Unity 2.0 released

Unity Technologies has announced Unity 2.0, a major update to the game creation tool that the developer says includes more than 50 new features. Among the new features is the ability to play video files as textures on any surface and a new way of developing content GUI systems. Also included are performance improvements based partly on core engine optimizations as well as new features like DirectX 9 rendering support on Windows. Also included are improvements and additions to the documentation, including new references guides for shaders, network enabled games and the terrain rendering engine.

The Unity Web Player installation process has been greatly simplified. No browser restarts are required on any browser, no windows are popped up to download the installer, and content starts as soon as the installer is finished. Also, Web Players data file compresses around 30% better now. Unity now uses the state of the art LZMA compression algorithm. Data files are decompressed on the fly, resulting in shorter load times. Safari 3 for Windows support has been added.

The Unity Editor has received a complete facelift, with a new skin, new buttons, new icons, new gizmos. You can now reimport your existing 1.6.2 project to see the new asset icons, and there is optimized drawing of editor views; the editor is much faster with complex projects.

Unity is priced at $200 for the "indie" edition, or $1500 for the Pro edition. A trial download is also available.

by MacNN Staff