As time goes by, software – and hardware – changes. Sometimes it’s minor stuff, things most are unlikely to even notice. Not quite so for the release of Unity 2017 though, as this is a pretty big deal, and one that’ll have quite the impact on video game development as a whole, given the popularity of this particular engine. Oh, and it’s also the first step on the road to (finally?) deprecating Direct X 9.
But the removal of Direct X 9 support won’t happen for a few revisions, as it is scheduled for Unity 2017.3, and we’re only at 2017.1 at the time of writing. That’s not to say 2017.1 doesn’t have enough to make an impact, because with the new Timeline feature – to assist in the creation of cut-scenes and cinematic events – and Cinemachine – which provides developers with more camera control – there’s a lot to like here.
If you fancy getting all cinematic and cut-scene-y – which is not everyone’s cup of tea, based on my experience with Unity games in the past, that is. Which is quite alright. Sometimes you don’t need to remove control in order to tell a proper story (hint hint), focusing instead on keeping the player engaged at all times. That said, both methods will benefit from the general performance improvements, which include upgraded core scripting components and optimized shadow rendering, along with… a lot of technical stuff that I can’t even begin to parse without getting a headache.
So instead I’m gonna recommend checking out the blog post, which has an obscene amount of details on the release of Unity 2017.1. In fact, it’s almost as if every single aspect of the engine has received some sort of change. Very groovy.
(Source: Introducing Unity 2017)
