Tulkamir I don't agree. The point I am Trying to make is that its unlikely that someone is going to buy the pro version just so they can see shadows working.
re the maya analogy , you would be a bit pissed if you bought maya and the shadows didn't work.
Its not like its an optional extra.
I don't expect them to give this stuff away for free anyway, that not my argument.
for example I am testing my models in neo axis and that does have shadows and TBH I think this will suit my needs more than unity anyway and I will buy it at some point.
I am sure unity is a good engine, but I think all in all its a little overpriced for making casual games.
Ruz, the point isn't that it provides crap-tons of graphical features. That isn't the real draw of the Unity platform. The real selling point is the pipeline and the editor. I've played around with NeoAxis extensively. Even gotten my own little mod for it running, complete with a custom environment filled with physics-enabled props. But when it came to scripting up gameplay interactions, NeoAxis proved to be a bit of a challenge.
NeoAxis isn't nearly as flexible for prototyping out different forms of gameplay. Oh sure, it can be done. But it isn't anywhere close to easy. Unity has a more robust scripting system. More importantly, it incorporates this scripting system into its IDE, and lets you use it almost like scripts are used in Flash. This approach to interactivity is much more artist-friendly, and makes more sense to the less programmimg inclined. I'm not saying its a better solution, just more user-friendly.
Also, you can't really compare the graphical feature set of NeoAxis with Unity. Unity's graphical features are all proprietary. But NeoAxis uses the OGRE 3D graphics library for its rendering. And OGRE 3D is open source. Intentionally hamstringing an open-source library isn't really an option. Besides, it's not like NeoAxis doesn't have higher-tier pricing models.
Light baking is a texture, and it's 100% free performance wise, ever since we had more than 1 texture unit.
If you need a free lightmapper, Giles is free these days, as is FSRad.
I know that, i think you have you have no idea what i was getting at. If you bake your lighting you can not build you level in Unity because there is no way that you can export your unity scene as a mesh file or something and when you build your map in a different app like max then you dont have all that perfomance optimising stuff like instances, prefabs, terrain.... Importing your level as one huge mesh in unity could easily become an overkill!
I know that, i think you have you have no idea what i was getting at. If you bake your lighting you can not build you level in Unity because there is no way that you can export your unity scene as a mesh file or something and when you build your map in a different app like max then you dont have all that perfomance optimising stuff like instances, prefabs, terrain.... Importing your level as one huge mesh in unity could easily become an overkill!
It might run a little slow, but a lot of people can handle ~5 million + poly's in maya/max, I doubt your level would be over that (if so, it shouldn't be!), especially since you wouldn't need to bake the whole thing at once.
:poly122: Yeah, that makes sense. I didn't get what you meant in the other post.
But you can't really instance lightmapped geometry. It's all unique lumel data to begin with!
Yea you can, you just need to make sure that each one has an instanced version of the material they are using so that the material can have a different lightmap assigned.
Yea you can, you just need to make sure that each one has an instanced version of the material they are using so that the material can have a different lightmap assigned.
Correct. It's late, I can't sleep. I was thinking of it in a state change way, and not a geometrical data way.
Tulkamir is right thats how unreal does it but i don't think you can prepare that by hand between untiy and maya its something unreal handles internally and its a pretty advanced feature too if remember correctly it only just got that feature with version 3.
so i am jumping on the "in unity its dynamic shadows or no shadows" band wagon lightmapping is not an workflow option
As long as Unity can import a premade mesh, and do some simple space partitioning on it, using a pre-made lightmapped level will work fine. It's just another texture layer. Using fully lightmapped levels with no geo-instancing worked fine even ten years ago. You just have to scale your dataset properly.
A lot of times in those older scenarios, you wouldn't lightmap the instanced prop objects, and they'd get simple vertex lighting with no shadows. Not really something most people noticed, unless you had a dynmamic chunk of wall mixed up with a lightmapped wall.
**
That seems so backwards. Dynamic shadows and lighting is such a basic feature you can implement with some shader passes. The real value of the engine is the tools. You should pay more for those. Not basic graphical features.
But I guess they'd get more upgrade purchases by restricting lighting. Importing mesh data is really simple, and you wouldn't need to upgrade to do that simple stuff with even a mediocre programmer on your team.
So that's how you force serious teams to upgrade, while getting others hooked on the tools.
so i am jumping on the "in unity its dynamic shadows or no shadows" band wagon lightmapping is not an workflow option
Funny... we're using lightmapping right now, works fine.
Also, I believe that unity is optimized in a way that makes it better to try to minimize batches, which means having large chunks of geo combined isn't nessesarily a bad thing, because it lowers your batch count.
I dunno why everyone suddenly has this strange obsession with dynamic shadows. They can be cool, but they're definitely not the be-all and end-all. There's plenty of fantastic games that don't use dynamic shadows *or* unreal.
Also, try to remember that not all games are shooting for the current gen look. Especially with Unity, which builds to web browser, Wii and iPhone, there's a good chance the game being developed is targeted towards a market in which dynamic shadows are not desirable due to performance issues.
I dunno why everyone suddenly has this strange obsession with dynamic shadows. They can be cool, but they're definitely not the be-all and end-all.
Finish the sentence. "Self Shadowing Dynamic Soft Shadows".
If one doesn't think this is the be-all and end-all they are probably not in the animated character centric camp but in the dork environment builder centric camp. In which case, I think the whole light map issue is distracting. ( How do I realistically lightmap my animated character )
I am glad u said it.. Yes! Dynamic shadows are the be all and end all.
Self shadowing soft shadows is final sex win. Nothing is close to as exciting.
Nothing! Even gameplay is just an excuse to implement dem soft shadow compositions. Shadow master Frits Lang would only hire actors that would cast horrific dynamic shadows ( lie :poly124: ).
BTW those r some very gorgeous mapped shadow on yer website. Isn't it great to see yer environment werk uncompromised?
Replies
If you need a free lightmapper, Giles is free these days, as is FSRad.
re the maya analogy , you would be a bit pissed if you bought maya and the shadows didn't work.
Its not like its an optional extra.
I don't expect them to give this stuff away for free anyway, that not my argument.
for example I am testing my models in neo axis and that does have shadows and TBH I think this will suit my needs more than unity anyway and I will buy it at some point.
I am sure unity is a good engine, but I think all in all its a little overpriced for making casual games.
NeoAxis isn't nearly as flexible for prototyping out different forms of gameplay. Oh sure, it can be done. But it isn't anywhere close to easy. Unity has a more robust scripting system. More importantly, it incorporates this scripting system into its IDE, and lets you use it almost like scripts are used in Flash. This approach to interactivity is much more artist-friendly, and makes more sense to the less programmimg inclined. I'm not saying its a better solution, just more user-friendly.
Also, you can't really compare the graphical feature set of NeoAxis with Unity. Unity's graphical features are all proprietary. But NeoAxis uses the OGRE 3D graphics library for its rendering. And OGRE 3D is open source. Intentionally hamstringing an open-source library isn't really an option. Besides, it's not like NeoAxis doesn't have higher-tier pricing models.
It really depends what you want to get of an engine I suppose
It might run a little slow, but a lot of people can handle ~5 million + poly's in maya/max, I doubt your level would be over that (if so, it shouldn't be!), especially since you wouldn't need to bake the whole thing at once.
But you can't really instance lightmapped geometry. It's all unique lumel data to begin with!
Yea you can, you just need to make sure that each one has an instanced version of the material they are using so that the material can have a different lightmap assigned.
so i am jumping on the "in unity its dynamic shadows or no shadows" band wagon lightmapping is not an workflow option
A lot of times in those older scenarios, you wouldn't lightmap the instanced prop objects, and they'd get simple vertex lighting with no shadows. Not really something most people noticed, unless you had a dynmamic chunk of wall mixed up with a lightmapped wall.
**
That seems so backwards. Dynamic shadows and lighting is such a basic feature you can implement with some shader passes. The real value of the engine is the tools. You should pay more for those. Not basic graphical features.
But I guess they'd get more upgrade purchases by restricting lighting. Importing mesh data is really simple, and you wouldn't need to upgrade to do that simple stuff with even a mediocre programmer on your team.
So that's how you force serious teams to upgrade, while getting others hooked on the tools.
Funny... we're using lightmapping right now, works fine.
Also, I believe that unity is optimized in a way that makes it better to try to minimize batches, which means having large chunks of geo combined isn't nessesarily a bad thing, because it lowers your batch count.
I dunno why everyone suddenly has this strange obsession with dynamic shadows. They can be cool, but they're definitely not the be-all and end-all. There's plenty of fantastic games that don't use dynamic shadows *or* unreal.
Also, try to remember that not all games are shooting for the current gen look. Especially with Unity, which builds to web browser, Wii and iPhone, there's a good chance the game being developed is targeted towards a market in which dynamic shadows are not desirable due to performance issues.
This is true... why stop there? There are plenty of supercool 2d games.
Heck, why not make 3d a pro feature as well?
Unreal? I loath Unreal Engine's render quality and acne heavy shadows
Finish the sentence. "Self Shadowing Dynamic Soft Shadows".
If one doesn't think this is the be-all and end-all they are probably not in the animated character centric camp but in the dork environment builder centric camp. In which case, I think the whole light map issue is distracting. ( How do I realistically lightmap my animated character )
I am glad u said it.. Yes! Dynamic shadows are the be all and end all.
Self shadowing soft shadows is final sex win. Nothing is close to as exciting.
Nothing! Even gameplay is just an excuse to implement dem soft shadow compositions. Shadow master Frits Lang would only hire actors that would cast horrific dynamic shadows ( lie :poly124: ).
BTW those r some very gorgeous mapped shadow on yer website. Isn't it great to see yer environment werk uncompromised?
yep, I am sorry. I got shadows on my brains choking it of oxygen.
It was called ' revenge of the shadow puppets'