Archive for the ‘Product News’ Category

We’re happy to report that highly awaited and much discussed Unity iPhone 1.6 has been released and is available for download.

Yes, it’s exactly that mysterious build that adds generics support, enables multiplayer for iPhone and noticeably shrinks final binary size. You might have seen some trackbacks on Unity forums.

So what’s so good about it?

Now imagine that you can use all that .NET 2.0 third party libraries, you can use your Unity 2.6 projects without a hassle of converting your code to a restricted .NET 1.1. That’s for the win!

Next is Unity Networking support. Basically you can take your 2.6 multiplayer game, implement controls for iPhone and it will just work. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it?

Remember that old-good Star Trooper demo? Now imagine same thing with multiplayer support. It does work with several Macs and iPhones connected simultaneously. Now it’s only your imagination that limits your multiplayer possibilities for iPhone!

You'll have that demo as soon as corresponding tutorial is ready for you to get booted up immediately.

You remember that iPhone apps cap has been increased to 20 megs, don’t you? That means that more of your games are available for immediate cellular download for your customers. And if you use Unity iPhone 1.6, you’ll have better chances to keep your game size under that cap. So just go now and build your old game with Unity iPhone 1.6.

Do you feel the size difference? Do you see reduced startup times? Do you notice reduced memory footprint? You do! Sweet, we can see you smiling now.

Oh, by the way, in case you haven’t noticed, this all was free for you… yep, a small detail you hadn’t thought about

Today we’re excited to have released Unity Asset Server 2.0! This is a free update for all existing users of the Unity Asset Server and it offers the following new features:

• 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!

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!

Hey everyone,

We’ve just shipped Unity 2.6.1 out to the world. This release includes a Webplayer that is compatible with 64-bit Safari on Snow Leopard, and fixes for problems affecting terrain trees and some asset importing.  This upgrade is recommended for all users.

You can see all the good stuff here: http://unity3d.com/unity/whats-new/unity-2.6#unity-2.6.1

And download the latest build here: http://unity3d.com/unity/download/

Enjoy!

A while ago, I was talking to a customer who was trying to figure out how to best make a customizable character in their game. After explaining how I’d do it, I figured it would make good material for a more extensive demo project. Bas Smit (who wrote it) and myself just gave a presentation on the project during the Unite conference.

Let’s start with a demo: (click it to start)

Read the rest of this entry »

Today is very exciting for us because we’ve just released a much anticipated update to our iPhone development platform — Unity iPhone 1.5.

Some of the highlights from this major point release include:

Significant Performance Boosts

• Up to 3x faster than 1.0.3.
• Performance critical paths rewritten to take advantage of VFP coprocessor, animation skinning is up to 4x faster.
• Automatic batching of meshes to reduce draw calls.

Built-in Anti-piracy Protection

• Identify if Apple DRM was removed from the application bundle and modify application behaviour accordingly.

More Power

• Full support for native Objective C and C++ code opens full access to the iPhone 3.x APIs and custom plugins.
• Access to video-playback, on screen keyboard support, and GPS/location services.
• Support for 8-texture shading on iPhone 3GS with automatic fallbacks for iPhone 3G.

Better Docs

• Detailed instructions on iphone-specific optimizations.
• New 150 page tutorial to get you up to speed with iPhone game making.

Further information about this release, a download link for the update, and a link to the Penelope Tutorial can all be found here: http://unity3d.com/unity/whats-new/iphone-1.5

The Demo Team is putting the finishing touches on the iPhone Standard Assets that will go out with the Unity iPhone 1.1. release. There are plenty of useful assets that you’ll get:

1. Additive-Projector (can be used to fake spotlights)

2. Blob-Shadow

3. iPhone-specific shaders

4. Default Skybox asset

5. Joystick and TouchPad scripts

6. Easy-to-use water reflection script

7. Control schemes aplenty: 2D side scroller, camera-relative, FPS, FPS w/ tilt, player-relative, tap-to-move

With the Unity iPhone 1.1. release imminent, you’ll be enjoying all of these goodies, soon!

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.

If you’re using compressed audio in your iPhone game, then you should grab Unity iPhone 1.0.3. It is a hot fix release with a single purpose – to improve performance of a compressed audio playback under the iPhone OS 3.0.

Now some technical bits. Previously we have been using the AmbientSound as an audio session category. The AmbientSound category respects silent switch and allows single compressed audio to be played via dedicated hardware decompressor. However since introduction of the iPhone OS 3.0 meaning of the AmbientSound slightly changed. Now this category allows multiple compressed audio sounds to be played, but all of them are decompressed on CPU!

That is not a big deal if you have game without CPU intensive tasks or completely GPU bound game. Otherwise performance may suffer. Instead iPhone OS 3.0 introduced a new audio session category called AmbientSoundSolo which behavior is more like an AmbientSound under the OS 2.x. That is what we need!

Unity iPhone 1.0.3 will detect OS version at the run-time and will pick audio session category for you. It is important to know that this process does NOT require you to explicitly compile for newer OS version. You should use the OS 2.x as a compile target still – it will guarantee wider audience for your game.

Unity iPhone 1.0.2 is out now, so grab it!

As I’ve mentioned before the key aspects of this release were to reduce memory consumption and make your games more stable. Let’s go over the most important things you will find in 1.0.2:

• We have halved memory usage for textures! Textures are not longer kept in the memory after being submitted to OpenGL ES. However you will not be able to read or modify texture data from scripts unless the “Enable Get/SetPixels” flag is enabled in the texture import settings. Note: In order to take advantage of this feature for projects created with older Unity iPhone versions make sure to reimport all assets.
• Memory usage for uncompressed audio is half of what it used to be.
• Audio respects “mute” button and iPod music playing in the background.
• Audio continues to play after iPhone receives or rejects a call, text message or alarm.
• Unity now has much more tidier memory management when it comes to loading new scenes and assets.
• You can chose from 5 new landscape and portrait splash-screens.
• We have fixed issues preventing correct usage of .NET sockets and occasional GUI components being stripped away.
• And on top of that final binary size became smaller!

You can find more details and download here: What’s new in Unity iPhone 1.0.2

While 1.0.2 keeps you entertained, we’re back working on Unity iPhone 1.1.