UNITY

[Toams]

Anyone here ever worked with Unity?
I'll be making a game with it soon, and I'd like a few pointers on things to look for when starting out..
It'll be a 3D sidescroller (so 2D movement in a 3D environment)

I already saw that Unity itself had a tutorial on 2D interaction, and have briefly scrolled through that.
However, being the graphic obsessed me, I've noticed that the free version of Unity won't get you fancy postprocessing effects.
Is there any way to have these too, without having to pay €1000?

Does anyone know good sites for Unity with free resources/tutorials?

Thanks

 

[Citizen86]

I've played around with Unity, not enough to give you any hints though.

I have found some good sites over time though. Here are some helpful ones:

http://tornadotwins.com/?page_id=34
http://unity3dtutorial.com/
http://www.unity3dstudent.com/
http://learnunity3d.com/
http://walkerboystudio.com/html/unity_c ... free_.html

And a few on scripting in Unity:
http://www.youtube.com/steamisM50

And if you don't mind spending a couple bucks, this Unity-focused magazine has some pretty useful information:
http://www.3dattack.us/3DAttack/Magazine.html

That's the thing about Unity though, it's great that the indie version is COMPLETELY free to use, but it is relatively limited in some of the newer techs that everyone wants. I don't even think you get any realtime shadows with the free version, so you're stuck with blob shadows. I could be mistaken on that last part though.

Not to dissuade you from using Unity, because it is a pretty great engine. But a few other options are the Unreal Development Kit and also Torque2D/3D. The UDK is free to use up until you want to sell your game, then it costs $99 to license it, and anything over $50,000 earnings, 25% goes to Epic. They recently raised this from $5,000 USD, so this works out better for everyone. And Torque recently lowered their prices on everything. You get their entire 2D or 3D engine with source code for $99. UDK and Unity don't offer source code. If that can be helpful to you, then there isn't a much better deal out there right now.

Just some of my thoughts, since I've been looking at 3D engines as well as 2D for a while now.

 

[Toams]

O hey, thanks! Didn't expect a response like this..

That's the thing about Unity though, it's great that the indie version is COMPLETELY free to use, but it is relatively limited in some of the newer techs that everyone wants. I don't even think you get any realtime shadows with the free version, so you're stuck with blob shadows. I could be mistaken on that last part though.

Yeah, source code won't be a problem though. We are planning to make a game over the span of 1 summer break, so modifying the source code will be a little bit out of bounds for such a short term project.

Also the blob shadows aren't too bad either (you're right btw: http://unity3d.com/unity/licenses), it'll be a 2d game, sidescroller, so realtime floor shadows aren't that big a part of the game. Still sucks how they've limited the graphics department, but it's understandable too.. Anyway, we'll find workarounds. What sucks for me is that the focus and grain effects and stuff, and godrays, that those are not included. And the additional sound filter effects.

But yeah, I'll have a look at these links, thanks a bunch.

 

[Citizen86]

Oh, there's one link I forgot, but worth a look if you are willing to throw a bit of money at it.

http://www.gameprefabs.com/

Unity Prefabs. You can buy pre-made scripts for a platform game, premade characters, etc. Tons of stuff, they are adding things almost every week.

This one specifically you might like, it's not godrays but it's lightrays that you can use with the free version: http://www.gameprefabs.com/products/show/216
Costs $15. But looking at it, I'm sure you could probably figure it out on your own as well. The prefabs are nice if you are on a time budget though, since it'll quickly take care of a lot of the grunt work.

To be honest though, I haven't bought anything there yet, but I am signed up for the newsletter so I always see the new stuff they add.