Another big new release of the Unity game engine has today been released with 2019.3, full to the brim with massive tech enhancements.
On the Linux side, which we're most interested in, is finally the inclusion of IL2CPP support (a Unity-developed scripting backend) on Linux builds of games and applications. Linux missing this caused issues for a few developers, so hopefully now publishing Linux builds with Unity might be better. Unity say that IL2CPP can increase the "performance, security, and platform compatibility" of Unity projects. OpenGL and Vulkan especially saw plenty of bug fixes too.
Sadly, this was supposed to be the big release that also made the Linux Editor properly official and supported, which was delayed previously however they still "expect it to be fully supported in 2020". Seeing that will be a nice boost, knowing that Unity game development on Linux will actually be welcomed. Aside from that, sounds like a pretty amazing advancement of this extremely popular game engine.
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The Unity team also made a brand new short-file to show off some of the advanced rendering features now available with 2019.3. You can watch The Heretic on YouTube.
One of the interesting additions is proper Google Stadia support. While it's Debian Linux in the cloud, it still requires a few special bits done and Unity supports the Stadia special features like State Share and Stream Connect on top of YouTube and Google Assistant integration.
While 2019.3 sounds fancy, it's a "TECH stream release" with all the latest bells and whistles so the Unity team recommend waiting for 2019.4 which will be a LTS (Long-Term Support) release which will arrive this Spring if you're wanting to update a live project. Otherwise, jump on in for the latest goodies.
We also went over changes to their XR (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality etc) in our previous article as Unity will be dropping support for built-in XR, instead going with a plugin system. Valve will develop their own OpenVR Unity plugin for SteamVR.
See the official blog post here and feature highlights here. For an actual changelog, that's here.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: EikeMind that the players are not the customers of Unity...
As a game developer, I would want it safe first, for my reputation's sake.
(And as a Unity developer, I would want it safe first, for my reputation's sake.)
Check for example Hedon. It's using OpenGL by default, but Vulkan is right there in the graphics options. Pretty doable, and it has a big warning that's it's an experimental renderer. I see nothing wrong with doing that. Often Unity ships Vulkan (SPIR-V) shaders, but for example Unreal often does not, unless you enable it explicitly. Developers should.
Quoting: ShmerlCheck for example Hedon. It's using OpenGL by default, but Vulkan is right there in the graphics options.Curious, you mean graphic options as in before the game itself launches (like in a game launcher) or really within the game?
Quoting: AllocQuoting: ShmerlCheck for example Hedon. It's using OpenGL by default, but Vulkan is right there in the graphics options.Curious, you mean graphic options as in before the game itself launches (like in a game launcher) or really within the game?
Within the game settings UI itself, you can choose OpenGL or Vulkan (and it defaults to OpenGL). You can always modify the config file manually if you want too. I think it's using gzdoom engine.
Since what renderer to use is Unity setting, you can just expose it your game settings UI. Unity allows using -force-vulkan parameter for that (or you can find it in the config file as well).
Last edited by Shmerl on 29 January 2020 at 5:34 pm UTC
Quoting: ShmerlWell, it's not *that* simple ;)Quoting: AllocWithin the game settings UI itself, you can choose OpenGL or Vulkan (and it defaults to OpenGL). Since what renderer to use is Unity setting, you can just expose it your game settings UI.Quoting: ShmerlCheck for example Hedon. It's using OpenGL by default, but Vulkan is right there in the graphics options.Curious, you mean graphic options as in before the game itself launches (like in a game launcher) or really within the game?
They most likely still have an external launcher (visible to the user or not), because you can only change the used renderer with a command line argument.
Quoting: AllocWell, it's not *that* simple ;)
They most likely still have an external launcher (visible to the user or not), because you can only change the used renderer with a command line argument.
Doesn't Unity have a config file, which can specify the renderer? If you modify it from within game setings UI, the change should be persistent. At least it would be quite dumb for them not to support such feature.
Hedon is not using Unity btw, it's using Gzdoom. I just brought it as an example how it can be done.
Last edited by Shmerl on 29 January 2020 at 5:37 pm UTC
Last edited by Shmerl on 29 January 2020 at 5:40 pm UTC
Feel free to use better engines that allow you to submit merge requests :) I hope Godot will become better than Unity in some not very distant future.
Last edited by Shmerl on 29 January 2020 at 5:45 pm UTC
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