Overview
What is Unity?
Unity Technologies headquartered in San Francisco offers the Unity real-time 3D and 2D development platform.
Loving Unity and its tools
Unity Review
Making and Publishing Games with Unity is Fun
Unity Provides Professional Experiences
If you're wondering what game engine to use, stop now!
Make a game and sell it with Unity on Google Play
The best game engine for independent studios and solo devs
New to Programing/Video Game Design? No Problem!
Great Tool for AR & VR Experiences
The Game Engine for the Rest of Us
Pricing
Enterprise
$200
Plus
$399
Pro
1,800
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
Unity GDC demo - Adam - Part I
Product Details
- About
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Unity?
Unity Videos
Unity Technical Details
Deployment Types | On-premise |
---|---|
Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(18)Community Insights
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
Unity has found extensive use in the realm of game development, offering software developers and CTOs the tools to create immersive AR and VR experiences. Users appreciate Unity's ability to write code once and deploy it across multiple platforms, resulting in efficient code re-use. Integration with Android Studio and Xcode is seamless, simplifying the process of integrating Unity projects with these platforms. The software's power, flexibility, and smooth learning curve have made it a preferred choice for game development, particularly for 3D games. Additionally, Unity's pricing model based on revenue has been beneficial for organizations that provide free games to the population, allowing them to maximize their resources.
Furthermore, Unity is utilized beyond the gaming industry. It is widely employed in architectural visualization and virtual production, enabling designers and owners to gain a better perspective on projects before construction begins. In educational settings, Unity has proven valuable in school projects, assisting individuals with conditions like Asperger Syndrome by creating 3D videogames with virtual reality. Unity's comprehensive tutorials and vast asset library have also made it accessible for students and newcomers to game development.
Additionally, Unity addresses the need for accessible and fun mobile games on Google Play, appealing to users of all ages. The software is employed in various industries outside of gaming as well; for example, in Digital Media Communications programs, it is used to create 2D and 3D applications such as video games and interactive graphical interfaces. Moreover, Unity's capabilities for building 3D simulations and its gamification features make projects engaging and appealing to users across different fields.
Overall, Unity offers a versatile platform for developers looking to create immersive experiences in AR/VR or develop games across multiple platforms. With its intuitive interface and extensive features, Unity continues to be widely utilized across industries due to its efficiency in code re-use, seamless integration with other platforms, powerful capabilities for game development, accessibility for beginners, and versatility beyond gaming.
Effective 3D Space Design: Users have found Unity to be particularly effective for creating 3D spaces, whether for games or educational experiences. Several reviewers have praised its smooth transition between desktop and VR development, allowing them to easily immerse themselves in their creations using devices like the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift.
Wide Range of Reusable Assets: The availability of a wide range of reusable code and libraries in Unity's asset store has been highly appreciated by users. Many reviewers have mentioned that this feature saves a significant amount of time by offering pre-built solutions for common problems. They also appreciate the frequent updates from the Unity community, ensuring developers stay up to date with the latest VR and AR developments.
User-Friendly Interface: Unity's user-friendly interface has received praise from many reviewers. Its simplicity and ease of use make it accessible to beginners and contribute to a smoother learning curve. Additionally, helpers and shortcuts provided within the software facilitate common tasks in game development, further enhancing the user experience.
Overwhelming Interface: Some users have found Unity's interface to be overwhelming and complex, particularly for beginners. They feel that the abundance of options and the ability to attach specific code to objects in the scene can make navigation and organization challenging.
Unidirectional Mobile App Workflow: There is criticism that Unity's mobile app workflow is unidirectional, requiring a lengthy build process and making it difficult to make changes in Unity and see them reflected in Android Studio or Xcode in real-time. This has been mentioned by several reviewers as a drawback.
Shift from C++ to C#: Experienced professionals coming from other game engines may feel annoyed by the shift from using C++ to C# in Unity. While this transition may not be an issue for beginners starting with Unity, some users have expressed concern about having to learn a new programming language if they decide to switch to another game engine in the future.
Users commonly recommend the following three things when using Unity:
- Start with Unity Personal and upgrade to Professional if substantial revenue is generated.
- Utilize Unity's extensive library of tutorials and resources, and be patient and persistent in learning how to code in Unity.
- Take advantage of responsive forums for help, embrace the power of prefabs, and explore the Unity Asset Store for custom tooling and tips.
These recommendations highlight the cost efficiency of Unity compared to its competitors. The users suggest starting with the free version and upgrading to the Professional edition if their projects generate substantial revenue. They also emphasize the importance of utilizing Unity's extensive library of tutorials and resources to learn how to code effectively in Unity, while maintaining patience and persistence throughout the learning process. Seeking help from responsive forums, embracing the power of prefabs, and exploring the Unity Asset Store for custom tooling are also suggested strategies for maximizing productivity with Unity.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-10 of 10)Loving Unity and its tools
- 3D Rendering
- 3D walk through in Virtual Reality
- Interactive menus and UI within the environments
- A larger marketplace
- More Assets added to the base software
- Better instructional videos
Unity Review
- Collaborative features.
- New technologies implementation features.
- Easy to use
- Friendly user interface
- Learning tutorials.
- Implement emulators for those technologies that are expensive.
- Some of the packages for installation are wrong.
Making and Publishing Games with Unity is Fun
- User Friendly
- Assest Library
- Pricing
- Screen play and GUI Quality
- To create an app, you'll need to integrate a variety of technology.
- Compatibility Issues arises sometimes after update
- Continue to develop ML learning models for AI.
Unity Provides Professional Experiences
- The asset library has a lot of great options
- The educational licensing is comprehensive
- The user interface is very busy, which can be overwhelming.
- Navigation and organization can be challenging to manage.
If you're wondering what game engine to use, stop now!
- Rapid development
- Professional, high quality visuals
- Games
- Better network stack for real-time games built-in
- Not much else, maybe a cheaper pro price?
Make a game and sell it with Unity on Google Play
- Billing
- Quality
- Security
- Integration of disparate technologies required to build an application.
- Streamline the versioning process using the hub, it's great so far.
- Keep improving the ML learning models for AI.
The best game engine for independent studios and solo devs
- Great and simple interface.
- Good pricing model for independent developers.
- Powerful and flexible tool for making video games.
- Great library of assets to save time in the asset store.
- The Linux version of the Unity editor can be improved.
- There are some aspects in the development process that Unity is not as good as Unreal Engine.
- Some of the core functions of the tool, like the Mecanin State Machines could have some improvements to match the competition.
New to Programing/Video Game Design? No Problem!
- Free Version Available
- Educational Resources Available
- Versatile Software
- Built-in tutorials to teach new users to learn software
- Large install with frequent updates
- Many features locked behind Pro (paid) version
Great Tool for AR & VR Experiences
The business needs that Unity meets are being able to write code once that can be rendered on a number of platforms. While we do have specific code integration paths for Android versus iOS, and there are unique differences when writing code for different use cases, our ability to reuse assets and much of the business logic in the apps is simply incredible. Unity gives us tremendous efficiency in code re-use and allows us to meet business needs such as being able to rapidly prototype, as well as integration with Android Studio and Xcode. We are also able to easily update 3D assets in Blender and view changes in realtime in Unity, thanks to Unity's excellent integration with Blender.
- 3D space design is especially easy in Unity, whether for 3D games or educational experiences.
- VR development is one of Unity's greatest strengths. The ability to be working in a 3D environment on the desktop and then hit Play and be immersed in that environment in the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift is incredible.
- Reusable code from the asset store is a huge plus. Being able to find libraries which solve the problems you are trying to solve can save an incredible amount of time.
- Staying up to date with changes in VR and AR development is a big plus. Unity has such a strong community that libraries are always being updated.
- Finding example code is not very hard, and there are "scenes" that other developers have created that you can import and view, to see how they achieved particular goals. This makes learning Unity by reverse-engineering others' publicly available code a great way to learn.
- There are so many free video tutorials in Unity that it is much easier to learn than some of its competitors in the space.
- Unity's AR plugins are still in their infancy and as they grow more robust, Unity will only get better.
- Unity's VR development requires the use of much third-party functionality that could be included in core Unity libraries in order to create less external dependencies.
- Unity's mobile integration requires building for mobile devices in a one-way movement. It would be nice if you could be coding in Android Studio or Xcode, and making changes in Unity in realtime, then running the apps from AS or Xcode. In short: Unity's mobile app workflow is unidirectional right now and requires a lengthy build process, which could be vastly improved if you were able to make changes in Unity and hotswap code.
The Game Engine for the Rest of Us
- Unity is a multiplatform game engine. It has more than 20 options for exporting your game, ranging from desktop, mobile, console, web and, lately, VR and AR. Unity was one of the first game engines able to export games playable on internet browsers and it helped to cement the World Wide Web as a place fit for gaming.
- Unity has a very smooth learning curve for beginners. It is easy to start and soon you are seeing some tangible results of your efforts. The game engine has all sorts of helpers and shortcuts to facilitate some frequent tasks in game development.
- Another of Unity's advantage is the access to Assets Store from within the game engine, allowing the user to import instantly objects, scripts and textures from the store into their projects. Such easy access to these elements from inside a project greatly enhances speed production and is particularly helpful to beginners.
- Since game development is so complex in itself, Unity also has a lot of complexity in its interface. Despite the efforts of its creators, the many options in Unity's interface can be overwhelming to the beginner, particularly, taking into account that each object in the scene can have its specific piece of code attached. It takes time and practice to learn to navigate the interface.
- Unity operates with C#, which is easier to grasp than C++. However, traditionally, C++ has been the standard in the game industry for many years and some experienced professionals coming to Unity can feel a bit annoyed with this change. On the opposite side, if you start in Unity and for some reason, you decide to change to another game engine (like Unreal, for example), you will have to be prepared to learn C++.
- The Asset Store, at the same time it is an advantage, is accused by many critics of encouraging "asset flippers", which are games made completely by getting ready-made assets at the store, where the "creator" does not actually create anything. It is not a disadvantage of Unity in itself, but it is advisable to the beginner to be careful to not use too many third-party game assets.