Etermax at Unite Los Angeles 2018
Unite is a Unity conference held annually in different countries with the main objective of discussing their upcoming features. We had the chance to attend it at the JW Marriott, located in the heart of Los Angeles, California.
Our goal
We have been using Unity as the main graphic engine at Etermax for the last two years. It gives us the flexibility and speed we need to develop our products. Even though we always try to stay up to date with the latest updates, attending this conference was a great opportunity for us to learn and share our experiences with some of the industry leaders and the staff of Unity with our eyes set on continuous improvement.
What we found
As we got closer to the huge hotel located in Olympic Boulevard, we could see the signs of the Unity-Unite and there were people with badges hanging from their necks. Some of them were even wearing the purple t-shits that the staff was giving away in the hotel reception.
Inside the hotel, there was a massive Unite Los Angeles 2018 sign around which everyone was taking photos and, of course, we couldn’t be the exception.
The talks took up 3 different floors. One of these was the Expo Floor, where not only Unity was present, but there were also people from the staff of Google, Nintendo, Microsoft, JetBrains, Vuforia, and more.
The talks
Throughout three intense days, we attended dozens of different talks in order to get a grasp of what is coming in the next version, as well as what will be coming in 2019. They dealt with all kinds of topics, from Testing to Editor Tools, without ignoring the features we were all hoping to discuss: Nested Prefabs y ECS, which were two really well managed talks.
We also had the opportunity to share a few words with some people from TextMesh Pro, which was acquired by Unity at the beginning of 2017, as well as with part of the staff from JetBrains, who showed us the new features of the IDE for the upcoming version, and even with people from Unity , who gave us a sneak peek at some tools that are currently in preview.
Keynote
At the end of the first day, the Keynote took place at the Orpheum theater. It was a rather formal presentation of what is coming in the near future. Nested Prefabs, ECS, Real Time Multiplayer FPS, Visual Effect Graph, CineCast, Baymax Dream, the great demo Megacity.
Highlights
TextMesh Pro: A new version is coming, and it will support dynamic fonts, something that it was missing in order to be one of the best text tools within the engine.
JetBrains: The new features of the IDE will be based on Unity code performance. The IDE will detect when you are writing non-performing code and will advise you on how to optimize it, which will be really useful for beginner Unity developers.
Google: We recently heard about the new partnership between Unity and Google with the purpose of creating a multiplayer platform that is flexible and scalable. At the Unite, they talked about a new Google service called Open Match, which is a matchmaking service aimed at helping developers focus more on the logical part of the matchmaking, and not so much on its infrastructure.
Unity: The most anticipated piece of news had to do with Nested Prefabs, where we will now be able to treat prefabs in an individual way, even if they are contained within another prefab. This completely changes the way we work with one of the most powerful objects offered by Unity.
Another feature that has been gathering force is ECS (Entity Component System). Along with Job System and Burst Compiler, this feature enables multithreading and it’s close to what Unity is trying to promote as the “performance by default” standard. In the Keynote, we were able to see how in a scenario with millions of objects, the performance remained stable.
They also focused a lot on real-time, multi-player games, showing a new network layer official package and a downloadable demo (FPS Sample) that includes features such as lag compensation, client-side prediction and interpolation.
Another big upcoming change that we will probably see in the 2019 version is the way of extending the editor. Version 2017.1 introduced UIElements on an experimental basis and, in one of the talks, they showed its true power. Extending the editor with .uss (Unity Style Sheets) with HTML/CSS Flexbox support will make things easier and more flexible. We also learned about a new UIElements Debugger that will make our lives easier when it comes to debugging on the different layouts we create.
Film Industry: While the film and animation industries were not at the top of our priority list, we were able to see how Unity is being used to develop animations and even short films. In the Keynote, the example was Baymax Dream, a short film by Disney that showed, in just a few minutes, how they transformed the aesthetics of that animation into a Halloween-themed one.
Automotive Industry: Additionally, we learned how Unity is being used more and more by the automotive industry. In particular, they are using it to create simulation environments for autonomous vehicles, to the extent that companies are using cloud services to send their algorithms, quickly train them, and simultaneously make use of a great computational capacity.
Round Tables
Another interesting part of the event were the Round Tables, where the staff of Unity would select a limited number of developers to discuss a new feature, either by providing information or by requesting feedback. We have the chance to attend the following Round Tables: Personalized Ads, Real Time Multiplayer, Licensing & Deployment and Unity Developer Services.
Personalized Ads: They discussed a new feature used to provide mobile ads. It uses a cross-app user database to know what is the right ad and the right moment to show it.
Real Time Multiplayer: This Round Table aimed at getting feedback on the problems that we, developers, have when applying multiplayer on a project.
Licensing & Deployment: We were asked about the kind of licensing we use and the problems we come across when using it. They also told us some ideas they are thinking on implementing in the future.
Unity Developer Services: The purpose of this Round Table was to get feedback on the problems developers have when using the different services in our projects, as well as to help us solve these problems and share some ideas of new services that they plan to implement in the future.
What could have been better?
The three days were excellent, but we do have some feedback as an improvement opportunity: Many interesting talks took place simultaneously in different rooms.
Summary
We have a lot more to share, but the idea of this article is to transmit the experience of having attended a convention of this magnitude, where you can not only get a glimpse of what is coming on Unity, but also share your developments with other people and companies.
Valeria Colombo, Technical Owner at Etermax.
Nicolás Laurito, Software Engineer at Etermax.
Martin Gonzalez, Software Engineer at Etermax.
