Unity Game Engine


_dickie

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This may be an obvious question but will the Pandora run games made for the unity engine and if no will there be a way to port them?

I've just started learning unity and its very user friendly and works in-browser so I was hoping my creations would be Pandora friendly but i know that you cant make unity games on a linux system but iuno if it can play/port the games too
 
Seems unlikely, Unity Technology would need to release an ARM-Linux compiler or a browser plugin. Can't see either of those things happening as there isn't even an x86 Linux compiler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine)
 
PhillipJ said:
Seems unlikely, Unity Technology would need to release an ARM-Linux compiler or a browser plugin. Can't see either of those things happening as there isn't even an x86 Linux compiler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine)
tl;dr: No. Not at all.
 
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I'm friends with the head guys from Unity, a couple of them knows about the Pandora already.

With that said: The more accurate answer isn't no, it's just not anytime soon.

They are working on support for both the 360 and PS3. I can't speak for them, but they have there hands in many different jars right now, leaving only hope behind.

If I get my Pandora before March 7th (highly doubt it now) I could show some of them over lunch. oh well.

EDIT: reading your question and my response again, I'm not saying they will eventually officially support something like the Pandora, but as scalable (or cross-platforming across multiple completely varied hardware) the engine truly is , there is going to be a push that comes to a violent shove that will make porting games so much easier. (doubt that added any depth....oh well).
 
It's on the iPhone so it might not be that difficult to make it run on the Pandora as well. Still, for it to be worth the effort, we have to sell a lot more devices first.
 
I was thinking about buying an Unity license for iphone development, but I wanted to code something for the Pandora first, if Unity supported the Pandora, I wouldn't have to learn to different engines.. (the game for Pandora would be made on Irrlicht)
 
I don't personally see Unity having Linux support in a very long time. I spoke to them on the Unity forums and through email quite a few times on the subject. Like Game_over said though, that doesn't mean it couldn't happen, it just means it will be a good long time before it does.

However, all is not lost. An engine that I definitely see being an easy port in the future is ShiVa. They already support Linux through their browser plugin and standalone players. They've also told me that the authoring tool itself will be usable on Linux and Mac come ShiVa 2.0. (They're currently at 1.8.)

But before then, they have told me that they are currently working on embedded OS support, including Angstrom Linux! They're using a BeagleBoard for development. One of the developers in Stonetrip (creators of ShiVa) said this himself in a thread I started on their forums: http://developer.stonetrip.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&func=view&Itemid=2&catid=27&id=13900#13900#13900

I can't wait for this personally. ShiVa is my favorite game engine (I've used both Unity and ShiVa, and simply prefer ShiVa.) I recommend anyone interested in it check it out as well. You gotta have Windows (or Mac with Parallels/Boot Camp) to use it at the moment, but it will deploy games to as many platforms as Unity, as well as Linux!

I'm still holding off until 2.0 to get an actual license though. (Just playing around with the PLE (personal learning edition) at the moment.)

Okay, sorry for rambling. The point is, I can see this being a great product to use for development with Pandora. It's at least worth a look at those here who might like it. :)
 
ShiVa does look interesting, although Unity (not Unity Pro) is free free for personal and commercial use. Is there a similar license for ShiVa?
 
Loonie said:
ShiVa does look interesting, although Unity (not Unity Pro) is free free for personal and commercial use. Is there a similar license for ShiVa?

Well, Unity just recently became free (wasn't when I was demoing it). But as for ShiVa, there is a free version, but it is limited in that it cannot be used to export the final product. (The PLE I mentioned earlier.) It's basically a never-ending demo of the Unlimited version. A more in-depth look at the three versions can be found here: http://stonetrip.com/version-comparison.html

Unlimited will suit everyone here. Advanced is pretty much only for the large commercial devs that need the extra performance reports and priority support over Unlimited users.

Though the commercial versions of ShiVa (non-PLE) have a price, the Unlimited is fairly priced for what it is, and in fact, has features on par with Unity Pro! :eek:

If you have any questions as to what ShiVa is capable of, you could check out some of the demos they have, or join the forums and ask any questions you have. I've never had a bad experience on their forums, and IMHO, the community there is much more...how would I say this...accommodating? Nice? Helpful? Yeah, all of the above - when compared to the Unity boards.

Though I suspect that might be due to the massive influx of users once Unity 2.5 came out with Windows support. Unity was a nice place to be around when there weren't so many new users. Haha! But the atmosphere there has just gone downhill since I was last there.

ShiVa is actually not as well-known as I think it should be. But I'm somewhat glad for this, as it isn't as crowded and the admins are more easily able to help. (And in my experience, they have always been helpful, and usually quick to reply.) But we've actually been seeing quite a few people come in and say "I'm a former Unity user interested in ShiVa, and..." Most are usually delighted. :)
EDIT: Example of this:
http://developer.stonetrip.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=2&func=view&id=16711&catid=27

But of course, it really all comes down to preference in the end. Unity Pro and ShiVa Unlimited are very similar in terms of feature-set, but they have pretty different ways of doing things. It takes practice, a lot of reading in the documentation, and maybe a couple questions on the boards to get started. ShiVa is at a disadvantage when it comes to available tutorials and start-up guides for beginners, but a ShiVa user actually took the time to write an entire book on it to help with that! As well as Stonetrip themselves writing a "The Making Of" book for their tech demo, "The Hunt".

I highly recommend checking it out if you're really interested though. Just play around with the PLE, follow along the book that Shando (ShiVa user) wrote, and see if it's for you. Doesn't cost a thing but your time for that. :)
EDIT: Can find resources like these on StoneTrip's Developer site:
http://developer.stonetrip.com


Well, that's enough of that. I think I've de-railed this thread into oblivion. My apologies, _dickie. Didn't mean to hijack your thread. Heh-heh. :lol:
 
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thanks everyone, was half expecting the answer to be 'nope never' but you have given me hope. Guess i'll have to find a new engine in the mean time :)
 
_dickie said:
thanks everyone, was half expecting the answer to be 'nope never' but you have given me hope. Guess i'll have to find a new engine in the mean time :)

Take a look at Irrlicht, which I mentioned before on this thread. It have been reported to work already on the Pandora (who did port it? cpasjuste, perhaps?)
 
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It seems that Unity 3.0 will be released next summer and it will support new platforms, such as PS3 and Android (purchasing a separate license). Cpasjuste started to port Android to the Pandora (I don't know if he has finished yet), so we might be able to use Unity for developing Pandora games in a few months... I only have one question: does anybody know if games compiled for Android mobiles would run in "Pandroid" (Android for Pandora) without having to recompile them?

http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=45787
 
I think that games compiled for Android mobiles should work in any other Android device (included the Pandora) without recompiling them, but I didn't want to be too optimistic until somebody with more knowledge confirms or denies it. I wouldn't expect any official statement from Unity guys saying that Pandora is being supported through the Android license, but an unofficial statement would be very nice :)
 
I have an Android test game that uses natively compiled ARM code (using the official NDK), so as/when Android is available for Pandora I'll be sure to give it a go...

Steve
 
It would be nice to get it to run in our native system, though, without having to boot into another OS. Not sure how much hacking that requires? Can we just run the Android stuff in our normal OS and run Android apps together with other stuff? I'd guess probably not as Android uses a modified Linux kernel but I don't really know anything about these things...
Anyway, if they support Android and iPhone, it shouldn't be that difficult to support standard ARM Linux as well. We just have to make it worth the effort by teaming up with the N900 users etc.
 
Unity is releasing on Android now too? That's great news! And what a coincidence, StoneTrip has just released a beta version of their Android authoring tool for ShiVa as well. http://developer.stonetrip.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=2&func=view&id=18364&catid=32

I see now why they decided to focus on that instead of Angstrom Linux for now. I didn't know Unity was also coming out with an Android version. Great! I love the competition! Things are almost always better for the consumer when there's competition between companies. I look forward to what they both have in store for all of us in the near future. :)
 
OrR said:
It would be nice to get it to run in our native system, though, without having to boot into another OS

Are you thinking about something similar to WINE (a compatibility layer that let you execute Windows apps in x86 Linux)?
That would be great, but I don't think that it could be done without tons of work. I wouldn't mind having to restart the Pandora and boot Android in order to play a great game (I already do that with my PC when I want to play to a game which doesn't work very well in WINE and I have to boot Windows), but if we could execute Android games natively or through a compatibility layer, that would be really awesome.

OrR said:
Anyway, if they support Android and iPhone, it shouldn't be that difficult to support standard ARM Linux as well.

Unity Team has said many times that they are going to support (x86) Linux at some point in the future, but not yet. They talk about the "Linux fragmentation" and its little market share in desktop environments as the main factors why they haven't done a Linux port yet, but they already know that Linux support is the most wanted feature by their customer:

http://feedback.unity3d.com/forums/15792-unity
 
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