Posts by Tom Higgins

I’m happy to report that Unity 2.5.1 has finished baking in the oven and is now ready for download! As with all minor updates (anything 2.x) this is a free update for all existing Unity 2.x license holders, you just download the new build, install it and get back to work! From the news item on our website:

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!

In early April a discussion started about possibly getting some folks from the Unity community together during or just after WWDC. The thread started nicely but then sort of fell off the radar for a bit, but in early May it was given a new breath of life and we pulled it all together and had a great meetup last night (Monday, June 15th). The net result was that we had something like half a dozen people drop by our new San Francisco office around 4pm to hang out for a bit before heading to Mars Bar for an evening of food, drinks and socializing with fellow Unity users. I think that all told we had something close to 20 people stop by over the course of the evening and it seemed that the good times were flowing nicely. The conversations I heard around the table ran the gamut, of course there’s was a lot of game talk and demo giving (laptops and iPhones were out, naturally!), but there was plenty of other chatter as well. All in all I had a fantastic time and I want to thank Paris (that’s both his real name and his forum name) from Secret Lab for kick starting this whole thing back in April (funny that it took a guy from Tasmania to get a San Francisco meetup arranged). I of course want to thank everyone that showed up to make it a fun night, good times people! Let’s do that again.

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

(more…)

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!

(more…)

I interact with the WordPress blog engine both here at work as well as at home for my personal blog. Given that WordPress experience, and the fact that I work at Unity Technologies, makers of the Unity Web Player, I guess it’s only fitting that I created a WordPress plugin to allow blog authors to easily include Unity Web Player content in their posts. My point of shame in this is the fact that I created the plugin last Fall and haven’t really done much with it since, my bad!

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:

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.

As part of our ongoing efforts to improve how we go about our business I’m excited to report that we’ve begun a bit of an experiment to improve how we gather user wish-list items and general product feedback. Until now we’ve only had the Unity Community Forums and more specifically the Wish List area there in particular. While that’s worked well enough, it’s just not the right way to go about things. I say that because it’s hard to pull any quantifiable feedback and it’s very weak in terms of general organization for such an effort. Today we’ve unveiled our experiment and that’s the use of User Voice, a web based feedback tool that lets folks like you post your wishes and use your own voice to vote for those items you think are most valuable to you. Your votes are limited* so use them wisely!

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.

(more…)

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!

It’s been a busy year already for everyone in the Unity community and the year is still just getting started! Unity 2.5 is around the corner, GDC looms close and as of late there have been a few pieces of Unity content making waves that are well worth your time and attention. Specifically I’m referring to Zombieville USA (Mika Mobile) and Blush (Flashbang Studios).

(more…)

I suppose that this may technically be round number 2 as we tried this once already, but we had short notice (even shorter than this round) and only Sam and I were online to play. So let’s call this round 1 and get it right! I’m keen on getting together with the Unity community every so often and playing various games online. For this round we’ll be playing Halo 3 on the XBox 360 but over time we will expand the repertoire to include Unity games, other console games, etc., variety is the spice of life y’know! If you’re interested in playing some time, and you have any specific requests for other games/platforms then feel free to share those in a comment below.

Unity Community Online Gaming: Round 1
Platform/Game: XBox 360 / Halo 3
Date/Start Time: Saturday, February 28th / 10am PST

If you’re interested in playing then please let me know by either adding a comment below or by writing me at tom(at)unity3d(dot)com. When doing so please let me know your XBox Live Gamer Tag as well as your Unity Community Forums handle (if you’re a member). I will update this post with information as necessary.

It’s on!