Unity (game engine)

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Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies,^[1] first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Inc.'s Worldwide Developers Conference as an OS X-exclusive game engine. As of 2018, the engine has been extended to support 27 platforms.^[2] The engine can be used to create both three-dimensional and two-dimensional games as well as simulations for its many platforms. Several major versions of Unity have been released since its launch, with the latest stable version being Unity 2018.2.16, released on November 15, 2018.^[3]

Overview

Unity gives users the ability to create games in both 2D and 3D, and the engine offers a primary scripting API in C#, for both the Unity editor in the form of plugins, and games themselves, as well as drag and drop functionality. Prior to C# being the primary programming language used for the engine, it previously supported Boo, which was removed in the Unity 5^[4] release, and a version of JavaScript called UnityScript, which was deprecated in August 2017 after the release of Unity 2017.1 in favor of C#.^[5]

The engine has support for the following graphics APIs: Direct3D on Windows and Xbox One; OpenGL on Linux, macOS, and Windows; OpenGL ES on Android and iOS; WebGL on the web; and proprietary APIs on the video game consoles. Additionally, Unity supports the low-level APIs Metal on iOS and macOS and Vulkan on Android, Linux, and Windows, as well as Direct3D 12 on Windows and Xbox One.

Within 2D games, Unity allows importation of sprites and an advanced 2D world renderer. For 3D games, Unity allows specification of texture compression, mipmaps, and resolution settings for each platform that the game engine supports,^[2] and provides support for bump mapping, reflection mapping, parallax mapping, screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO), dynamic shadows using shadow maps, render-to-texture and full-screen post-processing effects.^[6]

Since about 2016 Unity also offers cloud-based services to developers, these are presently: Unity Ads, Unity Analytics, Unity Certification, Unity Cloud Build, Unity Everyplay, Unity IAP ("In app purchase" - for the Apple and Google app stores), Unity Multiplayer, Unity Performance Reporting, Unity Collaborate and Unity Hub.

Unity supports the creation of custom vertexes, fragments (or pixels), tessellation, compute shaders and Unity's own surface shaders using Cg, a modified version of Microsoft's High-Level Shading Language developed by Nvidia.

Supported platforms

The Unity editor is supported on Windows and macOS, with a version of the editor available for the Linux platform, albeit in an experimental stage,^[7] while the engine itself currently supports building games for 27 different platforms. The platforms are listed as the following: iOS, Android, Tizen, Windows, Universal Windows Platform, macOS, Linux, WebGL, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Wii U, 3DS, Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard, SteamVR, PlayStation VR, Gear VR, Windows Mixed Reality, Daydream, Android TV, Samsung Smart TV, tvOS, Nintendo Switch, Fire OS, Facebook Gameroom, Apple's ARKit, Google's ARCore, and Vuforia.

Unity formerly supported seven other platforms including its own Unity Web Player. The Unity Web Player was a browser plugin that was only supported on Windows and macOS via Chrome, Internet Explorer 11, and Firefox,^[8] however it was deprecated in favor of WebGL.^[9] Since version 5, Unity has been offering its WebGL bundle compiled to JavaScript using a 2-stage language translator (C# to C++ and finally to JavaScript).^[10]^[11]

Unity is the default software development kit (SDK) used for Nintendo's Wii U video game console, with a free copy included by Nintendo with each Wii U developer license. Unity Technologies calls this bundling of a third-party SDK an "industry first".^[12]^[13]

Licensing model

During its first ten years as a product the paid versions of Unity were sold outright; in 2016 the corporation changed to a subscription model.^[14]

Unity has one free and three paid licensing options:

License Name	All Engine Features and Platforms	Revenue Capacity	Splash Screen	Multiplayer	Cloud Build Queue	Dark Theme	Performance Reporting	Premium Support	Access to Source Code	Price
Personal	Template:Yes	$100,000	Made With Unity and optional Custom Animation	20 CCUs	Standard	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Free
Plus	Template:Yes	$200,000	Custom Animation and/or Made with Unity	50 CCUs	Priority	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	$420 billed $35 per month for a mandatory 12 months. ^[15]
Pro	Template:Yes	Unlimited	Custom Animation and/or Made with Unity	200 CCUs	Concurrent Builds	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	$1,500 billed at $125 per month for a mandatory 12 months. ^[16]
Enterprise	Template:Yes	Unlimited	Custom Animation and/or Made with Unity	Custom Multiplayer	Dedicated Build Agents	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Negotiated Pricing

History

Template:Expand section The first version of Unity (1.0.0) was created by colleagues: David Helgason, Joachim Ante and Nicholas Francis in Denmark. The initial product launched on June 6, 2005. The goal was to create an affordable game engine with professional tools for amateur game developers while “democratizing the game development” industry. The three were inspired by the easy workflow, simple asset pipeline, and drag-and-drop interface of Apple’s Final Cut Pro product. When originally released, Unity was available solely for Mac OS X, and developers could only deploy their creations to a few platforms. The current version (4.3.1 as of this writing) is supported on both Windows and Mac OS X, and offers at least a dozen target platforms.

In 2012, VentureBeat said, "Few companies have contributed as much to the flowing of independently produced games as Unity Technologies. ... More than 1.3 million developers are using its tools to create gee-whiz graphics in their iOS, Android, console, PC, and web-based games. ... Unity wants to be the engine for multi-platform games, period."^[12]

For the Apple Design Awards at the 2006 WWDC trade show, Apple, Inc. named Unity as the runner-up for its Best Use of Mac OS X Graphics category, a year after Unity's launch at the same trade show.^[17] Unity Technologies says this is the first time a game design tool has ever been nominated for this award.^[18] A May 2012 survey by Game Developer magazine indicated Unity as its top game engine for mobile platforms.^[19] In July 2014, Unity won the "Best Engine" award at the UK's annual Develop Industry Excellence Awards.^[20]

Unity 5 was met with similar praise, with The Verge stating that "Unity started with the goal of making game development universally accessible.... Unity 5 is a long-awaited step towards that future."^[21]

Following the release of Unity 5, Unity Technologies drew some criticism for the high volume of quickly produced games published on the Steam distribution platform by inexperienced developers.^[22] CEO John Riccitiello said in an interview that he believes this to be a side-effect of Unity's success in democratizing game development: "If I had my way, I'd like to see 50 million people using Unity – although I don't think we're going to get there any time soon. I'd like to see high school and college kids using it, people outside the core industry. I think it's sad that most people are consumers of technology and not creators. The world's a better place when people know how to create, not just consume, and that's what we're trying to promote."^[23]

In December 2016, Unity Technologies announced that they will change the versioning numbering system for Unity from sequence-based identifiers to year of release to align the versioning with their more frequent release cadence; Unity 5.6 was therefore followed by Unity 2017.^[24]

Marketing

On December 16, 2013, Unity Technologies Japan revealed new screenshots for an official mascot character named Template:Nihongo, real name Template:Nihongo (voiced by Asuka Kakumoto), with exhibit of the character in Comic Market 85 event in the Tokyo Big Sight between December 29 to the 31st, where themed goods would be distributed and her voice actress would be present at the event. The character's associated game data were to be released in spring 2014.^[25]^[26]^[27] The character was designed by Unity Technologies Japan designer "ntny" as an open-source heroine character.^[28] The company allows the use of Unity-chan and related characters in secondary projects under certain licenses.^[29] For example, Unity-chan appears as a playable character in Runbow.^[30] The popularity of the character also led to her appearance in VOCALOID adaptions, including her own sound library for VOCALOID4 and a special adaption of VOCALOID designed to work with the Unity Engine 5.0 version called Unity with VOCALOID.

References

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External links

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[Riccitiello_interview-1] Template:Cite interview

[Unity_Multiplatform-2] 2.0 ^2.1 Template:Cite web

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[VB_Unity_interview-12] 12.0 ^12.1 Template:Cite interview

[Unity_GamePad_at_Polygon-13] Template:Cite web

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[15] ttps://store.unity.com/configure-plan/unity-plus

[16] ttps://store.unity.com/configure-plan/unity-pro

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[Unity_2010_PR-18] Template:Cite press release

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Unity (game engine)

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