Unity 2.6 is now free

I've been working around with this engine for a while. Before you just got a 30 day trail- but now with the 2.6 update they are structuring to where you get Unity 2.6 free for personal or comercial games.
 
Where they hope to hook you is on added features that they will charge for- like an asset server (so team members can work together) and other higher end features like post processing support- etc
 
http://unity3d.com/
 
To look at the comparison chart go here:
 
https://store.unity3d.com/shop/
 
and
 
http://unity3d.com/unity/licenses
 
As you can see- if you want iphone support it's 399.99 and so on.
 
aside from that comparing unity to the pro licience your not getting some things like Realtime shadows and other fancy things that the average independant likely doesn't use anyhow- and just about anything on the list has a work around (browse the forums).
 
This is a great deal. If you've been on the fence and want to give it a try there's no better time than now.
 
How's it look? It's all about textures and lighting- but if your interested in web based games unity is pretty good. It can handle most things though i'm not sure i'd do a flight sim in it. 
 

 
Here's a pretty nice screen I found from a game called 'Global conflict palistine' I found on the forums.
 

 
For comparison here's a screen from the engine being used for MJ-12 (A7)---those player models look like crap as they are only placeholders.
 
I'm sure you could get simular results in Unity if you worked at it a bit.
 
Also I located a Unity Dialouge Editor that plugs into the engine- this would be great for RPG's, adventures and FPS games.
 
http://ninjaportal.com/NinjaPortal/UDE.html
 
If you want to try a Unity web based game try this:
 
http://bionicle.lego.com/en-us/games/glatorianarena.aspx
 
Robot fighting. It's pretty good.
 
So download it- try some tutorials and have at it. It's pretty easy to learn.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks for pointing out this release, GR.
I've been playing with Unity a little this afternoon. Mostly I've just moved things around in the demo
Island game that D/Ls with it and seeing the results. For those others who try it out be aware that
the game mode in the Unity editing program runs much slower that the final compiled stand alone
game so don't get discouraged. At least it's safer than trying to teach myself advanced plumbing...

   May be inappropriate for serious moviegoers...

I guess it is time to try this engine out.  I've been developing games in Flash off and on for a few years.  I'm almost done with my latest game project next week (Point Defense: Hover Tank) and then I want to finish one more smaller project (Carrier Battle Group - about 3 weeks coding) before I try Unity.   I know Flash well (AS3) so it is really fast for me to develop in but Unity looks like it might be worth learning now too. 

Thanks for the heads up...

You can use Javascript, c# or boo (Python)- all compile so they all run as fast as c#- this should be an easy jump from flash. It's a pretty easy to learn setup- and the docs and turorials are pretty good.
 
http://rapidshare.com/files/300764070/City_Prag_v0.2.zip.html
 
I put together a quick level- no shaders or programming- just some terrain, some models, water- use the standard WASD keys- and alt-f4 to quit- should get a good idea of what you can do in the engine.

Looks good... I walked off the edge of the "world" accidentally and dropped for what seemed like miles.  Most of my existing assets for Flash are in 3D... but I've only used them in 2D games. 

I own Torque (both 3D and 2D versions) for years but never could get into it since the type of games I was interested in developing could be done in Flash much quicker (and I was more concerned with web-based games).  I see Torque now has a web plugin as well. 

I've also worked in GameStudio (A5, A6) and Jamagic (long time ago).   I'm going to give Unity a try on my next game project... starting in Dec/Jan (an Air Warfare game... not a flight sim but a strategy game). 

Thanks for the demo,
Brent