What better way to start off the MentalFish blog than some words on the release of Unity 2.5? Apart from Unity related issues this blog will contain posts on LightWave, thoughts on usability and interaction design, updates on what is going on with Galactic Fleet and occasional posts on radio controlled planes and the likes.
With Unity 2.5 we have the possibility of using Windows and can expect an explosive count of Unity users. This is good news for anyone using Unity as their real time 3D engine of choice, as the general awareness of Unity existing will increase. In time we might even see it becoming a the most installed plug-in for browser based 3D, in the same way as Flash has become the most installed plugin for video and “rich media” on the web.
Also check out the Unite 2008 conference videos, lots of good information. Now I finally get to watch the ones I didn’t attend as I couldn’t replicate myself like Dr Manhatten from Watchmen. I chose to go to the more technical ones, missing out on talks such as bringing concepts to life and making art look good.
Although Unity is now available for Windows, I’ll still stick to Mac OS X. I have gotten fond of having *nix command line available (i.e. cronjobs) and all the applications I use apart from Unity is also available on OS X, especially LightWave which has a Cocoa (true 64bit) version around the corner. Finally my 6 gigs of RAM can be used to its full extent by LightWave (if I ever need to lightmap a massive scene that is).
To be honest, I have bought 3 Mac’s; a Mac Mini to get familiar with Unity, then I bought a Mac Pro as my workstation and the smallest Macbook Pro available for on-the-go work and prestentations. All because of Unity. In other words, I have some hardware investment in the Mac world. That said, if I feel like going back to Windows, all machines can become Wintel machines immediately via Bootcamp, but there is one other aspect that keeps me on the OS X platform: Galactic Fleet turning into an iPhone / iPod game. So I guess I have no need of swapping hardware for at least another 2 years (perhaps a GFX card upgrade for the Mac Pro in a year or two).
For anyone interested and hasn’t seen or tried Unity yet, go get get the demo at their website.
