Meant to be Seen

What we should lean on the Unity team to give us "addon" support for the Pro features we need to make the Rift work. Maybe have a "Rift" bundle that includes the ability to run post-image effect shaders. I think ~$100-200 is a 'fair' price to pay for that functionality, plus people will be more willing to pay the smaller price if it doesn't break the bank. Come to think of it, I don't know why they don't sell addons for Unity Free that give people the ability to add-in the Pro features they need. I would have loved to JUST have the import DLL functionality a year ago without having to spend the cash. They have the asset store... why don't they leverage it to make even more money for themselves?

I have a big Unity meetup thing going on tomorrow. I'll see if anyone has closer ties to Unity than I do, then reach out and start pushing on this angle. Maybe mention things like "hey Unity, do you REALLY want all these devs going to UDK because you were stubborn?"

DaveRuddell wrote:"hey Unity, do you REALLY want all these devs going to UDK because you were stubborn?"

And they might answer - "yeah we want them to try out UDK, so they can come back and pay the money with a smile instead of grinding teeth."
That was totally unfair, because I never tried UDK so far, but from what I heard not completely unreasonable.

And you are right, an addon just like "Android" or "iOS" support would be a great solution. Pretty sure they will do something like that once there are enough developers out there to make it a sensible business decision.

We also have no idea how much of a blip the Rift developers are on their radar.

I don't know where Unity gets most of their sales. If its iOS developers then maybe PC development is a small piece of the pie with the Rift section being infinitesimal.

I will admit that the UDK folks more enthusiastic reaction makes me jealous. I will likely watch some youtube tutorials and see how UDK handles small projects.

GeraldT wrote:

DaveRuddell wrote:"hey Unity, do you REALLY want all these devs going to UDK because you were stubborn?"

And they might answer - "yeah we want them to try out UDK, so they can come back and pay the money with a smile instead of grinding teeth."
That was totally unfair, because I never tried UDK so far, but from what I heard not completely unreasonable.

Yup, it will come down to "how serious/hardcore are you"? And for serious devs who are comfortable writing C++ and reading API docs, UDK is a happy-land. But for dabblers and artists, UDK will likely scare them back into Unity's arms.

I seriously hope that Unity has done some good architect work with their licensing checks so that expanding their licensing scheme won't be "too much work" for them. They obviously have a licensing check in the exact place we need it sine Free/Pro use the same binary. Now it's a matter of making TWO checks against their license instead of just one.

... but then there is updates to the web interface and licensing servers... etc. From my own experience, I can say that it's not impossible, but it's also one of the most annoying things to work on if done wrong.

Pingles wrote:We also have no idea how much of a blip the Rift developers are on their radar.

I don't know where Unity gets most of their sales. If its iOS developers then maybe PC development is a small piece of the pie with the Rift section being infinitesimal.

I will admit that the UDK folks more enthusiastic reaction makes me jealous. I will likely watch some youtube tutorials and see how UDK handles small projects.

They actually have their own set of videos which are pretty good:

UDK Video Tutorials

DaveRuddell wrote: Now it's a matter of making TWO checks against their license instead of just one.

... but then there is updates to the web interface and licensing servers... etc. From my own experience, I can say that it's not impossible, but it's also one of the most annoying things to work on if done wrong.

Agreed, it might be very easy. But things in reality are often more complex than theory suggest. One ability might be interlocked with another not needed for the Rift etc. And even if it is very simple, the ratification process internally might be too much of an effort with so far ZERO Rifts out there.
Also doing so might cut away Pro license sales, which is also an issue to consider from their side. They target professional devs with all those entry options just being there to get them hooked onto Unity in the first place. If they have voices asking for it in their forums in reasonable amounts, then I am pretty sure they will act.

There are so many other more valuable features in Unity Pro that they probably wouldn't notice a hit in sales if they offered the "Render to Texture" feature at a fraction of the cost by itself.

I actually wonder if that can be reproduced with Unity Free (render to texture). I'll talk to some Unity dev-peoples I know and get a feel for what is possible. I'm guessing Oculus has been down this road already, but we might as well "have their back" in case we discover something they overlooked and could add into the SDK and make everyone happy.

DaveRuddell wrote:There are so many other more valuable features in Unity Pro that they probably wouldn't notice a hit in sales if they offered the "Render to Texture" feature at a fraction of the cost by itself.

Don't think that will work because it wouldn't work fast enough. I've heard you can't even use it for a rearview mirror in racing games. But I might just remember it wrong.