity. Please take a look at the press release we put out as it includes a number of interesting key facts about our company as well as a timeline of key milestones showing our progress over the last five years:

Unity Technologies Celebrates Five Years of Continual Leadership and Innovation in Making Cutting Edge Game Technology

Thanks to everyone at Unity Technologies for all the hard work and incredible passion you put into your work, we would never have this awesome thing called Unity without the blood, sweat and tears you’ve given. And thanks to everyone out there for your love, support and use of the product, without users out there creating cool content there is no Unity, period. So always remember that Unity isn’t just a product name, it’s a mission we’re all on together to democratize game development so we can all bring our digital dreams to life, and I for one couldn’t be happier to be a part of it.

Happy Birthday Unity!

Building on the success of LEGO® Star Wars: The Quest for R2D2 and BIONICLE: Glatorian Arena, Unity Technologies, the provider of the market-leading Unity development platform for 3D interactive content on the Web, PC, Mac, Wii™ and iPhone, announced today a new three-year deal with the LEGO Group, in which the company will standardize on Unity authored content for 3D content on www.LEGO.com.

As one of the world’s leading manufacturers of play materials for children, the LEGO Group recognizes the need to offer an innovative online environment for consumers to share their passion and creative flair. To do this, the LEGO Group is developing its web strategy to deliver an online consumer experience to match and enhance the real world fun and invention of LEGO products.

The LEGO Group identified Unity as the best 3D platform available to fulfill its short-term and long-term requirements.

“We’ve invested a great deal of time evaluating technology for the next phase of www.LEGO.com,” said Claus Toftegaard Matthiesen, Technology Manager of the LEGO Group. “We believe that Unity’s flexibility, strength and power will give us scope to create world leading content for our consumers and are looking forward to the cooperation.”

You can read the full press release here.

I personally find this exciting for a number of reasons. Of course it starts out by being a great business deal for Unity Technologies, so let’s get that one out of the way. But worth noting is that it will also serve all of us very well by helping push vast numbers of web player installs due to the high traffic numbers they experience on their website, that’s great for everyone using or adopting Unity for web based content. Finally, it’s also interesting as it’s yet another bit of validation that not only is our technology up to the task of delivering the best in-browser game content possible, but that it’s worth doing so for a mass-market site targeting users of a younger age.

All around this is a good deal and it’s news that I just couldn’t help sharing. Kudos to everyone that was involved in securing this deal, both on the business development front as well as our hard working engineers, for without them none of this would be possible!

Take Advantage of Diverse Opportunities
First and foremost, the ability to have flexible publishing options allows developers to take full advantage of the opportunities that are available. What I mean by “opportunities” is that the number of viable publishing channels is on the rise, not only can developers host their own web content but they can leverage existing game portal websites, social media sites like Facebook, MySpace and many others, and of course they can look towards the booming mobile gaming market as well. The ability to easily target any or all of those channels gives developers an advantage and will allow them to make the most of each channel’s strengths in order to drive success of their titles and increase their revenue across the board.

Reach Your Users Everywhere
Following along with the above is the fact that the gaming market is shifting quite a bit, and it’s doing so in a way that makes it even more important to have games available to users through as many different channels as possible. The days of users playing games on dedicated platforms like gaming consoles or strictly desktop based aren’t gone, but there is an increasing focus and interest in games that offer portability and many points of access. At our Unite 2009 developer conference, Richard Hilleman from Electronic Arts helped drive the point home that as game developers you’re looking at having to fight for small slices of people’s time on the go more than ever, so offering them easy access to content is paramount. What that means is that your games shouldn’t be web-based or mobile-based, they should be available in as many ways as possible so users can dip in and dip out and enjoy your games wherever and whenever they like. Having easy publishing access to multiple platforms will allow you to meet the changing needs of game players and keep you ahead of the competition.

Just imagine having someone play your game online at work, then again on their smart phone on the train ride home and then yet again on their desktop later that night. Through it all you’re offering a single combined experience through multiple points of entry, letting your users access it when and where they want!

Use a Stable and Consistent Platform
The third important item of note is that it’s key to not only find a tool that allows you to reach a variety of platforms, but to find one that lets you do so efficiently and effectively, while still being able to deliver premiere content that game players will be attracted to. This is where Unity shines above all others, it provides developers with a solid technology base that allows for rapid development on top of providing fantastic performance and high-quality results. The lesson here is that you, the developer, can leverage your design and development expertise to the fullest extent as we will focus on the engine while you focus on your games!

Examples
Of course all of this might seem like a dose of marketing hot air without some specific examples, so allow me to point to a few Unity-authored games that are already spanning multiple platforms to help prove the point.

Downhill Bowling
Downhill Bowling is a game from the folks at Game Resort and it’s a title that’s available online as well as on the iPhone and iPod touch via the App Store. The game’s initial launch was done on the web via both addictinggames.com and shockwave.com, but when we released our iPhone support in the fall of 2008 it didn’t take long for the game to make it’s way on to the AppStore.

• Downhill Bowling (addictinggames.com)
• Downhill Bowling (shockwave.com)
• Downhill Bowling Lite (AppStore, Free)
• Downhill Bowling (AppStore, $2.99)

Max & the Magic Marker
This game is a bit different in that it doesn’t explicitly target two platforms for commercial distribution, rather it uses one, WiiWare,for commercial distribution and another, the web, for pre-release and preview plays. The game was created by Press Play and will release as a WiiWare title in Europe today (Friday, January 22, 2009) and in other markets soon. But at the same time there is a web playable demo available on the game’s destination site.

• Max & the Magic Marker (maxandthemagicmarker.com)

Tumbledrop
The third example I’d like to cite is Tumbledrop, a great little game produced by a single developer that was at first part of the Unity
Awards 2008 as a web game, then rebranded for Cartoon Network for posting on line and now most recently it’s come out on the iPhone.

• Tumbledrop 6teen (cartoonnetwork.com)
• Tumbledrop (AppStore, $1.99)

In all three of the examples above the authoring effort was largely done once and then the Unity engine’s portability was used to easily reach out to secondary platforms. Of course it wasn’t truly an “author once” experience as each of the platforms does need some special handling, notably in terms of input types (keyboard/mouse, multi-touch/accelerometer, WiiMote/Nunchuck) and tweaking of artwork, but the core game logic in each case was able to be reused with relative ease.

In Summary…
Of course there are other examples out there that could have been cited, it’s just that the three above are particularly noteworthy and so I mentioned them here. So it’s not just hype, Unity truly does allow you to quickly, easily and effectively reach out and target multiple platforms thus ensuring a greater chance of success regardless of the type of content you make. Of course our job as a tool vendor is never truly done and so we’ll keep working our way forward until we can in fact offer a 100% “author once, deploy anywhere” experience. The only question is whether you’ll be along for the ride or not, and I of course think you should do yourself a favor and get on board now!

If you’re a developer that is already using Unity to create content that spans multiple platforms then let me know as I’d love to hear from you. You can do that by adding a comment in response to this post, or by contacting me directly by email (tom@unity3d.com). Otherwise if you’re not already doing that then I encourage you to consider starting to do so as soon as possible.

• The Unity Asset Server can now be hosted on Windows! (in addition to Mac OS X and Linux as before)
• The Unity Asset Server can now be hosted on Debian-based Linux distributions as well.
• The Unity Asset Server now uses an updated version of PostgreSQL.
• When used with Unity 2.6 (and later) the Unity Asset Server now offers faster check-in times.
• There are tools to help simply the backup and restoration of Asset Server databases.

If you’re interested in reading more about the Unity Asset Server or the 2.0 release in particular then please use the following links:

Press Release
Unity Features: Unity Asset Server
Download the Unity Asset Server
Unity Asset Server Guide

Enjoy!

The news, the great news, just keeps on coming! Recently the folks at Kongregate.com announced their new Konduit Platform and one of the cool benefits of that news is that they are now open to non-Flash game content, and that of course means they’re open to Unity content! While it’s always cool to read about new possibilities, nothing speaks louder than action and so hot on the heels of the Konduit announcement was the recent acceptance of not one but two Unity titles on their site! The Unity games that are now live are Big Fun Racing and Bubble Bang, both of which come from Decane/Martin Schultz. Now that Martin and Kongregate.com have paved the way for others to follow, who’s next?

If you’re keen on giving it all a look for yourself then here are a few important links:

Kongregate.com

Kongregate.com’s Developer Center

Kongregate.com’s Konduit Platform

Once more, kudos to Martin for leading the way and props to Kongregate.com for opening their doors to a variety of technologies. That open door is good for us as a tech provider just as much as it is for game players wanting diverse game types/genres. Exciting times to say the least!

Hey folks, the end of another incredible year is rapidly coming to a close and the holiday season is fast upon us, and we here at Unity Technologies want to help everyone celebrate with a special end of year discount. Specifically we’re offering everyone the chance to save 20% off of any purchases made in our online store between now and the end of the year. In order to take advantage of this offer you simply need to visit our online store and enter ENDOFYEAR2009 into the rebate coupon field and you’ll save 20%, it’s that easy. You can visit our online store by clicking on the following link:

Unity Online Store

Remember, this end of year discount offer is only valid through December 31st so make sure you take advantage of it before the new year begins!

Apple recently put out their iTunes Rewind 2009, it’s Apple’s way of recognizing the best music, TV, movies and of course iPhone applications and games from this last year. What’s exciting for us is that there are three Unity-authored games found among the best and top selling games lists! Given that awesome achievement I thought it would be cool to take a minute and offer those three games their proper kudos and congratulations.

Best Games of 2009
There are two Unity-authored games found on the best games list for 2009, those are:

Ravensword: The Fallen King
Samurai: Way of the Warrior

I know that I’ve played both games and have to agree that they’re both awesome and well worth a look if you haven’t checked them out already!

Top Selling Games of 2009
The top selling games list has yet another Unity-authored game listed, one that most of us have likely heard about long ago as it sat atop the sales charts for some time:

Zombieville USA

Congratulations to everyone that has games out on the AppStore using Unity, but an extra dose of congratulations goes out to the folks above for a job well done. Here’s to hoping we see more of the Unity community listed as part of iTunes Rewind 2010!

Earlier this week iLounge released their 2010 iPod + iPhone Buyer’s Guide and a number of Unity titles are featured in their top games list! For starters you can check it all out at the following URL:

iLounge’s 2010 iPod + iPhone Buyer’s Guide

It’s a rather large (20+MB) download as they provide a ton of material, including their suggestions for top games and applications to purchase if you own an iPod touch or iPhone. But as noted above the exciting point for us is the fact that a number of Unity-authored games are listed in their Top 100 Games of 2009! So to help promote those games and offer them some extra kudos I’ll preempt the download above and list them here in the order they appear in the guide:

Downhill Bowling from Game Resort LLC (page 22)
Downhill Bowling Lite (free)
Downhill Bowling ($2.99)

Vans SK8: Pool Service from Fuel Games (page 23)
Vans SK8: Pool Service Lite (free)
Vans SK8: Pool Service ($2.99)

Battle Bears from SkyVu Pictures (page 27)
Battle Bears Free (free)
Battle Bears ($0.99)

Inkvaders from Chillingo (page 27)
Inkvaders Lite (free)
Inkvaders ($1.99)

10 Balls 7 Cups from Graveck (page 31)
10 Balls 7 Cups ($0.99)

Note: 10 Balls 7 Cups has been rereleased on the AppStore under the name Skee-Ball as well!

Volcano Planet by Jelly Biscuits (page 35)
Volcano Planet Lite (free)
Volcano Planet ($0.99)

A huge kudos to all the developers behind the games above, clearly it’s a job well done and you deserve some recognition for your efforts!

Best Overall
The best overall category is the one in which we recognize the true best-of-breed content for the year and it was a tough task to say the least. There were many titles that came close to being finalists, but ultimately only a few made that final run at the title.

Winner: Max & the Magic Marker, developed by Press Play

Runner Up: Lego Star Wars: Quest for R2-D2, developed by Three Melons

Finalist: Paper Moon, developed by Infinite Ammo
Finalist: Monospace, developed by Nonverbal
Finalist: EnerCities, developed by Paladin Studios

Best iPhone Game
Given the popularity of iPhone/iPod touch games in general, and of course the way in which Unity iPhone has become the dominant middle-ware tool of choice, we felt it truly necessary to recognize the best iPhone games on their own.

Winner: Monospace, developed by Nonverbal

Runner Up: Samurai: Way of the Warrior, developed by Mad Finger Games

Finalist: Snake Galaxy (now being published as Paris Galaxy), developed by DigDog
Finalist: Battle Bears, developed by SkyVu Pictures & Blackish
Finalist: Touch KO, developed by Adam and Matt Mechtley

Best Visual Design
One of the exciting things about a tool like Unity is that it lets you experiment in ways you might not be able to with other tools. The rapid iterative abilities and easy work flow make experimentation easy, and that leads to some incredibly beautiful and unique visuals.

Winner: Doppelscope, developed by Tobias Baumann

Runner Up: Blush, developed by Flashbang Studios

Finalist: Choma, developed by Knife Media
Finalist: Max & the Magic Marker, developed by Press Play
Finalist: Paper Moon, developed by Infinite Ammo

Best Technical Achievement
To go along with rewarding the best visual effort we wanted to recognize those titles that displayed solid technical achievement as there are so many folks out there pushing the technical boundaries with Unity. This category was extra tough as we all have our pet areas of interest with our technology, audio, shading/graphics, game play mechanic and more.

Winner: Blush, developed by Flashbang Studios

Runner Up: Max & the Magic Marker, developed by Press Play

Finalist: Time Donkey, developed by Flashbang Studios
Finalist: Touch KO, developed by Adam and Matt Mechtley
Finalist: Super Volei Brasil 2, developed by Aquiris

Closing Thoughts
As I noted up top there were 129 separate entries at the beta stage and that’s an awesome turn out! I know that not all of you were able to get a final build submitted and certainly not all of you made it into the final judging stage (involved roughly 30 entries), and even fewer of you made it into the top-5 finalist categories. But through it all the hard work and effort the Unity community puts forth to make killer content is a critical component in driving our technology forward. Content is king y’all, and without you I don’t know where our tech would be. So thanks to everyone that participated in this year’s Unity Awards and a huge round of applause and hefty kudos to the finalists, and especially the winners. Rock on!

Wow, Unite 2009 has come to a close and once again it was an awesome/incredible/crazy/you-name-it week! Now that I’ve had a day or so to rest and recuperate a bit I figured I’d take a few minutes and jot down some notes and comments about last week’s event. Read on for my thoughts and post up some comments if you have any questions.

Content is King
We all know the phrase “content is king” when thinking about web technologies like ours*, but I think that also applies to conferences as well. The truth is that without high-quality sessions that offer attendees something valuable, our conference wouldn’t be worth much. The good thing is that I think we offered some incredible sessions this week and that feeling was backed-up by the in-person feedback I received on site. Many attendees indicated to me that they felt that each day offered them material they found interesting and more importantly useful. So for that I have to thank the crew internally at Unity Tech as we had many of us up on stage delivering presentations or assisting attendees during hands-on lab. Additionally I have to thank the awesome 3rd party speakers that showed up to deliver presentations as well, they volunteered their valuable time to help others learn more about Unity and that’s a generous offer to say the least. So, content is king even at conferences and all signs seem to indicate that was the case this year once again.

*If you don’t then know this, it’s an indication that for tech companies like us having great content in production is critical. We can have the greatest tech available but if nobody is using it to make cool stuff then who’s really going to know about it or care? So, “content is king”!

Some Incredible Numbers
This past week offered up some incredible numbers that show how much this conference has grown. Just two years ago we held our first conference, Unite 2007, in San Francisco and were excited that we had something like 80 people in attendance and we offered 11 presentations. Then a year later we held the conference again, Unite 2008 was in Copenhagen and it grew even larger attracting roughly 170 people who were there to take in a total of 15 presentations. So this year we held the conference for the third time, again back in San Francisco and the attendance growth continued once again as we had over 350 people in town to attend 21 presentations and 3 classes, this time over four days (compared to prior years being 3-day events). So we’ve gone from 80 to 170 to 350+, and I say 350+ as we had all 437 seats in the Cowell Theater full for the keynote, but many of those were press/media/guests there for that presentation only, we had 350+ there regularly despite a much higher peak number. Beyond that we offered more hands-on lab, we had a bunch more Unity Awards entries (a separate blog post on that is coming!) and we had a significantly larger Unity Tech employee contingent on site as almost all of our 50+ employees were on site. Simply incredible…

Our Community is Awesome
Once again I have to say that the Unity Community rocks! Not only did members of the community step up and deliver presentations, but a bunch more were simply there in attendance welcoming all the community newcomers that were getting introduced and they were all spending time networking, talking about Unity and sharing what they know. We spent lots of time socializing at the Pre-Unite Monday Night User Meeting, the Wednesday night Unity User Group “Drink & Shoot” Party thrown by the folks at dimeRocker and then once again at the official conference party Thursday night. I spent a ton of time each day at the show talking with forum regulars and community newbies, with lots of Flash users looking to make the jump on up to folks that have been using Unity since before I arrived on the scene. So again this past week showed just how awesome of a community we have and so I thank everyone of you (those that could attend as well as those that could not), y’all truly help make Unity and our Unite conferences something special.

What’s Next?
First up is a bit of rest, then come Monday morning we’ll be back at it as there’s a lot to do. First up will be some website updates to both the Unite pages as well as some information about this year’s Unity Awards finalists and winners. Then we’ll work with the awesome guys from ShiftControl to get the session videos they helped record prepared and posted online in a much faster manner than years prior. Then after that we’ll start looking forward to next year’s event, where it might be held and how many people we might think will attend. Given the progression we’ve seen it could be even crazier next year and without a doubt that’s exciting beyond belief, I can only imagine what it’s going to be like.

One Last Reminder, Thanks To…
The incredible crew from Melons Catering who delivered top-notch food each and every day. The crew at the Fort Mason Center that helped us put on a great show. Everyone at Unity Technologies for an awesome week of hard work, I know we put y’all through your paces so thanks for stepping up! To each and every 3rd party presenter, I know you put in your own time to prepare and deliver those, it’s appreciated. To ShiftControl who came on-site to handle the session recording, putting in some seriously long hours working under lots of stress with nary a sign of cracking. And finally, one last thanks to everyone that was there in attendance, conferences like this take a massive amount of work, induce mountains of stress and likely age us prematurely, but knowing that y’all enjoyed the week and that you learned a lot along the way makes it all worth it.

See you next year!

As the sun rises over San Franciso we’re gearing up for another exciting day at Unite 2009. Yesterday was a new experiment for us in having a day of classes added on to the conference and from what I saw it was a huge success. In one room we had a “Unity for Unity Developers” track with three 2-hour classes taught by our in-house experts (Nicholas, Aras, Joachim and Lucas) and so far the feedback forms show that folks learned a lot. At the same time in another room we had a “Unity for Flash Developers” track that featured four speakers (myself included) delivering one-hour sessions introducing Flash developers to Unity. The speakers were me, John Grden (engineer on Papervision3D), Paul Tondeur (author of a book about Papervision3D) and Mauricio Longoni (noted Unity community member already). All the sessions were great and the word around the conference was all positive.

Today we’re back to our “normal” agenda, three days of technical sessions. The view above is what I was lucky enough to take in while sipping my coffee outside the event center this morning at 7:30am or so. I’m strangely sleeping too little yet extremely amped up with energy. The vibe and excitement from everyone in attendance is great and it’s only going to get better. In 45 minutes the keynote starts and then day #2 begins… Here we go!

With such a rapidly growing community and user base behind Unity it’s become increasingly difficult to keep tabs on all the developer blogs, cool content, all the new 3rd party tutorial and learning sites and all the new community-focused forums/social networking groups that are popping up. To help keep tabs on all that we thought it would help to get a few reddit.com pages up for all to use! The pages are moderated, meaning anyone can submit but a Unity Tech moderator must approve all links before they’ll appear, but the lists are out there and open to submissions so jump in, add some links and of course vote stuff up or down so we can all see what’s new and popular!

Unity Blogs
http://www.reddit.com/r/unity_blogs/

Unity Community Sites/Social Networking Groups
http://www.reddit.com/r/unity_sites/

Unity Games
http://www.reddit.com/r/unity_games/

Unity Tutorials
http://www.reddit.com/r/unity_tutorials/

These are not the be-all and end-all of our company efforts to keep track of what’s going on in the community, but it’s a great solution for us all to work with and contribute to in the meantime. If you have any links to suggest then please go submit them now! If you have any other page ideas (other reddit.com pages we should have) then please suggest those as well, either by commenting in response to this blog post or by contacting me directly.

By now many folks are aware of the fact that Will Goldstone has written a book about Unity, it’s called Unity Game Development Essentials and it’s being published by Packt Publishing. Early on Will and his publisher graciously shared PDF copies with folks, including everyone on the Unity Community Forums. While it was extremely exciting to know that a book was in the works, then available in electronic form, I have to admit that the best moment of all came today when a brown box was delivered to my desk for me to open. I’m the guy that handles incoming mail and packages sent to the San Francisco office so it wasn’t unusual for me to have a “present” to open today. When I cracked open the box I found a nice surprise inside, the three copies of Will’s book I’d long ago ordered had finally arrived!

So for those that don’t know about it, consider this your heads up to check it out! It’s a book geared towards the beginner end of the spectrum and from what I’ve read so far (a fair chunk of the PDF already) he did an excellent job of laying things out for those of you just getting into Unity. If you’re interested give it a look on either the Packt Publishing site or over on Amazon.com:

Unity Game Development Essentials (Packt Publishing)
Unity Game Development Essentials (Amazon.com)

Kudos, and a huge thanks, to Will Goldstone for the effort, I know he put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this book and it shows. Well done Will!

This past weekend I traveled down to Atlanta, Georgia to speak at SIEGE 2009 (Southern Interactive Entertainment & Game Expo). During my trip I not only got to meet a number of local developers at the conference and our dinner out, but I was also lucky enough to meet Manny (a.k.a. diaomndTearz on the forums/Twitter) and his family (wife and young son). They graciously hosted me for the weekend saving me from another yawner stay at an area hotel. While only a whirlwind 36 hours were spent in town I enjoyed myself quite a bit while spreading the word about Unity. I only got a taste of Atlanta but I liked what I saw and would happily go back any time!

The conference ran Friday to Sunday, but we were only there one day and that was Saturday. After breakfast Manny and I made our way down to the conference so we could arrive in time to attend a session before we were to speak in a session of our own. The session we attended was one about serious games in corporate training, while it was all great information it was nothing too shocking to me although I’m sure many in the games industry would benefit from hearing it (it’s a great market for your talents folks!). What did surprise me though was that the room was small, and I mean tiny, and it was hot hot hot, making me sweat within minutes of entering. Manny and I sent texts back and forth that we each hoped our room would be different, luckily it was.

After attending that one session we went to the room where ours would be held, it was much larger and the temperature was set quite a bit cooler, no worries there. The time for our session arrived and nobody was in the room, I had that moment of worry, “really?” It was just the volunteer working the door who hadn’t started letting folks in, soon enough the room was almost completely full (holding something like 100+ people in all). My session was a panel discussion with myself and four Unity developers as the panel and Manny as the moderator. He led us through over an hour’s worth of chatter about Unity, covering topics from pricing/licensing to our art asset pipeline and on to platform support and product directions. Through it all the crowd, 1/3 of whom said they’d at least tried Unity before, was very engaged and we were actually forced to leave the room as we were running too far over (sorry about that!).

Our session room, all these chairs would soon be full…

Following my session I sat in the hallway talking with a number of folks, some that thanked me as they’d just never heard about Unity while others thanked me as they’d already jumped on board and just loved the tool. Of course I had a few folks that wanted to ask the tougher questions, ones about our lack of a proper debugger, complaints about the lack of Linux support or others poking about source/version control solutions. All of them were easily handled as I think we’ve got a solid story to tell and features on the way. All told it was a great day of talking to a few existing users and hopefully a whole bunch of potential new ones. I know that in the day or two since that presentation I’ve already received a number of emails from folks wanting more information, I suppose that means the conference was a success. I’ll say well done to Manny for putting together a great panel!

What conference is worth attending if you don’t go out at least once? The guys in Atlanta didn’t disappoint as they took me out to the Vortex Bar & Grill and my oh my it was delicious! The burgers were huge and tasty, the drinks strong and the company entertaining.Over burgers & drinks we talked shop and a bit about life, travels and the world around us, all in all it was an awesome evening. I had driven there with Manny and his wife and due to my early flight the next morning we cut out early, picking up their son on the way home. Sure I had an early flight but we weren’t done, we went to their house for a rousing evening of Rock Band. Manny and I took the guitar and bass, his wife rocked the drums and his son sang, and man he sang his little heart out! We rocked out, eventually putting their son to bed (a late night for him!) and soon enough, ourselves. Once again I have to say thanks to them for making it a great weekend, hanging with the family was much better than a boring couple of nights in a hotel!

Good times at Vortex!

All too soon it was early Sunday morning and the alarm was going off. I dragged myself out of bed, showered and got ready so Manny could drive me to the MARTA train for a brief ride to the airport, then a long day of travel home. With some travel delays my travel time home was over twelve hours, and yet somehow I arrived while my suitcase went to New York. Oh well, I can live for a few days without the dirty laundry…

I’d love to go back to SIEGE next year, or just back to Atlanta to hang out with the developers in the area. Thanks again for the great weekend, it makes evangelizing Unity a pleasure!

PS: A big huge thanks goes out to Manny (and his family!) for not only helping get the panel group together at all, but for being such an awesome host. He picked me up on Friday, fed me delicious home grilled steaks that same night, drove me around on Saturday and got up in the wee hours on Sunday to get me off to the airport. He and his family made me feel welcome in their home I had a great time hanging out with them and cannot say thanks enough!

We’re happy to announce that tickets to this year’s Unite ’09 conference are now on sale! This year’s event is a bit different than the prior two years as there is now an optional lead-in day of classes that folks can attend. The conference runs Tuesday to Friday, October 27th to the 30th, Tuesday is a day of classes whereas Wednesday through Friday is a three day conference featuring fifteen technical sessions on a number of topics. All in all it’s going to be another great event!

For more information about Unite ’09 please visit the following URL:

http://unity3d.com/unite

To go ahead and buy your tickets today please visit our online store at the following URL:

https://store.unity3d.com/shop/unite

We’ll see you in San Francisco!

The folks at OverInteractive Media in Vancouver are very hot on Unity and they’re starting to spin up Unity Users Groups, starting in Vancouver but hoping to roll them out all over Canada and beyond. In addition to that they’re working on a next generation publishing channel for Unity developers called dimeRocker that will focus on Unity content and help developers reach out to social networking sites from one centralized location. It all sounds extremely cool in the long run but it’s still in its early stages so there will be more details as time rolls on. For now though they wanted to kick start their local user group by having a Unity TGIF networking event and I was invited up to Vancouver to deliver the keynote presentation. Following that they booked a Unity Skills Workshop the following day which was to be a 4-hour hands-on training class focusing on new users stepping into the product. Both turned out to be incredibly awesome, read on for details about both events as well as some photos!

Unity TGIF
For the TGIF event on Friday night they rented out an insanely cool renovated Chinese theater in town (District 319), gathered around 150 people (the majority of whom don’t yet use Unity) and gave me the opportunity to introduce them to our product. The evening started with a social welcoming event that lasted about an hour, then there were a few brief introductory presentations by J. Jolly of OverInteractive Media as well as Jason Bailey of Super Rewards (both of whom are cool guys to say the least), following them I was given the stage for an hour. During that time I covered the basics of who we are, where we come from, why were here and how Unity can help them achieve their game development goals. The presentation went great, the questions came from all corners, some tough, some easy, but all showing an intense interest from the audience. After my presentation was done I couldn’t leave the stage area for a good 45 minutes as folks kept on coming up to me asking even more questions. Luckily Darrel Plant (long-time Director user, now a Unity developer) saved me by bringing me a cold drink from the bar to quench my thirst! The social after-party went on Until 10pm or so with me getting to spend a lot of time chatting with folks and I think it’s going to lead to quite a number of new users. A few folks reported to me that they bought Unity on the spot right after my presentation! Gold!

Unity Skills Workshop
For the Saturday Skills Workshop they booked us into the Centre for Digital Media, a cool digital media school in Vancouver. I was able to get in front of 35 people and gave a four hour class on Unity. It covered the basics but everyone there seemed to dig it and hopefully take away some, if not a lot of tidbits of information. In the room were total newbies, some Unity developers and even one guy from EA Vancouver! One of the guages of well it went is that we went over-time by about 30-45 minutes (so many questions!), folks ran off to buy the product right away as well as tweet/blog/post to Facebook about the event. I’m altogether quite happy to have spent my Saturday like that! Following the class I was treated to a great dinner that night with a few notable folks from the local games industry which not only provided me with some seriously good food (Chambar was incredible!) but also some time to wind down and chat with some local industry folks, making great connections both personal and professional. We sat at the table for nearly three hours covering about every topic you can imagine, but with a bunch of game geeks the topics kept coming back to games and ultimately, Unity. Again, gold!

I Owe Some Thanks!
I want to note that J. Jolly and Glen Lougheed from OverInteractive Media (and their whole gang of folks in Vancouver) get tons of appreciation out of me. The entire weekend was on their tab, they paid for the airfare, my hotel, all meals, kept me fed, busy, happy and productive. Of course that wouldn’t have happened without the help of many local sponsors so I’d like to call each of them out:

OverInteractive Media
dimeRocker
Super Rewards
work [at] play
Fan Trust
Centre for Digital Media

And last but definitely not least…

bootup labs

Seriously, without those folks these events may not have ever happened, and if so they wouldn’t have been nearly as cool. Thanks for such an incredible weekend!

Let’s get on with a few pictures!

Folks arrive at District 319 and check in for the TGIF event

Food was served…

As were drinks…

Eventually I was on stage…

With a good crowd in attendance…

Who flooded me with questions both during and after my presentation (what’s up McKane and Bill! )

The Centre for Digital Media where the workshop was held on Saturday

An in-class action shot showing a packed house!

If you want to see more photos then check out the photos posted on Flickr!

I’ve been lucky enough to attend every Casual Connect conference in Seattle and without fail this year’s event was as awesome as ever. I’m quite impressed at the work done by the Casual Games Association as they’ve managed to expand this event from a few hundred or so in 2006 to something on the order of 2000 attendees as last week’s event, and they’ve done that while retaining the same cool vibe that makes it such a cool conference. I say that because the conference really does offer a great feel to it, it’s more like a community affair than some large anonymous bulk conference and it has such a great focus on the casual games business that it really speaks to the heart of most folks using (or that should be using) Unity.

Unfortunately I wasn’t lucky enough to get away from the table to attend any sessions but word on the “street” is that they were of course as valuable as ever. What I was lucky enough to enjoy was the incredible amount of traffic by our sponsor table and the wide range of meetings I was able to have with people from all backgrounds. What’s more is that we as a company noticed a very tangible shift in who was there asking about us. In years past most folks dropped by the booth with a “so, what’s Unity?” sort of approach, this year it was far more on the “I’ve heard of Unity and want to know more!” side, so they were intent and interested visitors to say the least!

All told we had an incredible time, we met with countless developers as well as a number of high-level strategic partners, and both of those groups will be extremely valuable in helping all of us push Unity even further in the coming weeks, months and years. I have to offer a big shout out to my fellow UT crew members that were there as they all worked hard and did a great job. On top of that I’ll offer another huge shout out to Luke Burtis of the Casual Games Association as he’s an incredible contact for us that’s managed to pull through on all accounts.

Thanks to our team, thanks to all the Unity users that were in the house, thanks to Luke and the Casual Games Association crew and of course thanks to everyone at the conference – that rocked!

On with some photos eh?

Preparing our sponsor table

David (at right) having a meeting

Tony (at left) chats up Michael from Mirax

A (rare) quiet moment at the table…

We’re very excited to share that Unity 2.5.1 has been completed and is now available for all Unity developers! 2.5.1 is all about stability of the Editor and Web Player, along with some other improvements that somehow snuck in. This hotfix release is recommended for all Unity developers. Due to one particular bug fix, we also recommend that all developers using the Web Player as a deployment target read through the Tech Note inside the 2.5.1 release notes.

And here are two relevant links:

Unity 2.5.1 Release Notes
Download Page

Existing license holders can simply download the new installer from the download page above (there is only one installer for Unity Indie, Pro, trial, etc.) and run it to update to the latest build. Have fun!

Note: this release does not contain updates to Unity iPhone, that update (Unity iPhone 1.1) is being handled separately and in parallel, more news on that will be shared later as appropriate.

We here at Unity Tech draw inspiration from a variety of sources, some come from within, others from outside, this one definitely came from an external source. We’ve long wanted to offer some sort of venue for the student and/or indie developer that would allow noobies to the industry a chance to learn and develop their skills, to gain professional experience, and to do so in a way that benefits them while also offering something useful to the Unity Community at large. Our (not so original) solution? The Unity Summer of Code! From our main website:

Unity’s Summer of Code is a program through which we offer indie & student developers the chance to get paid for doing something cool in Unity. You will suggest a project to work on, and if the project is accepted you will be paired up with a core Unity developer who will guide you in the implementation.

The goal of USC is make sure we have some great assets for other people to learn from — we’ve seen the amazing talent in our user community, so we invite you to join us and help us push the limits of what can be done in Unity.

We encourage all up-and-coming Unity developers to give this program a look and if interested, to toss your hat in the ring for consideration.  Everyone that’s even mildly interested in this program should check out the Unity Summer of Code page on our site. From there you can feel free to post questions here as part of follow-up comments, or you can post them in the Unity Community Forums as we have an announcement thread with Q&A already underway. Either way, give it all a look and let us know if you’re up to the task!

And now how about some pictures? Real names first, forum handles in parenthesis/quotes, enjoy!

Disclaimer: the names were flying at me fast and furious yesterday and honestly, I just didn’t hold on to enough of them so my apologies for those not or mis-identified in the photos below. Let me know if any corrections are needed!

Amir (“aebrahimi”, Unity Demo Team) chats with two of the guys from Secret Lab

Andy (“Andy”), Daniel (“Daniel”), Aaron (“aaronparr”) and Jeff (“Jeff Aydelotte”, UT Demo Team)

A crowd of folks, Mary (far left facing away from camera), Aaron (“aaronparr”), Andy (“Andy”), crew of three from GeoSherpa in the foreground, Aaron (“amcclay”, in blue), two Secret Lab types in back…

The entire Secret Lab crew, with Paris (“Paris”) being the second from the right. Cool cats!

Thomas (“lion-gv”), Aaron (“amcclay”) and Amir (“aebrahimi”, Unity Demo Team) grab a bite to eat

It’s getting later but we’re all going strong…

Me (“HiggyB”, Product Evangelist) finally getting one photo with me included…

As Unity Technologies continues to grow in size one of those things we have an increasing need for is office space. Out here in San Francisco that need has been high for quite some time and finally this week we secured a new office and moved into it just this week! For now the office is a bit on the drab side, it’s a turn-key office that came with standard desks/chairs/etc., but that won’t last long as we’re definitely going to tweak it to suit our own tastes. Questions rage like what console system to get, what sort of couch and lounge area to have, what nerf weapons might be appropriate, etc. But no matter what it’s cool to have new digs and I think we’re gonna be happy here for months to come… w00t! If you’re in town for WWDC next week then let me know as we’re just a block away!

Here are a few extra pictures for those that want to see them. Remember, we’ve just moved in so hang on to any crits about the workspace, m’kay?

welcome to the jungle…

the office interior, conference room on the right…

naturally the demo team peeps were the first to make toys appear

Example: The Island
Here is an example file that you developers should recognize, it’s a published version of the Island demo we include when you install Unity:

Please view the full post to see the Unity content.

Description
The plugin is simple to use and requires some straightforward mark-up tags within your blog post. Those tags are read by WordPress when showing the post and the needed page edits will be made to show your Unity Web Player content. The plugin includes support for both Unity Web Player 1.x and 2.x content. The plugin allows you all the same options as the native object/embed tags so you can enable/disable the context menu or the ability to go fullscreen, to use custom loading screen graphics or to specify your own install prompt image and more.

Download
Please feel free to download my WordPress plugin and put it to use right away:

WP_UnityObject

The download contains a readme file with instructions, have fun!

Edit Note (May 20, 2009): the download link has now been changed as the plugin is available from the Resources area on our website.

Unity Feedback (for general Unity feedback)
Unity iPhone Feedback (for Unity iPhone specific feedback)

*Some folks have expressed mild dismay at the notion of limited votes, if that wasn’t in place the folks would simply vote on everything and we lose any data about what’s really important to you. So when your votes are capped the challenge is on and you must decide carefully, thus giving us better data.

Man, what a week! GDC ’09 has now slipped past us and slowly we’re recovering and getting our heads back above water. I thought I’d take a few minutes and share some thoughts from our end about the incredible week we just had. Not only did GDC prove useful for us as fellow members of the larger game development community, but it also proved useful for us as a technology provider as we had a great showing both on and off the expo floor. Needless to say we’ll be back at GDC again as they always prove to be an amazing time for us on all levels.

The Booth
Our first GDC showing in 2007 saw us huddled together with other Nordic companies in the Nordic Games pavilion, it was tight quarters that barely allowed us room for one demo machine. We followed that up in 2008 by breaking out on our own and getting a 10 foot x 10 foot booth on the expo floor, this allowed us two demo machines and it was a crowded affair due to all the foot traffic. This year, our third in a row at GDC, saw us in a 20 foot x 20 foot booth with three demo machines and it still wasn’t enough! Our booth was constantly crowded, our demo machines in continuous use and the response to Unity was incredible! We were able to demo the product and talk to folks from about every background you can imagine. Developers, publishers, students, teachers, artists and executives, all stopped by to check out what we have to offer. Of course we also managed to go through well over 1000 handouts and give out 500 t-shirts, needless to say we were one of the stars of the show!

The Meetings
GDC wouldn’t be GDC without the chance to meet up with folks so we made sure to book a dedicated meeting room for use by David Helgason, Joachim Ante and the rest of us as needed. That room was in constant use as we had a steady train of people wanting to specifically arrange meetings with various staff members. Additionally we had folks want to meet with us off the expo floor, whether they were from various media outlets (I was interviewed for online/print/TV usage no less than 5 times!) or from publishers, schools or development shops. All of those meetings provided us with ample opportunity to spread the word about Unity in a more in-depth fashion than we could on the expo floor where things were a bit noisy, crowded and often focused on 5-10 minute demo run throughs. Again, the consistently high-level of interest in us helped show that we’re on the right track and generating a ton of buzz around the industry.

The Parties & The People
Ok, GDC wouldn’t be GDC without all the parties and chances to meet up and socialize with other folks in the industry. The parties were wide and varied, but all of them were of course incredibly fun. For myself the big parties I attended were our own team nights out, the Nordic Games Party and then the coolest party of them all (I’m biased), our Unity 2.5 GDC Launch Party on Thursday night. We rented out the entire Anon Gallery in San Francisco, hired a DJ, had an open bar and food service, all in a very cool location. On top of that, we had our party run from 6pm all the way until 2am so as not to conflict with other events and guess what, we had people hanging out until the very end! The entire week was awesome, we got to meet loads of new people and hang out with plenty of old friends (Graveck, Flashbang, Three Melons, Sticky Studios, and on and on and on). All of that was solid goodness!

The Summary
The week is over and we’re of course all abuzz about the stir we’re creating and the attention we’re getting. Of course we are also all incredibly motivated to keep working hard and continue to move Unity forward. The pressure is on, folks are looking at us to “do the right things”, and we’re ready for it. So along with that “high” from last week comes a healthy list of things we can do to improve as well. We spent a lot of time together as a team building camaraderie (after an awesome day sailing on the bay!) and to plan and map out the coming months as there’s a lot to do. We’re on it.

As always, it’s Unity FTW!

Yes, it’s true, we’ve done it. Yesterday we shipped Unity 2.5 which among other things finally offers support for Unity authoring on Mac OS X and Windows! From the announcement email I sent out (as company front-man):

Today we are extremely happy to announce the release of Unity 2.5. For the first time Unity development is now available for use on both Mac OS X and Windows! True cross-platform development with Unity has now been realized. This has been an enormous project that has taken well over a year to complete, it’s a release that we’re very proud of having accomplished. What’s more is that during this effort we’ve also nearly doubled in size as a company and so there is a lot more on the way, it’s going to be an exciting year!

While a key feature of this release is in fact the introduction of authoring support on Windows it’s worth noting that we put a lot of work into general editor improvements that all content authors can take advantage of. What that means is that this is a significant release for both our existing users and all those potential new users waiting to try Unity for the first time. Here is the high-level overview of what you’ll find in Unity 2.5:

• Windows editor support
• An all new tabbed, and fully customizable authoring interface
• 3DS Max support on Windows (ala our Maya support on Mac OS X)
• New and improved scene navigation and object placement tools
• Google Chrome support
• and more…

I don’t want to repeat too much information here as we have a bunch on our site already. Check out the what’s new page we have posted:

What’s New in Unity 2.5

Both existing users and those wanting to evaluate Unity can download the latest installer from our trial download page:

Trial Download

Or you can of course just cut to the chase and buy now by visiting our online store:

Buy Unity

It goes without saying that these are some exciting times for both Unity Technologies and the awesome community we have around us. And 2009 is just gettin’ started!

Zombieville USA (AppStore | Website)

This is easily one of my favorite iPhone games, were it not for my love of crosswords and a crossword game/app I have installed I’d easily rank this as my all time favorite on the iPhone so far! For just $0.99 you get to play a great game that uses a simple set of controls to slay zombies like mad. What I love about it is the great graphics and the fact that the difficulty is enough to challenge me and retain interest, yet not so hard that frustration sets in. It keeps me chasing more and more kills, over and over and over… I’m hooked. You will be too. Give it a look!

Oh, and by the way, as of the writing of this blog entry Zombieville USA is currently #2 on the top paid apps list in the AppStore! w00t!

Blush (Website)

What can I say about Blush other than it’s a gorgeous gorgeous game, and yet another brainchild of the crazy crew at Flashbang Studios. Blush is a free browser-based game being offered on Blurst.com, a Unity-focused game website (another Flashbang Studios joint of course) and while I’ve not played it as much as Zombieville I can say that the “hook” factor is just as high. I’ve found myself sitting there just swimming around trying to take in all the nice visuals, ignoring any attempts at game play… Yes, please, go do something that makes you blush today!

Note that the crew at Flashbang has actually posted a really nice postmortem on this game. It’s an hour long video and if you work in the game space at all, especially the casual game space, then it’s worth your time:

Blush Postmortem

C’mon folks, get out and play!