“As an evangelist, we’ve seen many projects and spoken to many developers and the central issue whenever there is a problem with a project, it’s always architecture,” Rustum Scammell told his audience during Casual Connect Asia 2014. “The problems that are faced from a shaky foundation arise much later on in the project, and by that time it’s really too difficult to go back and start all over again.”
Rustum Scammell is a product evangelist at Unity Technologies, as well as the owner of the game studio, Craft Colony. He describes himself as a traditional gamer with a preference for playing on PC. Recently, he has been spending time playing Tropico 4, saying it has amazing production value and is very immersive and funny. He does become involved in free-to-play games and admits to spending far too much gold on Travian many years ago. But he must be less immersed in console play, since as yet he doesn’t own either Xbox One or PS4; he just hasn’t bothered to get them yet.
When not gaming, Scammell loves to travel where he can see things beyond his comfort zone. Not long ago he visited Masai Mara. He says of this experience, “It hits you pretty deep when you realize you are so close to where it all began. It’s also a unique feeling to know you could easily be dinner out there!”
Scammell initially began working for Unity Technologies externally and found the experience went very well. So when the opportunity arose to become their product evangelist, it made sense to him to join the company. An aspect of his work that he particularly enjoys is sharing his story and hearing how other people’s lives have led them into the industry. He points out, “I have heard so many journeys, and so far each is unique. I suppose that’s why we all get attracted into this world. It’s really varied, and there’s always a surprise around the corner.”
Not long ago he visited Masai Mara. He says of this experience, “It hits you pretty deep when you realize you are so close to where it all began.”
Finding The Path
The most exciting time Scammell remembers in his career came when he shipped his first game. He believes everything he went through to reach this point was necessary and emphasizes this belief, “All experiences in life, good and bad, shape you and lead you down the roads that you visit in your life.”
When considering the future of the games industry, he insists the most important direction to proceed is a return to the basics: good story, characters, gameplay, and high production values.
Unity Technologies has branched out to touch many parts of the world. Headquartered in San Francisco, it also maintains offices in Canada, China, Columbia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Singapore, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. The Unity community includes over two million large publishers, indie studios, students, and hobbyists. The company continues to emphasize innovation, and its deployment capability allows developers to publish simultaneously to all the most popular platforms.
Unity Technologies’ new 4.3 version of the Unity multi-platform engine and development tools may be just what developers need to enhance their 2D games. This version offers not only dedicated 2D development tools, but also additions to the Mecanim animation system and an upgrade to the Umbra 3 occlusion culling. But Unity didn’t stop there. It has also brought in analytics tools through their partnership with GameAnalytics.
Unity 4.3 offers additions to the Mecanim animation system and an upgrade to the Umbra 3 occlusion culling.
Optimizing Work Flow
The 2D development tools and metaphors the 4.3 version offers were designed to streamline 2D work flow with a new Sprite Texture import mode, and automated atlasing, optimizing 2D rendering, and drag-and-drop functionality for scene creation. Better performance and stability, as well as smaller game builds, are possible with Box2D physics integrated into Unity. As well, polygon collider generation allows faster creation of accurate, fully editable physical collider meshes for refined physical response between objects in a scene.
Unity 4.3 Editor
Improving Animation
Improvements to Mecanim, Unity’s character animation suite, support Blend Shapes, to provide accurately blended complex geometry between model states. Animators will now have the ability to create realistic emotional facial animation.
Mecanim is fully integrated with the Animation Window and its dopesheet functionality. It is now a powerful all-purpose animation solution through support for animating simple scene elements, 2D sprite animations, camera settings and more.
Occlusion Culling
The upgrade to Umbra 3 incorporates a rewrite of Occlusion Culling. Developers can now expect much faster baking and more accurate and better performing results. The rapid iteration will allow more sophisticated environments with highly detailed graphical content.
Other important changes offered by Unity 4.3 include major improvements to dynamic Navmesh creations, the “Optimize Transform Hierarchy” which reduces characters to a singular object rather than 100 pieces, MonoDevelop 4.0.1, editor layouts saved by project, multiple shader enhancements, Plastic SCM integration, as well as many Windows Store Apps updates.
David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies, proudly announces, “4.3 is a huge update in the history of Unity. The addition of 2D tools is an important milestone that will help developers make incredible 2D games, and with major improvements to Mecanim and greatly increased performance, this is a weighty, productive update that we’re thrilled to release.”
“The addition of 2D tools is an important milestone that will help developers make incredible 2D games, and with major improvements to Mecanim and greatly increased performance, this is a weighty, productive update that we’re thrilled to release.”
Bringing Analytics to the Unity Asset Store
Unity Technologies has also partnered with GameAnalytics to bring analytics tools to the Unity Asset Store Online Services Strategic Partner program. GameAnalytics, created in 2012, with headquarters in Copenhagen and a data engineering team in Berlin, provides a highly successful free analytics service for game developers. Since launching its analytics service in January 2013, it has tracked more than 125 million players, adding 30 million new players each month, and now has over 4,000 games on its platform. According to CEO Morten Wulff, GameAnalytics’ purpose is to enable developers to monitor and optimize everything from user acquisition to game design with hard facts. He emphasizes, “Improvements based on performance metrics are essential to success in today’s free-to-play marketplace.”
According to CEO Morten Wulff, GameAnalytics’ purpose is to enable developers to monitor and optimize everything from user acquisition to game design with hard facts.
Helgason agrees, saying, “Analytics is an important part of launching a successful game. With GameAnalytics working with us in the Unity Asset Store Online Services Program, it will be easier than ever for development studios of all sizes to access the information they need.”
James Hursthouse, CEO of Roadhouse Interactive, describes the effect of the two companies partnering this way, “For us, the deep integration between GameAnalytics and Unity meant that we were up and running, with 45+ important metrics, within a few hours of development time. We log on to GameAnalytics every day to check KPIs on everything from player acquisition and engagement to in-game monetization.”
For more information about GameAnalytics, visit http://gameanalytics.com. Information about Unity Technologies is available at http://unity3d.com. Unity 4.3 can be downloaded at http://unity3d.com/unity/download.
Oleg Pridiuk, Technical Evangelist at Unity Technologies, is somewhat unusual in coming to game development from a background in mobile, but not in gaming. At the beginning of the iPhone era, when Nokia and Symbian were strong players in the industry, he was a technical journalist who became interested in mobile.
The important thing is to dare to own the task. The skills needed to deliver come along, whether it is programming or wood cutting.
When he began with Unity, it was a startup, with a team of twenty. At that time, every team member had multiple responsibilities; rather than having a single job description, all team members did their best using all their skills. Pridiuk manned the camera, blogged, wrote copy, translated, fixed hardware and even reinstalled windows. He emphasizes, “The important thing is to dare to own the task. The skills needed to deliver come along, whether it is programming or wood cutting.”
Some of the Unity Family
Eastern European Evangelism
He became Unity’s mobile specialist, working mainly with developer relations and quality assurance. Since becoming Technical Evangelist in April 2012, his focus has mainly been on Eastern Europe, including Russia, Ukraine and Poland for sales, tech support and publishing. In Russia and the Ukraine, he established himself as a technical and business representative for Unity, and he established business relations between Unity Games China and the top Russian games development houses.
In Russia and the Ukraine, he established himself as a technical and business representative for Unity.
At Casual Connect Kyiv, Pridiuk announced that Unity is becoming more and more suitable for large cross-platform titles.
In his free time, he enjoys skateboarding, biking, and listening to a variety of music genres from Black Metal to Rachmaninov or Tchaikowsky. He believes, “Music is an instrument, a tool. It serves certain purposes, and those differ.”
Mmmmm…Whiskey.
He stays in the games industry because games make people happy, and that is a trend he can totally support.
Before joining Unity, Pridiuk considered that downshilfting and starting a whiskey distillery in Scotland might be an enjoyable way to live. But he claims, “You cannot escape gamedev. It catches you wherever you are.” So he stays in the games industry because games make people happy, and that is a trend he can totally support.
A career in the games industry is filled with challenges, and Pridiuk’s is no exception. He points out that the biggest challenge for every fast-growing company is to grow along with it. This is difficult when change is happening so quickly. The rules, the environment, the people around you, and the product itself are all evolving in multiple dimensions. Suddenly, your company is not the same one you joined.
But there are also moments that bring great satisfaction. Pridiuk says his proudest moment was when the Unity startup was first mentioned in Engadget.
Ressurection of the Indie
Looking ahead to what is coming next is his favorite topic. Over the next few years, he foresees that video will become the new photo. He also expects to see sensors, wearable computers, and quality multi-layer 3D printing using different materials. And he believes we will see small startups taking over bigger industries, those owned by mammoth corporations today. And mandatory classes in programming and design (preferably in Unity!) will be in schools and even kindergartens. He is already beginning to see these classes today.
