Unity 3D support

Filter Forge would be greatly flexible if there were a plugin/extension for Unity 3D (http://unity3d.com/), so that it can read all the FF format attributes from the Unity UI Material Editor. This would compete with Substance Designer and would allow a more direct workflow for game developers .

ooth, both +10. Hey, I haven't heard of "export all maps" request since forever.

Is there any news about making compatible FF with Unity 3D software?

Would the maps exported by FF work with Unity materials?

Is there anyone here that is using this Unity software?

I have just downloaded the Unity 4.3 Free version

*is using Unity for an undisclosed project*

[lol original statement removed] Ok ok, I was just saying things based on immediate impressions.

First shot, I was kinda surprised. Unity development... and having difficulty with FilterForge? Hmmmm something doesn't seem to fit here! Then I read "starting" so I figured it all out.

I think Unity's set of tutorials are a great starter. Just for kicks though, try making some games in Flash. Action script is still a valid and pretty ok standard for game development. Despite how the press looks at flash, as a game development engine you can get building pretty quickly.

WOW!! I am really surprised about how POWERFULL and FEATURED FILLED software this Unity 3D, and this could be compared to a professional high level 3D software like Cinema 4D in some ways, as it has particles, rigid and body dynamics, excellent physics simulations, great lighting features, great collision detection, very good high quality materials (and is compatible with Substance Designer) and many more interesting things...

It also seems to have a good UI and configurable and dockable interface that is not difficult to learn to use it.

AND there is a LOT of additional features, plug-ins, add-ons, additional software made for Unity, and many more resources available in the Unity Assets store either free or paying

and ALL this is available for you TOTALLY FREE without any royalty or any hidden payment, only is not free some of the higher and professional features or if you own a company that has earnings in the whole fiscal year of more tan 100.000$

And includes the license to multiplatform games in iOS, Android games, PC, Mac, and Windows 8 store for FREE too unless you own a 100.000$ company (although for publishing on iOS you will need to have a MacOS for Xcode software and buy an 99$ Apple developer license)

UNITY FREE VS PRO COMPARISON

Here are the differences between the totally free version versus the paid pro one

License Comparison - Free Vs Pro

And since last year is NOT anymore only for 3D, now it can make many things in 2D too

I am really surprised at the very high quality of this software, and there is lots of tutorials available to learn to use it

FILTER FORGE TEXTURES AND UNITY

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Ghostcat Yes the maps work well with unity. You need to render the normal maps as open GL (under options>render settings). for Specularity include the map as an alpha channel in your diffuse map.

Thanks for your tips and I will surely try to use FF 3D textures maps when I learn to use the materials in Unity.

And yes, Unity is not difficult... so are most other softwares... like FilterForge.

We used Unity for a pretty major upcoming project. We can't tell the details but I personally think it's damn impressive. We've done something nobody else has done (at least as far as we know). So that'll be announced once we're cool.

Also, I personally used Unity for architectural visualization. Shaders did a wonderful work. We did use Unity pro. It's lovely.

Personally, I like UDK better just for the sake of ease of use and shader quality. I'm not entertained by Unity's attitude towards their free version. Although UDK seems to share it's own light with licensing annoyances that we had to swallow producing things.

I guess I'll talk about stuff in my next email... it's already been long enough I haven't responded. Very busy these days with work.

I like how you decided to link a google search of Swiss Army Knife. Just because.

It was or was it GDC week. All the graphics vendors are roaring their "new features" announcements. Somehow, I find UDK's licensing more appealing now. I don't profit from anything I make in UDK these days so it wouldn't really matter. I'd just own it for fun.

Question: how's that game-making business going. I had a couple commentaries about that as well. It seems like a bunch of people doing it don't really get the essence of game dev and marketing.

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I am really impressed and astonished of what can be done with the Unity Free edition and with ALL the many useful and interesting things available in the Unity assets store

Warning: quit drooling at that.

Yeah see, I like the store as well. I think they've got some great content there. But I think you shouldn't let that fool you. You'll always be drooling at every item and you'll always just want one. But this is about making games. I feel in the end what you start doing with all these plugins is a unhealthy mix of various tools doing stuff, inefficiently stacked on top of each other. You'll most likely result in a pretty crappy game, inefficiently patched together like a last minute effort. So to me, the best of all options is just working fr om the ground up and that'll lead you to a quality better expected out of a game available for sale.

I think you'll find quite some fun making games fr om ground up. Definitely worth the time. If you give the game a good polish, you'll be contributing to the quality of the app store and google Play (otherwise), wh ere you'll be better rewarded for what you accomplish. I have friends in a similar business buying off source code to sell. Sure it does profit, but many of them quit doing that, eventually moved on from that to make themselves everything. It's business after all, but if you're an honest guy, you'll find it leaving a trace amount of bitterness growing in the back of your throat. After all, it isn't yours and you can't proudly proclaim that it's your quality you've established.

Just gotta be careful buddy. Don't let that "I'm gonna get this plugin that does this" attitude make you into a crappy game designer cause I swear, it really really happens.

---------- Hard words -----------
85% of the games that land in the app store and many others fail. They're trash. They don't go anywhere for a reason: they're worthless. Absolutely worthless games because all they do is just copy n paste some rules around change assets... oh come on. Yeah they get played... but you gotta keep making more and more and more of the same thing to keep the pace up. You eventually create a whole line of worthless junk that get picked up and die immediately. It's a terrible cycle.

heheh.. ok a bit harsh. But I just thought I'd leave you with just what I've experienced. It's a tough world. Having that experience really shakes you up. You really start noticing what's absolute garbage and what's not... and what's darn amazing.

I don't know if that was advice.... just like a reality check. I've been not nice these days... but I can't let go of the truth at the same time. It's not easy living as an artist, and it won't get better without us doing a better job teaching people what it means to be one.

[Edit - Even more designer ranting]
The thing to me here is that people take it so lightly as if there's this magic chest of treasures somewh ere that you can dig up. As if there's some kind of magic spell or something to all these tools we use. There's a bit of "magic" that comes out of the computer, but I wish everyday there's magic that fixes every stupid problem that continues to arise each time I do something new.

I seriously feel like this creative industry gives the sort of "magic" impression on everything. Unity, UDK, Crytek, and all these game engines (and most programs) give this false impression that our lives are "now easier" because of feature x. Yeah as if. Nothing's changed. Like you get "wowed" up by all these lists and lists of things you can possibly do, when in fact you hardly use 60% of the tools offered. People with no skill look at all these things, get impressed, and find themselves trapped in this sort of things being too technical, too daunting, and no knowledge of anything. The software company makes a good sale out of you and you earn nothing more than a piece of program that you thought would give you all the power you need. I'm guilty of that myself, I sometimes do spend on things I kinda didn't need in the end.

People get hyped about all these buzz terms and features like "GPU Accelerated" "64Bit" "GI" "AO" ... blah blah blah ok ok cool cool yeah yeah yeah. At the end of the day nobody cares about how much GPU you used to render anything or how many rays got bounced around in the scene in real time. People get the oos and ahhs temporary and they get bored in less than 2 years and everybody wants some new technology to solve all their problems so they can go "oo and ahh" again.

So ok, I'm talking a lot. But I swear, these last couple years taught me a thing or two about the act of "making things digitally". It's important to recognize that there's "creativity" still and nobody should get lost anywhere amongst the plugins, the lists of features, the numerous tools offered... and countless technical terminology. The only things the audience cares about is 1. How it looks and 2. if it's worth it or not.

Would love to see your work.

Hello all.
I did some diagonal reading to the thread.
I want to share that I have been using Unity since version 2, and I have fully integrated the use of FF with my Unity workflow.
I fact many of my filters available here come fr om needs I had using Unity for games or other projects.
Unity 5 uses Physically Based materials (FBM) and that requires
A) a lot of photoshop
B) FSB software such as Quixel
C) FF filter set up to generate all your needed maps

I am updating my filters for "C", such as this https://filterforge.com/filters/12137.html
wh ere all output maps work out of the box just fine with Unity5 FSB standard material.