Using SVN and UAS to Synchronize Library Code in Unity

January 8th, 2011

So, you’ve bought Unity Pro and the Unity Asset server. If you’re like me, in spite of its disadvantages, you really like the UAS. It’s integrated into the editor and does a much cleaner job of versioning on serialized assets than does external version control, because it operates on the project’s Library folder rather than requiring you to generate and synchronize all of the sidecar data. However, there are some key things it cannot do.

I don’t have very complicated needs like branching and so on, but I do have a library of common code that I share across projects. This library contains a bunch of useful stuff that doesn’t rely on any game systems: things like helper classes, math classes, serialization for built-in types, and so on. The trouble is, I’m often working simultaneously on a bunch of projects that share my library (or worse still parts of my library), and so it can be a pain in the neck to push the changes out across all my projects. As such, I took the time to set up a system using Subversion working on top of my UAS projects in order to synchronize my library code.


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Unity Asset Store Updates

January 6th, 2011

Some recent Unity Asset Store updates of mine have gone live tonight! There’s a new version of the Biped Editor (1.03) with some new library code and minor bug fixes, as well as a package of Custom Handles that I showed at Unite. Custom Handles includes handles for shapes, configurable joints, discs, arcs, helices, and more, along with some examples like a helical particle emitter and a helical mesh ribbon. Have fun!

GDC and a New Year’s Resolution

January 1st, 2011

Well, 2010 is now done, and I think I’ve selected some important goals for myself this year: learn to say “no” to interesting projects, and finish my own stuff! I have a TKO update forging ahead behind the scenes, and in the process I’ve built another tool I wanted to show, as it will be part of my Complete Maya-Unity tools release coming soon.

Alongside the TKO update, I’m promising a 0.1 release for the Maya-Unity tools by GDC! The board has finally approved a submission from me, so I’ll be doing a session on Automated Pipelines for Generating Run-Time Rigs. I want to have a version of the tools ready to go by then so people will be able to download them and have a look if interested. My GDC session will basically be a higher-level, expanded, and much more detailed look at some of the stuff I showed during my talk on advanced editor scripting at Unite 2010, for anyone who was there.

Unite is actually a good segue into the video I have to share today, too. At the conference, I had showed some examples I had of using editor scripts to generate sparse blend shape data offline. The point was to demonstrate the usefulness of editor scripts in reducing run-time computation, but I unfortunately didn’t have a good pipeline for it yet. So I put together a decent first pass on native blend shape support this week. It, too, will be part of my 0.1 release for my Maya-Unity workflow, so hopefully a couple of you out there will be looking forward to it. Have a great 2011!

Biped Editor released

November 11th, 2010

For anyone at Unite, you already know about this. Unity announced their asset store at the keynote yesterday, which lets developers sell or share assets, editor extensions, and so on, right inside the Unity editor for users to download directly into their projects. As such, I wrapped up a first release of my Biped Editor and put it up with full source code. You can get it from the Unity asset store now, if you download Unity 3.1. I put together a quick tutorial video for anyone who downloads it to get an idea of what the feature set for this release looks like. Hope some of you out there find it useful!

Note: for best viewing, I recommend turning the resolution on the video up to 1080p and watching full-screen, since that’s my native resolution and it will be easier to read some of the buttons.

Biped Editor for Unity 3.0

July 13th, 2010

I’ve been really head-down for awhile with work, the latest of which has involved some pretty substantial refactoring of Touch KO for a big update this summer (finally!). Since I’ve been working in Unity 3.0, I thought I’d share a short clip of a tool I developed during the refactoring process. It’s a biped component along with an editor for interactively adjusting collision shapes and sizes as well as joint limits. The component also has functionality to perform an automatic mass distribution based on human values, as well as interfaces for entering and exiting ragdoll. If I manage to get caught up on things after the update I’ll probably share the code on here eventually, but as anyone who follows the site may have guessed it’s been really busy lately O_o.

Note: for best viewing, I recommend turning the resolution on the video up to 1080p and watching full-screen, since that’s my native resolution and it will be easier to read some of the buttons.