Unity progress

[Fleet]

Is a mid-september release for early public unity access is still the target?

[Lancefighter]

nobody knows....

actually, kieth might know, but he is too busy actually working on unity to post here. x4000 is too busy not getting enough sleep at night to manage the forums, so that just leaves us to write bug reports we are going to be asked to review once the unity port comes out anyway......

[Fleet]

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Keith will indeed answer the calling.

[keith.lamothe]

I was just not working at the time

We're still planning on the first prerelease being in the next week or two; the game is already basically playable though I need to go back and do the lobby and the load-game interface (currently it just loads a game from a hardcoded path, so the actual loading code works fine).  There's also a showstopper in the load-game code in the actual deployed version (not the run-from-the-Unity-editor version) due to bugs in the GZip implementation normally available to the platform, so we have to find an alternate implementation that works (we're on our third one or so, still doesn't work properly).  And Chris wants to tune the graphics performance a fair bit before any releases; it's running ok right now but it should be faster.

[x4000]

In my research yesterday I might have found a solution for the graphics thing -- if so, that will be one step closer. Yesterday was a wash for me work-wise thanks to the little boy, but hopefully today I can put some of that into practice. We also need to get the new updater and installer set up and working, but those are fairly trivial by comparison now that we're on unity and tidalis has basically already the same thing. I think having it ready within 1-2 weeks for public beta still seems reasonable.

[Fleet]

Thank you both.

[WarpSprite]

Yaaa I'm already getting excited 

[x4000]

That showstopper in the load-game code is now fixed; I posted an update in the other thread, but figured I'd mention that here.  Hooray, more progress!

[Frozen Critical]

(reposted)

The Game Engine Changes to Unity on the Next Update?

Well , No , i am not Upgrading , I Already have Enough That's Eating up CPU and i Prefer Faux Fullscreen Over Fullscreen

[Awod]

(reposted)

The Game Engine Changes to Unity on the Next Update?

Well , No , i am not Upgrading , I Already have Enough That's Eating up CPU and i Prefer Faux Fullscreen Over Fullscreen

I think your overreacting.

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,5602.0.html

I suggest you give it a read but here's the very first pro listed for unity.

UV Animation: There are a ton of uses for this, and it's a powerful and free-on-the-CPU sort of activity.  This will let us do some things like making vastly-more-attractive tractor beams (and other "colored lines") in AI War, for example.  And they can be animated, with effects that look way more high-res.  And that will actually take LESS GPU/CPU load than the current implementation, which involves additive blending of between 2-5 lines.  This would require just alpha blending and UV animation of a single line.  Very win.

I don't really really understand the full screen issue even after reading that thread so I'll just wait for someone else to comment on that.

[keith.lamothe]

(reposted)

Thank you, that is much more useful than your first version.

I Already have Enough That's Eating up CPU

Are you thinking that the Unity version will be more of a cpu-hog?  The simulation certainly isn't that way, in our tests, and we're working on the graphical render stuff which is actually already not so bad.  Or is it something else?

and i Prefer Faux Fullscreen Over Fullscreen

So do I, tremendously so.  We're very sorry to see that go.  But there are other benefits that significantly outweigh that, as will become evident.

In any event, if you prefer to not upgrade that's your right.  Also, the Unity version will be a separate installer since it's basically a different program, and it will be quite possible (and recommended) to leave your current SlimDX/.NET version as-is since the first prereleases of the Unity version are likely to have some serious issues just due to the magnitude of the change.

[Lancefighter]

there will be a great many people shedding a tear over faux-fullscreen. 

[keith.lamothe]

Me too.

Though, honestly, it shouldn't be too hard to simply size the window to fill your screen and use the OS's window movement mechanisms to get the borders off the edge, etc, and get the same effect.

[Lancefighter]

thats the theory :p sometimes the OS gives you issues with moving stuff offscreen, but there are apps around to do that for you if you must

(i play eve like this, the faux fullscreen is srs business when you tab out every 5 minutes to visit forums, youknow?  )

[Zeba]

(i play eve like this, the faux fullscreen is srs business when you tab out every 5 minutes to visit forums, youknow?  )

New IGB ftw.  It lets you pew pew and forum whoor at the same time as long as the fc is not looking in your general direction..

Also: Hai Lance!

Re-also: Can't wait for the unity port as this is simply my favorite non eve related game evah and I always love moar shineys. 

Shameless Plug: Me and lance hold down the eve-o section of the ai wars fanboi club. Send royalties in teh form of isk plx. 

Fake-edit: Did I mention this is my favorite non eve related game evah?