Game creators have a lot of different third party game graphics engines and development tools to choose from. Unreal Engine, CryEngine and the Source Engine are among the most well known middleware tools. One that has gained a lot of popularity, especially among web-based games, is the Unity engine.
This week, Unity announced its plans to release the next major version of its tools, Unity 4. One of its biggest features is the addition of DirectX 11 support, which is the most current version of Microsoft's 3D API. Unity states:
Improve performance with compute shaders, which give the ability to use GPU as a parallel CPU. Utilize more complex shaders with shader model 5.0, and add richer details to your game worlds’ models and environments with tessellation.
Another new feature in Unity 4 is being able to port any game to work on Linux. The company states this feature will be included at no extra cost for Unity Desktop users. It also adds support to release games that will work on Adobe's Flash Player.
Game animators will be able to use Unity 4's new Mecanim system, which it claims will offer "incredibly fluid and natural motion" for character animation makers. Unity plans to show Unity 4 running live at its annual Unite 2012 developer conference in August. Game developers can go ahead and pre-order Unity 4 now. If they do so by July 9th, they will get a $200 voucher for the company's online store.
Source: Unity | Image via Unity
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