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Unity 4.0 launches tooting support for DirectX 11

by Alistair Lowe on 15 November 2012, 11:15

Tags: Unity Technologies

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qabpab

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Building-up from humble beginnings, the Unity game-engine has since brought us titles such as Family Guy Online, MechWarrior Tactics, Battlestar Galactica Online and Wasteland 2.

Though certainly popular for browser-based gaming, Unity actually supports Windows, Mac, the Xbox 360, Windows RT, Windows Phone, iOS, Android, the Wii and PlayStation 3, with support for Linux, Windows 8 and the Wii U in the works.

Unity 4.0 Editor

Unity's latest 4.0 release, however, sees support for DirectX 11, offering developers access to tessellation and compute shaders to pull-off some interesting new tricks.

Other improvements consist of the following:

  • Mecanim - A comprehensive new motion tool
  • Real-time mobile shadows, skinned mesh instancing and normal maps with lightmap baking
  • Flash player add-on
  • Linux publishing preview
  • Shuriken particle system supports external forces, bent normals and automatic culling
  • 3D texture support
  • Navigation: dynamic obstacles and avoidance priority
  • Major optimizations in UnityGUI performance and memory usage
  • Dynamic fonts on all platforms with HTML-like markup
  • Remote Unity Web Player debugging
  • New Project Window workflows
  • Iterative lightmap baking
  • Refined component-based workflows
  • Extensible inspectors for custom classes
  • Improved Cubemap import pipeline
  • Geometry data improvements for huge memory and performance savings
  • Meshes can be constructed from non-triangle geometry—render points & lines efficiently
  • Search, live preview and buy Asset Store assets from the Project Window

A Unity Professional licence can be obtained from just over £1,000, with additional platform licences ranging from £300 to £1,000 each, not quite the six figures one might have to pay for a full Unreal licence.

For a full list of improvements and changes, visit Unity's What's New Page.



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