Obviously these are subjective statements but I think your statements are
based on an incomplete understanding of the tool and probably limited
experience using it.  

 

Not sure how you can say it is clunky.  I have a scene hierarchy where I can
list and see every object in my seen. It's like seeing every prim in my
region.  I can select any object and view it in the inspector.

 

Scripts are assigned to objects and not copied and duplicated into each
prim.  I can edit a script once and every object that uses it gets that
update.

 

In the inspector I can see every public value of the script and change its
value without having to actually edit the script.

 

I can use assets directly from my disk without having to upload them when
creating.  That is much faster than waiting for SL to do things.

 

Scripts can access to every bone in the skeleton system and I can override
animations to adjust the bones to a given scene's needs, for instance if two
avatars are a different height and I can adjust the bones to make their
hands connect so they can really walk hand in hand.

 

I can create keyed animations in Unity or use animations from other
programs.  Animates can throw events which can trigger code to do things.
>From scripts you can create and edit the animations and their key data.  You
can layer animations, set their weights.  You can sync the length of layers.
Cross fade animations.

 

You have materials like you do in Maya.

 

I can create custom shaders.

 

You can have spot lights, point lights and directional lights.

 

You can create your own skyboxes.

 

You can use water any where, not limited to just one plane with the water
shader.

 

I can use meshes.  Any object in the scene can have a skeleton.

 

I can edit meshes and vertices in real-time allowing me to create
parameterized content in real-time.

 

I can load assets from a URL or through websockets.

 

I can load textures from a URL or through websockets.

 

There is a profiler that lets me see in great detail what the engine is
doing.

 

I can use Visual Studio to develop my scripts with all the features of
Visual Studio.

 

I can run a debugger and debug the scripts and libraries I am using in the
scene.

 

I can do baked lighting including ambient occlusion inside the tool

 

I can do occlusion culling so I can have very large scenes.

 

I can control what assets are loading and stream the rest in the background.

 

I can use libraries of code.

 

>From one code base I can be published to many platforms including web and
mobile phone.  Linux is the big one they are missing a native support for.

 

Should I go on?

 

 

This is a group that is focused on Second Life client so not trying to
convince anyone to switch.  But I do think it is fair that people give
accurate information based on real experience and not guessing.  I think if
you understood the tool more you will see your statements are based on
inaccurate understanding of the tool. 

 

I personally do believe that the game development platforms will outpace
anyone doing proprietary client development and as such the days are quickly
approaching where you won't be able to justify the cost of developing your
own client rendering engines when you can get the features off the shelf for
$1200 that would cost you way more to do yourself.  I also believe you won't
stay up and will find yourself quickly falling behind.

 

M.

 

 

 

 

  _____  

From: Brandon Husbands [mailto:xot...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 9:57 PM
To: mysticaldem...@xrgrid.com
Cc: Robert Exile In Paradise Murphey; opensource-dev@lists.secondlife.com
Subject: Re: [opensource-dev] Unity 3D as possible base for future (maybe
even official) SL Viewers

 

Actually its not inaccurate. The tools themselves are clunky.. And i am not
taking this as a lsl vs their language. I am talking about the engine
itself.  From a lower level perspective.  Unity is really more of a
middleware when it comes to graphics engines. sure you can use any network
you want but in a whole as what it offers as a base is not what would be
able to be used for something on the scale of sl. 

Also as a user you would not have those midddle ware tools that you see
unless you want the whole thing to be clunky.

Its rigging and control system is designed for rapid prototyping and higher
level designig.

I would put unity as an equivilant to making a mod for a fps with "good"
tools unlike most mod systems. 

But as a complete engine from a graphics and other standpoints The hero
engine blows that away. Actually there are quite a few game engines that
surpass unity. And if we take thoes its like compairing writing with QT vs
flash. (not quick time... but QT).

Flash is great as a packaged thing but its limited. Now unity can me
modified and such to some extent but no where whats needed for a SL type of
thing. 

And for the record I am not a fan boi of any engine or system. But i have
developed a mmo from the ground up in 2001 to playable alpha 2 on the cusp
of beta before the project was shelved due to funding.
Having written a majority of the Engine and most of the server code. I would
thing these are subjects i am quite capable of assessing.




On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 7:41 PM, <mysticaldem...@xrgrid.com> wrote:

Alright, this is the most incorrect post I have ever seen so I would guess
you have used Unity for maybe a total of an one hour.

 

First of all you can use any network technology you like.  It does come with
a very basic P2P network, but you can use many game server that you like
included some that support fail over and fault tolerance configurations.  In
fact there are those using SL's server and rendering prims and sculpties in
Unity.

 

The scripting language can also use C# and supports a way more complete set
of functions then is available in SL.  This list is so long I don't know
where to start on functionality it supports that LSL doesn't support.

 

Not sure your point about FPS, it has Ambers Occlusion culling, beast
lighting and deferred lighting which lets it create FPS you can't do in SL
for the same amount of content.

 

So if you are going to comment on Unity please do your homework and don't
mislead people.

 

M.

 

 

 

  _____  

From: opensource-dev-boun...@lists.secondlife.com
[mailto:opensource-dev-boun...@lists.secondlife.com] On Behalf Of Brandon
Husbands
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 8:20 PM
To: Robert Exile In Paradise Murphey
Cc: opensource-dev@lists.secondlife.com
Subject: Re: [opensource-dev] Unity 3D as possible base for future (maybe
even official) SL Viewers

 

Unity is the biggest POS i have ever used.... 
Not well designed. IMHO. Its like trying to do SL in javascript.
Not literally but you know what i mean. 

It was never designed for a heavy network transport now multi player / mmo
style.

A FPS maybe but nothing on a grand scale.

On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 7:04 PM, Robert "Exile In Paradise" Murphey
<ex...@weylan-yutani.com> wrote:

On Sun, 2010-10-03 at 18:15 -0400, Glen Canaday wrote:
> That's why I suggested Ogre instead. I personally think it would be a
> better fit and more productive to look at. Others may have different
> opinions.

Well, I run Linux and agree that being shut out after
years of being supported would be suboptimal for me.

Running in a VM is an exercise that only a masochist can love
compared to an application natively supported.

Plus, a VM position forces people to purchase additional OSes
just to support one (or a handful) of apps, which add massive
overheard in additional administration. At-home-VM is a
temporary workaround, not a "platform strategy".
Remember - SL is supposed to be Fast, Easy, Fun... not an
enterprise-level support nightmare just to boot and run in
the first place.

Unity3D seems like a lot of "lose" to me: for the same amount
of effort to switch to that, re-base on something else that keeps
the same supported set of platforms or extends it without dropping
already supported platforms.

OGRE may be a great suggestion, especially in light of the RealXtend
folks having already broken a LOT of the ground of an "SL client
that uses OGRE rendering." Why re-reinvent their wheel?
Maybe talk to them about Naali and see what goes from there?

--
Robert "Exile In Paradise" Murphey
Promise her anything, but give her Exxon unleaded.



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