In a blink of an eye, Unity has been with me for more than 10 years. From the beginning of Unity3.5 to the current Unity2022, Unity has brought us too many surprises. Sometimes I think, deep down I really enjoyed my time working with Unity, what would I be doing right now without Unity? No matter what kind of job it is, it probably won't be the job I like so much now. So I sincerely hope that Unity can always stand at the top of the industry, be far-sighted, keep up with the direction of the times, and always be at the forefront of the times.
But some things happened recently, so I have some concerns, so I will write them down.
A few days ago, the leader of the unit asked me to study the matter of cloud rendering. I was busy at first, and other colleagues did it, so I didn't care. When my colleagues figured it out, they showed us the results and let us use computers and mobile phones to access them respectively. An exe program released by Unity running on the cloud feels very smooth, the picture is clear, and the interaction effect is also very good, far exceeding expectations.
At that time, I thought it was very good, and I didn't think much about it, but when I thought about it deeply, a series of questions immediately appeared in my mind.
First of all, cloud rendering has very low requirements on the client, that is, it can play videos and the network bandwidth is sufficient. After these two conditions are met, there is no difference between mobile phones and high-performance PCs. The great advantage of Unity is multi-platform release, especially friendly to platforms with relatively low performance such as mobile platforms and web terminals. But in the case of cloud rendering, this is obviously not an advantage. For future games or applications based on cloud rendering, resource usage must be optimized on the premise of high image quality, not on the premise of smooth operation. picture quality. It cannot be said that Unity has been careless in improving image quality over the years, but compared with engines such as Unreal, the effort is far from enough.
Second, the days of universal cloud rendering may not be far away. Cloud rendering requires high bandwidth and low latency for all people to access the Internet. With the popularization of 5G, this will not be a problem sooner or later. If a person spends 5,000 yuan to buy a PC, this configuration is considered mid-range, and it should be barely usable after ten years, but the performance must be considered backward, and many games are not enjoyable to play. But if you spend 500 yuan a year to buy a cloud rendering service, it will be 5,000 for ten years. If you have a low-configuration computer or a low-configuration mobile phone or Pad, you can still enjoy games with top effects. Therefore, the importance of high-performance clients will gradually decrease in the future. With cloud rendering, what people want is a client with a large screen, and the configuration is that the network speed must be good enough.
Finally, based on the above situation, for future games based on cloud rendering, the configuration of the client does not need to be considered too much. I am not saying that the development of Unity should not consider the level of the client at all, but that it should not only consider this. It turned out that there was a post on the official Unity forum, asking why Unity does not provide coordinate positions based on 64-bit precision. Unity’s official response is that it is unnecessary. Many graphics cards do not support 64-bit coordinate transformation. Even if they do, the speed is very slow. So Unity will not consider position coordinates using 64-bit precision. But Unreal Engine obviously doesn't think so. One of the recent new features of UE5 is the ability to use Large World Coordinates, which are 64-bit precision coordinates. Would anyone believe that cloud rendering graphics cards are not capable of supporting 64-bit precision coordinate transformation? Anyway, I don't believe it!
Hellscream says, "Times change!"
Therefore, the idea of Unity’s research and development needs to change. Don’t ignore the opponent’s judgment because of its high market share. Let’s learn about UE’s research and development. Otherwise, when the era of cloud rendering comes, will Unity want to hear Illidan’s contemptuous words? : "You are NOT prepared!"
Attached:
You are NOT prepared! The translation of this sentence in Taiwan is: "You are not ready!", the translation in mainland China is: "You are asking for your own death!", and the divine translation of a netizen is: "You are not qualified yet!". I don’t know which sentence Unity will like to hear in the future?
Anyway, I don't care. From now on, I will work overtime for two hours every day to learn UE5. Try not to rest during the Spring Festival, and continue to learn UE5. I hope that I can succeed in getting started after the Spring Festival!