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[Matthew]

I know a few people have been waiting for this, since before 2.5 Unity was Mac-only.  Unity is the tech we use at Blurst, and we absolutely love it (Raptor Safari, Minotaur China Shop, Blush).  There's a 30-day trial available:

http://unity3d.com/unity/whats-new/unity-2.5

I'd be happy to field any Unity questions!  I wrote up a blog post with an overview of what exactly Unity is here, too:  http://technology.blurst.com/unity-basics-overview/

[Hideous]

Oh, holy shit. That's awesome, better try out the trial.

[Alec]

Some of my praise for Unity here: http://infiniteammo.ca/blog/unity-25-for-windows-released/

But yeah, we made our Gamma entry in 9 days using Unity. That wouldn't have been possible with any other game makin' tool.

This is coming from someone who built his own engine (for Aquaria) and who has a deep fear and suspicious of game making tools. (for being too restrictive) Unity is actually very open-ended. You probably can't make absolutely anything with it, but there's a lot of freedom.

[mirosurabu]

 

[David Pittman]

Zomguh! Been waiting for this for a while. I'll have to check out the trial when I get home.

[astrospoon]

And the Mac port of "What is Bothering Carl?" begins..... today.

WAHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!   

[Don Andy]

Oh neat. I didn't even know Unity was Mac only but this is probably a good opportunity to spent a weekend or two with it.

[Alex May]

gahhhh hhhhhhh aaaaaa will probably have to check this out after gdc now

[laserghost]

I'd be happy to field any Unity questions!

Would a PC user now be able to create an iPhone game without the use of any Macs (other then the iPhone itself)? Not that I hate Macs, I just don't own any.

[Alex May]

Would a PC user now be able to create an iPhone game without the use of any Macs (other then the iPhone itself)? Not that I hate Macs, I just don't own any.

No, iPhone dev is Mac only.

System Requirements for Unity Authoring

    * Windows XP SP2 or later; Mac OS X "Tiger" 10.4 or later
    * Graphics card with 64 MB of RAM and 4 texture units
    * The rest only depends on the complexity of your projects!

System Requirements for Unity iPhone Authoring

    * An Intel-based Mac
    * Mac OS X "Leopard" 10.5.4 or later
    * Using Occlusion Culling requires NVIDIA or ATI graphics card
    * The rest only depends on the complexity of your projects!

System Requirements for Unity-Authored Content

    * Windows 2000 or later; Mac OS X "Panther" 10.3.9 or later
    * Pretty much any 3D graphics card, depending on complexity.
    * Online games run on all browsers, including IE, Firefox and Safari among others.

[Melly]

Unity questions:

When developing for desktops and not browsers, what would be the performance difference between a Unity game and a ground-up C++ game (lets say using openGL)? Small, huge, unnoticeable?

What language(s) can you use in it?

Does it focus on 3D applications, making development of optimized 2D applications harder or with low performance?

Is there any interest out there for Unity applications in a commercial sense like there is for Flash?

EDIT: Reading a bit around it seems Unity is really focused on 3D and making 2D gams in it with pixelated sprites and stuff probably isn't worth it. I'll definitely look into it when I'm designing a 3D game, though. I wonder how well it can do the lowpoly look.

EDIT2: Do all Unity games require stuff like shaders or even hardware acceleration?

EDIT3: If only this had come out 2 months ago or so I could have used it for a Cockpit Compo entry (and quite a few other people).

[Peevish]

Blush doesn't require any pixel shaders, so I'm guessing any acceleration is optional. And according to the documentation, the speed is "almost C++."

I, too, would be curious about doing low-res sprites in Unity. Is it conceivable?

[Melly]

"Almost C++" is basically the best anything that isn't C/C++ could hope to be.

In all seriousness though if any veteran users can confirm that it'd get me pretty excited.

[Hideous]

Itobviously requires hardware acceleration, but shaders are optional.

[Zaphos]

Unity questions:

When developing for desktops and not browsers, what would be the performance difference between a Unity game and a ground-up C++ game (lets say using openGL)? Small, huge, unnoticeable?

What language(s) can you use in it?

Their site says

Unity supports three scripting languages: JavaScript, C#, and a dialect of Python called Boo. All three are equally fast and interoperate. All three can use the underlying .NET libraries which support databases, regular expressions, XML, file access and networking.

Scripting is frequently thought of as limited and slow. But in Unity your scripts are compiled to native code and run nearly as fast as C++. You get the fast iteration times and ease of use everyone loves about scripting languages.

EDIT2: Do all Unity games require stuff like shaders or even hardware acceleration?

Alex posted the system requirements right before your post.

[Don Andy]

Ah, I was hoping Unity would be good for "classic" 2D games, but I was mistaken. Entirely misconception on my part though and not fault of the engine.

As Melly said, if this would've come out a bit earlier (or if I would've learned of it earlier) I might've actually managed to get my compo entry out (I still really want to get the idea realized, but in no way am I going to manage that within the deadline).

[bateleur]

What's the difference between the "indie" and "pro" versions besides the price?

[Alec]

I haven't run into any major speed problems, even on iPhone. (except with too much physics going on)

But you still have to do things right.

[Alex May]

What's the difference between the "indie" and "pro" versions besides the price?

Pro version has decent shadows and a few other things. Watermark removal.

Unity Indie

The vast majority of Unity's features are included in the Indie license. The list is too long to include here, and anyway it's much quicker to try it out for yourself!

Only the features listed on the right are exclusive Unity Pro features. If you don't see it to the right, that means it is in Unity Indie. So yes, Indie is a complete game development package with full support for asset importing, physics, terrains, networking and much, much more.
Restrictions on Indie

All of this is covered in EULA, but the basic points are:

    * Unity Indie may not be licensed and used by companies or incorporated entities that had a turnover in excess of US$100,000 in their last fiscal year.
    * A company, incorporated entity, or individual may not license both Unity Pro and Unity Indie at the same time. So a team can't mix those two licenses.

Unity Pro

Unity Pro has all the features of Unity Indie, plus:
Logo/Watermark Removal

With Unity Pro, you can build a standalone Windows executable version of your game without the "Made with Unity" splash screen. Additionally, web player games will not display the Unity watermark when published with the Pro version.
Realtime Shadows

Unity Pro supports realtime self-shadowing shadows that just work. With Unity Indie it is of course still possible to use lower-end shadowing techniques, like Lightmaps or Projectors.
Fully Fledged Streaming

Stream in anything to the web player or a standalone application. Textures, animated models, complete or partial scenes, new missions and expansions, user-generated characters – yes, anything.

Unity Indie supports limited forms of streaming, like textures and music.
Render-to-Texture Effects

Image post-processing effects like Glow, Motion Blur, Color Correction and others? Check. Water with realtime reflections & refractions, and so on? Check. Other render-to-texture effects, like surveilance cameras, are possible in Unity Pro as well.
Video Playback and Streaming

Import and play back videos. Stream them from the net. Put them onto any 3D surface, or display them in 2D on top of your game.
Low-Level Rendering Access

Need to use custom rendering techniques, bypassing Unity's rendering pipeline? The Graphics and GL classes give you access to the bare metal.
Script Access to Asset Pipeline

Unity's asset pipeline just works in Indie of course. With Pro you can also directly access it from scripts. Need a build machine that churns out builds 24/7? It's just a few lines of code.
C/C++ Plugins Support

Have a custom native library that you absolutely must use? Use a C/C++ plugin to directly call into it.

[bateleur]

Aha, thanks. 

That's pretty civilized. I'll have to give some serious thought to using this stuff.