Whether you are a game developer or a gamer, there is a good chance you have heard about Unity. Whether it is a company using the free license and you see that Unity splash screen or your trying to build a game using this powerful engine. If you haven’t, then feel strap in and check out what the engine is offering.
Be aware that I will not be talking about what the “best” game engine is. The best engine is the one that works best for your situation and needs.
The Unity3d Engine is a great and approachable engine to develop your next game or cinematic animation creation. It was initially released back in 2005 as a dedicated game engine for the Mac. But since then has evolved to incorporate all the major platforms. It also contains some amazing features that allow you to hit the ground running to develop a prototype for your game. There are a couple of versions that you should be aware of, the free personal license that will show the unity splash screen and lock some features behind the PRO tier. You get the primary features, but there are some excellent additions like collaboration tool integrations, dark theme, analytics, and premium learning resources. You still get access to the Scriptable Rendering Pipeline (SRP), which allows you to create your game based on your needs. Another excellent feature for Unity3D is the 2D offering, which at first needed some work to lower the draw call counts. Has now been optimized and has been a great competitor in engine choice for 2D games.
Licensing
There are technically four levels of plans for Unity3D that you will want to be aware of if you decide to go down the path of using Unity3D. The first and free one is Personal, There is also a technical Student edition that you can get as well if you are able to get the GitHub student developer pack. The next level is a Plus plan which costs $40 per month per seat. Which means for every developer and a limited number of machines for that developer in your group or organization. You would have to take on the Plus plan if your hobbyist game development experience has you earning more than $100k in the last 12 months. The next tier is the Pro plan which has you paying $150 per month per seat. and you are required to take this and upgrade your plus plan if you are making over $200k in the last 12 months. Finally, there is an Enterprise edition that has a minimum of 20 seats you must purchase that costs $200 per month per seat.
Information subject to change, always check the Unity site for latest plan info. https://store.unity.com/compare-plans?currency=USD
Personal Plan
(Free)
- Core Development Platform
- 1 integration with a collaboration tool
- Monetize your application (Ads+In App Purchase)
- Core Engine Features
Plus Plan
($40/mo per seat)
- All features of Personal plan
- Dark theme UI
- Splash Screen customization
- Integration with unlimited collaboration tools
- Unity Tams advanced
- Cloud Diagnostics
- Core Analytics
- Premium learning resources
Pro Plan
($150/mo per seat)
- All features of the Plus plan
- The high-end art asset pack
- Export analytics raw data
- Priority access to Unity success Advisors
- Priority queue for Customer Service
Enterprise
($200/mo per seat)
- All features of the Pro plan
- Customer success manager
- Tailored learning plan
Supported Platforms
The Unity3d game engine has come a long way from supporting only the Apple Mac platform to expanding its offering to support all the major platforms today. With the Hype of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, I am sure those will be added and probably are currently locked for when they are released to be added as a supported platform.
- Mac and iOS
- Android
- Xbox One
- PlayStation 4
- Nintendo Switch
- All current VR platforms
- Windows and UWP
Editor
The editor for this engine is pretty user friendly. You can move around the panels for any component or widget to your workflow. You can even create your own custom panel that lets you build your game faster, for example, a panel to build out dialogues for characters or skill trees. The sky is the limit for what you can do with the editor. You can easily have your code properties show up as values on the editor to slide and change in an easy way that doesn’t require you to tweak the actual code.
Animation
The animation system with unity allows you to use their latest version of the Mecanim system they integrated some time ago. It can now handle more than just player animations and is extended to all potential game objects. Create nice Ease In Ease Out curves and weights that allow you to create believable animation sequences. With sophisticated state-machines and transitions, you can easily make a scene appear how you want without having to get a degree in film and animation.
Effects
Sometimes you need more than a mesh or a sprite to accomplish an effect you want in your game. With the particle system included in the engine, you can simulate fluid-like entities such as liquids, clouds, and flames. It allows you to animate many small 2D images into a perfect animation sequence that gives your game some of that polish.
Extend this out even more with the Visual Effect Graph and create a single particle or many-particle systems. It is mixing effects to create an incredibly complex effect that is made up of a lot of small particles, meshes, and shaders. You have complete control over how it is combined and presented. Take simple effects and expand on them and configure them for your needs.
Lighting
The lightning in the Unity3d Game engine allows you to go for the realistic lighting style or you can craft for a stylized lighting effect in your game. Taking advantage of direct and indirect lighting to give your game the proper level of lighting to make your level feel like it fits in the environment. The engine also offers real-time and baked lighting which means you can either have the lighting be calculated in real-time as the player is walking through the environment or it can be calculated ahead of time and “Baked” into the scene so the player GPU calculation needs can be reduced.
Rendering
A great feature that Unity has brought the community is the Scriptable Render Pipeline (SRP). When you create a new project, you will be asked if you want to use the built-in Unity Renderer. It gives you less control, and the shader graph is not supported. But it is great for beginners looking to find their way on the platform. You can then, on your next project, decide to go with the Universal Render pipeline, formerly called the Lightweight (LWRP) pipeline. The Universal Render pipeline is exceptionally flexible meant for being used on every platform. You have a lot of control, and there is a learning curve associated with it.
You could also choose only to support the high-end machines and choose the High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP). The HDRP pipeline is for those that feel comfortable in graphic development and need to create that ultra-realistic gaming experience. Lastly, you can pick the custom render pipeline. Custom pipelines are having you go straight into the hard mode, and you will need an expert in graphics development as this gives you all the control you will ever need but will be the steepest of hills to climb if it is new to you. A good recommendation is to start with the Universal or High definition pipelines before you come to custom and remove the elements you don’t need and tweak the others to get to the level of graphics required for your title.
2D
It took some time but Unity has gotten to their 2D system in a great place to compete against the other 2D engines. Bringing Sprite tools, and making the experience of development easier. You can click the play button and see your scene right away. Combining your 2D images into a large atlas allows you to reduce your draw calls down making your game more efficient. With pixel perfect development and mixing with the visual effect graph you can create some wild and hectic experiences.
Stay up to date by following Unity3D’s Twitter and install Unity3D today and make your game development dream come true.