14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Unity Technologies announces that the next version of its high appreciated development suite Unity, labeled 5, is in development and comes complete with a number of new features that will allow teams to deliver even better gaming experiences for their audiences.
All those who are interested in creating a title using the set of tools can now pre-order them on the official site and will immediately gain access to the current version of Unity and all the updates that will be delivered for it in the future.
The biggest changes in the fifth version of the development suite include:
- Physically based shading – a built in system which is designed to offer a wide variety of real world materials and lighting situations;
- Real time global illumination – Unity is partnering with Enlighten from Geometrics, which will allow users to fully simulate a variety of light features in real time for the PC, home console and mobile devices;
- Real time lightmap previews – created in partnership with Imagination Technologies the feature will allow developers to quickly see how changes affect their product and will improve their workflow;
- Audio overhaul – the entire audio pipeline has been re-written in order to offer more flexibility and efficiency, with a new audio mixer included;
- WebGL add-on early access – Unity is working with Mozilla in order to make sure that the development suite is able to cover all platforms efficiently and gives them options to port their games;
- Unity cloud – a cross-promotion network that allows studios to run ads on all the platforms on which Unity is offered.
Other improvements include: 64-bit structure, multithreaded job scheduler, support for NVIDIA PhysX 3.3, improvements for the Asset Bundles, new 2D physics effectors, SpeedTree integration, NavMesh improvements, Mecanim StateMachine behaviours and better loading.
David Helgason, the chief executive officer of Unity Technologies, states, “Every time we ship a new version of Unity, we’re looking to empower developers with technology that's more powerful and easier to apply than ever before.”
He adds, “With the huge additions of physically-based shading, lighting workflows, a new platform, and a new built-in method for user acquisition, we’re improving Unity dramatically from both a creative and business perspective.”
Lately, Unity has become very popular with development studios that are aiming to use resources efficiently and launch their titles on a large variety of platforms, including home consoles and mobile phones.
At the moment, Unity 5 does not have an official launch date.