Tag Archives: Unity

Train2Game News Unity 4.5 released

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unity-logoThe latest update for the Unity game engine has been released featuring a makeover of its 2D physics tools.

Unity 4.5 includes more than 450 bug fixes and a new module manager to help bring platform-specific hotfixes across mobile platforms.

The update also features improvements to 2D physics, a major update to the shader compiler, improved MonoBehaviour serialisation and added iOS support for Open GL ES 3.0.

Other additions and enhancements include faster scene loading, sparse textures and stereoscopic rendering for DirectX 11.

Unity has also teased new additions for version 4.6, which will include the new GUI.

You can see more details about the new update on the official website.

Train2Game News Unity introducing multiplayer tools

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unity-logoUnity is developing an array of new multiplayer tools and services for developers using its game engine.

The first phase of the new UNET project will include features such as a high performance transport layer based on UDP to support all game types, a matchmaker service and a relay server to help solve connectivity problems.

The new multiplayer tools will be introduced when Unity 5 is released later this year.

You can find more details on UNET here.

Unity’s announcement comes as indie developers have aired mixed opinions on whether multiplayer games are viable for small teams What are your thoughts?

Train2Game News Unity games on Sony platforms free

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unity-logoUnity game engine support for PlayStation Mobile app development is on the way, and a preview version has just been released.

A public preview has been released today gives Unity users the opportunity to bring their games to PlayStation Mobile-compatible devices, including PS Vita, for no additional cost.

Unity users can register for free with Sony Computer Entertainment to obtain a licence to test and deploy on the PS Mobile and PS Vita platforms.

A full release for the new Unity for PSM development environment will follow in the summer.

Right now, however, the developers can get to grips with the preview version, which uses a specially customised version of Unity 4.3.

Sony said that the Unity for PS Mobile suite enables easy porting of iOS and Android games for Vita and Vita TV.

Unity support for PS Vita was added in January, and includes features such as Trophies, Friends list and matchmaking. The ongoing developments with Unity are part of a partnership the engine maker brokered with Sony at the beginning of its PS4 campaign.

Developer can find out more about the new software and register with SCE here.

Source: Develop

Train2Game News Unity acquires Applifier

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unity-logoUnity Technologies, creators of the Unity multiplatform engine and development tools, announced that it will acquire Applifier, one of the world’s largest and most successful mobile game service providers.

The acquisition will see Everyplay, the pioneering game replay sharing and community service, integrated into the Unity development platform. The GameAds video advertising network will complement the free cross-promotion network currently in development for Unity Cloud.

Everyplay, created to let players express themselves with game replay sharing, provides developers with a unique way to acquire new players and increase retention for free. The service gives players the power to easily record, share and discuss extraordinary moments from their gameplay sessions leading to authentic virality with the players’ friends and the broader audience of involved gamers. Everyplay boasts a global community of over 6 million registered mobile players and is now growing by over 1 million new users each month with millions of shared replays from hundreds of integrated games on iOS and Android. The social game replay service, already easy for developers to adopt, will get integrated into Unity for effortless activation of features. Everyplay will continue to offer its SDKs outside of Unity products and enthusiastically welcomes any developer interested in using Everyplay with their games.

“Unity was founded to democratize game development, and we are incessantly searching for tools that can make our community more successful,” said David Helgason, CEO, Unity Technologies. “By welcoming Everyplay to the Unity platform, we’re arming our developers with an incredibly powerful and authentic way to connect with a rapidly growing community of passionate gamers.”

“The challenge for today’s developers doesn’t end with releasing awesome games – they also need to attract and retain legions of true fans,” said Jussi Laakkonen, CEO, Applifier. “We are thrilled to join forces with Unity and, with the help of the incredible Unity community, overcome these important challenges together.”

The acquisition also brings GameAds, a broadly adopted video ad network, to Unity. The service is used by leading game publishers to find engaged new users and to monetize non-paying users with video ads. The GameAds video ad network and Everyplay gaming community will work side by side Unity Cloud and its upcoming cross-promotion network. Together the three services will provide mobile game developers with multiple methods to grow their customer base.

Train2Game News: Unity for PlayStation Vita

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unity-logoIn March 2013, Unity Technologies announced a partnership with Sony based on support for every single one of SCE’s PlayStation platforms, in addition to Unity for PlayStation 3.

Today, Unity announced that with Unity 4.3 they are releasing Unity for PlayStation Vita to the public.

Developers with a licensed developer agreement from SCE for PS Vita will now be able to deploy their game to PS Vita via the Unity engine and make use of platform-specific functionality including:

· Motion sensors

· Front and rear cameras

· Dual analog sticks

· Rear Touch pad

Furthermore, Unity for PS Vita will allow them to integrate the full suite of PSN features into their games, including Trophies, Friends and Matching functionality into your game.

Unity for PS Vita allows developers to develop their game once, without rewriting the code from scratch; simply build and run it on the PS Vita devkit. Not only that, developers can now create both 2D and 3D games with Unity 4.3, animate almost anything with the native animation system Mecanim, and implement awesome graphics.

Zoink! has just released their new game “Stick It To The Man” developed in Unity for both PS3 and PS Vita. Check out “Stick It To The Man” at http://www.stickitgame.com/

Train2Game News: Unity partners with GameAnalytics

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unity-logoGameAnalytics, a fast-growing free analytics provider, and Unity Technologies have partnered in order to bring the powerful GameAnalytics tools into the Unity Asset Store Online Services Strategic Partner program.

“During the last nine years, Unity has truly managed to democratize game development for the creative teams. GameAnalytics is on a mission to follow up from where the Unity engine ends and enable game developers of all sizes to monitor and optimize everything easily, from user acquisition to game design based on hard facts,” explained Morten E. Wulff, CEO of GameAnalytics. He continued: “Improvements based on performance metrics are essential to success in today’s free-to-play marketplace.”

GameAnalytics was founded in 2012 with $2.5m in funding from notable investors such as the CEO of Huffington Post, Jimmy Maymann, and TechCruch’s founder, Michael Arrington. Like Unity, GameAnalytics is a Danish company. It now supports almost 4,000 games and tracks more than 30 million new players each month.

One of the secrets behind GameAnalytics’ explosive growth is how easy it is for Unity developers to get started. As the CEO of Roadhouse, James Hursthouse, explained: “For us, the deep integration between GameAnalytics and Unity meant that we were up and running with 45+ important metrics in a few hours of development time.” James continued: “Today, more than 15 people from our company log in to GameAnalytics every day as one of the tools we use to check KPIs on everything from player acquisition and engagement to in-game monetization.”

“GameAnalytics has been committed to bringing analytics to the Unity community from the day they started the company,” stated David Helgason, CEO, Unity Technologies. “Analytics is an important part of launching a successful game and with GameAnalytics working with us in the Unity Asset Store Online Services Program, that will be easier than ever for development studios of all sizes.”

This could be a very helpful tool for Train2Game students and student studios using Unity to create their games.

Train2Game News: Unity 4.3 released

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unity-logoUnity Technologies have released version 4.3 of the Unity multi-platform engine and development tools.

The important update includes the highly anticipated dedicated 2D development tools, huge additions to the Mecanim animation system, an upgrade to the re-written Umbra 3 occlusion culling, and much more.

While Unity has been used to create thousands of excellent 2D games, Unity 4.3 introduces new 2D development tools and metaphors specifically designed to streamline 2D workflow. Manipulating and optimizing 2D assets is made easier with the addition of a new Sprite Texture import mode, automated atlasing, an optimized 2D rendering, and drag-and-drop functionality for scene creation. Box2D physics have been integrated into Unity for better performance, stability, and smaller game builds. Additionally, polygon collider generation from sprite textures means quicker creation of accurate, but fully editable, physical collider meshes for refined physical response between objects in a scene.

In addition Unity’s signature character animation suite becomes more powerful with support for Blend Shapes, used to accurately and realistically blend complex geometry between model states, giving animators the ability to create, among other things, believable emotional facial animation.

On top of high-end improvements to character animation, Mecanim is now fully integrated with the Animation Window and its new dopesheet functionality. Support for animating simple scene elements, 2D sprite animations, camera settings, and more to make Mecanim an all-purpose animation solution.

The final big update for Unity is that Occlusion Culling in Unity has been rewritten for the upgrade to Umbra 3. Among other benefits, baking is much faster and generates much more accurate and better performing results. Rapid iteration allows for much more sophisticated environments containing highly detailed graphical content.

“4.3 is a huge update in the history of Unity,” said David Helgason, CEO, Unity Technologies. “The addition of 2D tools is an important milestone that will help developers make incredible 2D games, and with major improvements to Mecanim and greatly increased performance, this is a weighty, productive update that we’re thrilled to release.”

You can download Unity 4.3 and start creating games straight away from http://unity3d.com/unity/download

Train2Game News: Unity free for Xbox One Developers

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Xbox OneMicrosoft has partnered with the maker of the popular Unity kit to secure free access for all ID@Xbox members to the Xbox One add-on, which is planned for launch next year.

Announced at Gamescom earlier this year, ID@Xbox will allow independent developers to self-publish on Xbox One without fees. Registered users will not be required to pay certification or title update fees, though currently developers “with a proven track record” are being prioritised for registration. Microsoft also said in July that every Xbox One console can be used as a development kit, though the functionality will not be available from launch.

“When released in 2014, the Xbox One add-on for Unity will be available at no cost to all developers in the ID@Xbox program, as will special Xbox One-only Unity Pro seat licenses for Xbox One developers in the ID@Xbox program,” confirmed Microsoft’s ID@Xbox director Chris Charla.

“We want to make sure the dev who’s working away in Omaha, or Coventry, or Chiba will have the same shot to realize their vision on Xbox One as one of my developer friends we hang out with in Seattle or at a trade show like GDC or Gamescom.

“The Unity add-on for Xbox One supports every element of Xbox One, from Kinect to SmartGlass to the impulse triggers of the new controller,” Charla added. “Using Unity, developers will be able to take advantage of all aspects of Xbox One, which is rad. More importantly, Unity is available for Windows and Windows Phone too (and yes, the add-on is available at no cost to developers for Windows Phone and Windows 8 store games). So from one base game, developers can ship their games across all Microsoft platforms.”

Unity Technologies CEO David Helgason has said that while the dev kit will support high-end features that will make use of Xbox One’s additional power, its established toolset will simplify deployment for familiar developers.

Train2Game News: Facebook gaming rising

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facebookToday, Facebook announced that is has made significant updates to its Unity SDK and removed it from Beta.

Facebook is now making it even easier for more than 2 million developers working with Unity to tap into Facebook’s leading social features. The newest version of the SDK makes cross-platform development easier and increases compatibility for apps using multiple plugins. Additionally, the SDK is up to date with the latest features of Facebook’s iOS and Android SDKs.

The updated SDK makes it simple for games to let users share screen shots of their game experience with friends. This feature is very popular among players of Cmune’s Uberstrike, a game that recently integrated our SDK. Users share over 65,000 pictures a day and have shared over 2 million pictures in the last 30 days. Other Unity games using the SDK are also having great success. For example, Madfinger launched its mobile only game, Shadowgun: Deadzone on Facebook and increased its total daily players by more than 75% for the first couple weeks. Since integrating the SDK, Nival’s strategy and combat game, Kings Bounty: Legions, has doubled conversion of Facebook users who install the Unity plugin and start the game’s first fight.

Gaming on Facebook has been gaining momentum throughout the year and there’s never been a better time for gamers and developers to start working with Facebook. In the first half of this year, people spent more than $1.5 billion on games on Facebook, and there are now more than 260 million people playing games on Facebook every month.  Last year, over 100 developers generated more than $1M in revenue from Facebook. Yesterday, Facebook also released Q3 earnings, announcing that it was Facebook’s first $2 billion quarter in terms of revenue. The “payments and other” revenue in Q3 was $218 million and payments revenue from games was up 18% from last year.

Train2Game News: Train2Game Friend Fee Stewart requires more staff at Formerdroid

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FormerdroidFormerdroid are hiring!

Train2Game friend Fee Stewart announced: We are currently looking for a Unity programmer (javascript) to work in Huddersfield.

The position would suit a highly motivated person who has extensive knowledge of Unity and wishes to grow with this BAFTA nominated, highly progressive team making original IP.

Knowledge of Windows 8 phone would be advantageous.

Single accommodation can be arranged if necessary for relocation.

Please send your CV to fee@formerdroid[DOT]com

Closing date 27/09/13