Unity (game engine)
 |
 | This article needs attention from an expert in Technology. The specific problem is: needs expert help to fix this - too close to a blurb: remove all uncited stuff; find more third party sources, not just news media; describe the various products are, such as the Unity web player, in terms relevant to the end end user, not just the game developer. See the talk page for details. (February 2011) |
| This article contains promotional content. (March 2011) |
| Logo | |
| Developer(s) | Unity Technologies |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 3.3.0
/ March 1, 2011 |
| Written in | C++, C#[1] |
| Operating system | Windows (creation and deployment), Linux (currently in beta), Mac OS X (creation and deployment), Wii, iPhone/iPad (deployment with special license), Xbox 360 (deployment with additional Microsoft license), Android (deployment with special license), PS3 (deployment with special license) |
| Type | Game engine |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | www.unity3d.com |
Unity is an integrated authoring tool for creating 3D video games or other interactive content such as architectural visualizations or real-time 3D animations. Unity is similar to Director, Blender game engine, Virtools, Torque Game Builder or Gamestudio in the sense that an integrated graphical environment is the primary method of development.
The editor runs on Windows and Mac OS X and can produce games for Windows, Mac, Linux (soon, currently in beta)[1], Wii,[2] iPad, iPhone,[3] as well as the Android platform. It can also produce browser games that use the Unity web player plugin, supported on Mac and Windows. The web player is also used for deployment as Mac widgets. Support for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have recently been added.
Unity won the Wall Street Journal 2010 Technology Innovation Award in the software category.[4] In 2009, Unity Technologies was named one of Gamasutra's "Top 5 Game Companies of 2009" [5] for Unity. Unity was a runner-up for the best use of graphics on Mac OS X in the 2006 Apple Design Awards.[6]
Major features
- Integrated development environment with hierarchical, visual editing, detailed property inspectors and live game preview.[7][8]
- Deployment on multiple platforms:
- As a Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X executable
- On the web (via the Unity Web Player plugin for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Mozilla, Netscape, Opera, Google Chrome and Camino) on Windows and OSX.
- As a Mac OS X Dashboard widget
- For Nintendo Wii [2] (requires additional license)
- As an iPhone/iPad application [3] (requires additional license)
- For Google Android [9] (requires additional license)
- For Microsoft Xbox 360 (requires additional license)
- For Sony PlayStation 3 (requires additional license)
- Assets loaded into Unity and are automatically imported, and are re-imported if the asset is updated.[10] Unity supports integration with 3ds Max, Maya, Blender, Modo, ZBrush, Cinema 4D, and Cheetah3D.
- Graphics engine uses Direct3D (Windows), OpenGL (Mac, Windows), OpenGL ES (iPhone OS), and proprietary APIs (Wii).[11]
- Support for bump mapping, reflection mapping, parallax mapping, Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, dynamic shadows using shadow maps, render-to-texture and full-screen post processing effects.
- ShaderLab language for using shaders, supporting both declarative "programming" of the fixed-function pipeline and shader programs written in Cg or GLSL.[12] A shader can include multiple variants and a declarative fallback specification, allowing Unity to detect the best variant for the current video card and if none are compatible, fall back to an alternative shader that may sacrifice features for broader compatibility.
- Built-in support for Nvidia's (formerly Ageia's) PhysX physics engine,[13] version 2.8.3 (as of Unity 3.0) with added support for real time cloth on arbitrary and skinned meshes, thick ray casts, and collision layers.
- Game scripting via Mono.[14] Scripting is built on Mono, the open-source implementation of the .NET Framework. Programmers can use UnityScript (a custom language with JavaScript-inspired syntax), C# or Boo (which has a Python-inspired syntax).
- The Unity Asset Server - A version control solution for all game assets and scripts, using PostgreSql as a backend.
- Audio system built on FMOD library, with ability to play back Ogg Vorbis compressed audio.
- Video playback using Theora codec.[15]
- A terrain and vegetation engine,[16] supporting tree billboarding.
- Occlusion Culling with Umbra (only in Unity 3).
- Built-in lightmapping and global illumination with Beast (only in Unity 3).
- Multiplayer networking using Raknet.
Unity Asset Server
The Unity Asset Server is a version control solution for all game assets and scripts.[17] The asset server supports multi-gigabyte projects with thousands of multi-megabyte files. Import settings and other metadata are stored and versioned while updates, commits, and graphical version comparisons are all performed inside the Unity Editor. When files are modified, their status is updated instantly. The Unity Asset Server runs on the open source PostgreSQL database server and is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It lacks support for branches, and obviously for branch merges.
Although the software that is used to run a Unity Asset Server is itself free to download and use, a connection to a Unity Asset Server cannot be made without a copy of the Unity3D Pro client that includes the Asset Server add-on, which is an additional cost.
Licensing
There are two main licenses: Unity and Unity Pro,[18] with the Pro version being available for a price and the non Pro version being free. The Pro version has additional features, like render-to-texture and post-processing effects. The Free version, on the other hand, displays a splash screen (in standalone games) and a watermark (in web games).
Both Unity and Unity Pro include the development environment, tutorials, sample projects and content, support via forum, wiki, and future updates in the same major version (i.e. buying Unity Pro 3.0 gets all future Unity Pro 3.x updates for free).
Unity for iPhone and Unity for Android are add-ons to existing Unity purchase.[3]
Source code, educational and console (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii) licenses are negotiated on a case by case basis.
See also
References
- ^ Meijer, Lucas. "Is Unity Engine written in Mono/C#? or C++". Retrieved 26 April 2011.
- ^ a b "Unity to Support Wii Console as Authorized Middleware Provider". Gamasutra.
- ^ a b c "Unity Game Engine Coming to iPhone". Macworld.
- ^ "The WSJ Technology Innovation Award Winners, Category by Category". The Wall Street Journal.
- ^ "Gamasutra's Best of 2009: Top 5 Game Companies". Gamasutra.
- ^ "Apple Design Awards 2006 winners". MacNN.
- ^ "Tale of Tales: The Graveyard post mortem". Tale of Tales.
- ^ "Unity 1.5.1 review". Creative Mac.
- ^ "Unity Announces Support for Android". Gamasutra.
- ^ "Technicat: Asset Importing". Technicat.
- ^ "Features: Graphical Fidelity". Unity Technologies.
- ^ "Features: Shaders". Unity Technologies.
- ^ "Features: Advanced Physics". Unity Technologies.
- ^ "Companies Using Mono". Mono Project.
- ^ "Features: Audio and Video". Unity Technologies.
- ^ "Features: Terrains". Unity Technologies.
- ^ "Features: Unity Asset Server". Unity Technologies.
- ^ "Unity License Comparison". Unity Technologies.
External links
Template:Unity engine games Template:IPhone video game engines