Unity Software Inc S-1 • Hacker News Board

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#111

Post by furyofantares » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

_mkef wrote: post #93

Ehh. I really hope Unity raises tons of money , and inspires some decent competition here. Unity is the worst game engine, aside from all others. UE4 is a convoluted mess. I've tired several times , but even getting it setup with the C++ build chain is a pain. Godot ( which epic funded recently ) isn't done yet. I'm going to stick with Unity until someone else can build an easy to use game engine. Ultimately Unity do…

I'm a highly experienced programmer and I can't get started with Unity. Maybe I'm just an old curmudgeon now. But I just want to see some code and drive from code. The workflow of starting from objects and scenes in a GUI and attaching scripts is totally foreign to me. And then most of the tutorials seem to be videos, which I have no patience for, with text I can skip around and tailor my learning to my personal needs. And then I have no idea how to predict if any given video or documentation or sample project is out of date. It's extremely frustrating and makes me feel dumb and old.

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#112

Post by johnfn » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

adamnemecek wrote: post #91

johnfn wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I'm talking about the engineering culture fostered by the two projects. I'm not literally comparing a game engine to a web rendering library.

Right however Unity is much more complex so it's not a fair comparison.

Why not? It's easy to learn from the things that React does right and compare to see if Unity also does them right, or not.

For example, React has a principle that components can freely be removed from the render path of their parents[1], since React (in the general case) does not allow parents to imperatively call methods on their children. Unity has no such prevention, so if you remove a child component you could be triggering a bunch of bugs when GetComponent calls fail to find the component you deleted.

It seems clear to me that the way that React guides the user towards avoiding writing bugs is a good strategy.

Why would we NOT compare these two? Why would we NOT say, "aha, it looks like React has a smart design that allows engineers to write code without unintentionally creating bugs, and so we should consider if something like that is possible, or perhaps think of a different way to solve this problem." Putting our heads in the sand and refusing to make comparisons between these two projects to see the similar issues that both projects run into means that Unity developers are doomed to repeat the same problems that React engineers have already solved.

[1]: https://overreacted.io/what-are-the-react-team-principles/

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#113

Post by TootsMagoon » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

jarsin wrote: post #109

_mkef wrote: post #93

Ehh. I really hope Unity raises tons of money , and inspires some decent competition here. Unity is the worst game engine, aside from all others. UE4 is a convoluted mess. I've tired several times , but even getting it setup with the C++ build chain is a pain. Godot ( which epic funded recently ) isn't done yet. I'm going to stick with Unity until someone else can build an easy to use game engine. Ultimately Unity do…

I think unreal is easier to use than Unity because Unreal comes with batteries included. Unity you have to fill all the gaps with 3rd party asset store plugins and deal with all their weirdness etc. Unity's recent changes into everything is a package is a total mess and reminds me of how Rails became a mess after it tried to move everything out of core and into gems.

^^^This...Can't be understated what a mess Unity is right now. Meanwhile Epic with Unreal 5 is simplifying its pipeline and looks better and better.

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#114

Post by ImprobableTruth » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

johnfn wrote: post #51

OneGuy123 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing a web library to game engine is a bit of a stretch. Unity is very nice to develop actually. It's a lot more simple than UE4 for example, but UE4 is much better suited for more complicated games, but then again, Subnautica is made in Unity, so Unity is very flexible. Neither is "bad" or "worse". Unity is obviously not perfect, but video game engines move and change all the time, that is the nature of the vid…

It's really not as much of a stretch as you might think. Let's put aside everything that the two libraries actually do for a second, and just think about them in the abstract. React very clearly tries to guide the developer towards correct patterns and abstractions. It's clear that React developers have thought very deeply about how to lead engineers towards the happy path of code with fewer bugs in it. It throws lou…

>GetComponent, possibly the most used Unity function, can easily trigger bugs because Unity does not statically verify that the component you're looking up exists

I'm pretty sure checking this statically is simply fundamentally impossible since components can be removed at runtime.

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#115

Post by iaml » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

adamnemecek wrote: post #90

iaml wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, AFAIK react event loop is based on game engines, so at least a bit of similarity should be there.

Not all event loops are the same.

Specifically, it looks like doom 3 engine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7cQ3mrcKaY#t=1196

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#116

Post by xex70 » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 5:10 PM UTC

johnfn wrote: post #51

OneGuy123 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing a web library to game engine is a bit of a stretch. Unity is very nice to develop actually. It's a lot more simple than UE4 for example, but UE4 is much better suited for more complicated games, but then again, Subnautica is made in Unity, so Unity is very flexible. Neither is "bad" or "worse". Unity is obviously not perfect, but video game engines move and change all the time, that is the nature of the vid…

It's really not as much of a stretch as you might think. Let's put aside everything that the two libraries actually do for a second, and just think about them in the abstract. React very clearly tries to guide the developer towards correct patterns and abstractions. It's clear that React developers have thought very deeply about how to lead engineers towards the happy path of code with fewer bugs in it. It throws lou…

AAA here. Actually, it is a stretch, because you’re expecting an entirely different discipline of software development to reflect the trends, knowledge, and assumptions of your discipline. We are a CryEngine shop but I’ve used Unity extensively for MVP pitches, spec work, and side projects. I also left the Web vertical to do this so I still have context from your side as well.

I took the time to read what you’ve written. Just about every single point you made in that essay can be distilled to “Web developer with strong convictions about Web software engineering and expecting game development to look like familiar territory,” with only a couple exceptions. I read that essay and I walk away with “that person is going to have a hard time if they pursue professional game development,” not the intended conclusion you had about Unity’s lackings. That’s reflected in nearly every concern about Unity expressed in this thread because this is a Web forum.

Unity has deficiencies we are all aware of in the industry, but none of them are in your essay. Several of your points are misunderstandings, several are just wrong, and all of them paint a picture which also gives a lot of AAA shops pause about hiring Web folks (and that I’ve had to deal with): there’s a pretty strong strain among the Web industry of “if you don’t do software like FAANG does, you’re doing it wrong and your stuff is terrible.” Meanwhile, the stuff you call bad/terrible/worse is generating billions in revenue and employing thousands. Seriously, Unreal is worse than Unity? Nearly stopped reading there.

I’m reminded of a friend who does control development for factories and had someone come in straight from a Google internship who started trying to reimplement SCADA from first principles using Kubernetes. The Web is one way to do software engineering. There are others, and one of those others is reflected in the design of Unity.

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#117

Post by squeaky-clean » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

brundolf wrote: post #87

DizzyDoo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really, really wish it did. Here's just one concrete example: real-time point-light shadows in the Universal Render Pipeline. URP is the new 'default' way of rendering, the old renderer is being phased out, this is the new way of doing things - as you say; technical debt as they re-engineer. But how horrid has this process of eliminating technical debt been? You've got Unity proudly announcing that URP was 'product…

That's pretty bad, but I'd still file that under "too-hastily deprecating things before the new version is at parity". Not that it isn't a huge issue, but could it be a temporary issue? Is the newer one, in theory, on a good track for the long-term?

The newer one (URP) is already in its second rewrite after ditching the initial version (LWRP). They also completely split the post-processing stack into two incompatible stacks depending on whether you're using URP or HDRP, then backtracked and are attempting to merge them into a single stack again.

So while maybe they'll get it all fixed soon, based on their track record I'm pretty cynical and bet it's more likely in 2021 or 2022 they'll announce yet another overhaul of the rendering stack(s), probably unifying them back into one stack or something.

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#118

Post by johnfn » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

ImprobableTruth wrote: post #114

johnfn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not as much of a stretch as you might think. Let's put aside everything that the two libraries actually do for a second, and just think about them in the abstract. React very clearly tries to guide the developer towards correct patterns and abstractions. It's clear that React developers have thought very deeply about how to lead engineers towards the happy path of code with fewer bugs in it. It throws lou…

>GetComponent , possibly the most used Unity function, can easily trigger bugs because Unity does not statically verify that the component you're looking up exists I'm pretty sure checking this statically is simply fundamentally impossible since components can be removed at runtime.

That's true, but I've always thought that removing components at runtime is such a rare thing to do, and the cost of allowing it on an engine level - inability to statically verify components - is such a high price to pay that the tradeoff just doesn't make sense.

If I was czar of Unity (ha!) I would never have allowed AddComponent and RemoveComponent to be a thing - I would have required the user to add all of the components they expect to need at edit time instead. The dynamism that Unity currently affords rarely improves my game, but it does lead to a lot of bugs. If users really want to turn components on and off, they could have an enabled flag.

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#119

Post by silicon2401 » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #13

silicon2401 wrote: post #7

Can someone explain what this means to a finance noob? Does this mean it will be possible to purchase stock in Unity soon?

They are disclosing information that must be disclosed before conducting the initial public offering (e.g. making their stock available for purchase to you and others in the public). You can assume an IPO is coming up in the not too distant future, but there are reasons it might not happen, such as lower than expected desire for the stock they'd like to offer.

ah good summary. thanks!

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#120

Post by silicon2401 » Mon, Aug 24, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

bonestamp2 wrote: post #17

silicon2401 wrote: post #7

Can someone explain what this means to a finance noob? Does this mean it will be possible to purchase stock in Unity soon?

Pretty much. If a company wants to issue securities (such as stock) in the US, they need to submit one of these forms first. It's no guarantee that stock will be issued, but it's highly likely.

Thank you