So...Unity? Why?

[Poe the Homunculus]

Ok, so I've been reading a lot on the forums. Been looking at different sites too.
Now, I will admit I am the least bit tech-savvy in programming and such. Only really know how to use software, not debug to anything, nor really play video games that much.

I've read that "Unity" is some sort of game programing language as well, but don't understand what is good about it. Why the upgrade when there are fewer features?

But, with features that have been removed from Classic to Unity; night/day icons and lighting effects of darkvision, torches, so on; why did FG move to a new version?

[Valyar]

Ok, so I've been reading a lot on the forums and such. Been looking at different sites too.
Now, I will admit I am the least bit tech-savvy in programming and such. Only really know how to use software, not debug to anything, nor really play video games that much.

I've read that "Unity" is some sort of game programing language as well, but don't understand what is good about it. Why the upgrade when there are fewer features?

But, with so many features that have been removed from Classic to Unity; night/day icons and lighting effects of darkvision, torches, so on; why did FG move to a new version?

Fantasy Grounds Classic has been showing his age and it was lacking modern VTT features such as visual effects, line of sight, dynamic lighting and etc. Unity came to help and it is one of the widely used platform by many game studios. It is not bad choice, though heavier on the machine than FGC, which ran on potato computers blazing fast. Unity is game engine and as such provides a lot of options for developers and readily-available libraries. There is no Unity programming language, as far as I am aware the main language to use is C#, its Mono cross-platform implementation. Benefits of using supported game engine are a lot, depending which version is licensed to SW there might be more or less drawbacks.

The Unity version of the program does not have fewer feature. On the contrary - it has much more. What you listed as removed features is not correct at all. Only the night/day options was ditched. You now have true map tools where you stitch map tiles together (so you no longer have to go to external program) but it has various tools to further enhance the maps. Also there are layers, effects, line of sight, dynamic lights and the potential of Unity will allow in future to have dynamic maps and GIFs probably.

So, a lot of reasons to go to Unity. It will ensure the future of the platform, compared to the two main web-based competitors.

[LordEntrails]

First, FGU has MORE features than FGC, not fewer. There are a couple of things, like mood lighting, that are done differently now, and probably even a few things that FGC has that are not in FGU, but FGU has numerous/many/lots of features that FGC does not have.

So, FGC core that processes and does the behind the scenes work is a proprietary program. Only the FG developer have access to it, and only they can upgrade it. It was written for 32-bit Windows operating system. And therefore could only run on other platforms (like Mac, Linux, tablets and phones, etc) with unreliable third party emulators. 32-bit computers are no longer sold, and in many cases are no longer supported. Converting FGC to a 64-bit platform is a huge amount of work. It's basically re-writing everything from the ground up. Many programs simple chose to become obsolete rather than do so.

With the choice to either upgrade to a 64 bit platform or go obsolete, SmiteWorks chose to upgrade to 64. If they were doing so, they had a a few choices; write another completely proprietary core program from scratch, or pick one of several "engines" that are developed by others, and have 'libraries' of functions you can use (things like networking, graphics processing, databases, etc).

SW chose the Unity Engine. I don't know enough about the various platforms/engines to know why, but some of the advantages (not unique to Unity) include;
- a larger pool of potential developers, i.e. as they have hired developers, they can hire those that already know Unity and therefore can become productive with developing for FG quicker (i.e. short learning curve)
- ready to use (purchase) libraries and functionalities. These effectively increase their active developers, since they can use pre-developed parts of the program. These may also allow easier development of radical new features, like 3D and AR/VR in the future.
- access to core engine updates (i.e. they don't have to solve every problem, they can submit support tickets to Unity and let those developers solve core engine problems)
- native cross-platform support, Unity provide the ability to 'publish' their code to native o/s versions, like Mac, Linux, etc (and is what may allow a phone or tablet versions in the future)

[Poe the Homunculus]

Thank you for the replies. I admit that I don't understand how programming works, just an end-user of the program trying to make maps for the game.
I just I'm referring to the ability to make the day/night function on the map and doing the light spell. I've seen the "lightbulb" in screenshots which I assume is Classic. I am not sure what features those are called when players can only see as far as their light spell or torch allows.
What is the advantage of having that not in Unity?

[Valyar]

Thank you for the replies. I admit that I don't understand how programming works, just an end-user of the program trying to make maps for the game.
I just I'm referring to the ability to make the day/night function on the map and doing the light spell. I've seen the "lightbulb" in screenshots which I assume is Classic. I am not sure what features those are called when players can only see as far as their light spell or torch allows.
What is the advantage of having that not in Unity?
The light bulb in screenshot is from the next version of Unity that will be released in the following weeks/month probably. It is from BETA client where players can help SW test the dynamic line of sight and dynamic lighting. So, you see the new feature of the Unity client, not something from Classic.

So, Classic has significantly less features than Unity. Also, Smite Works stated that Classic will no longer be updated and only critical fixes will be implemented until it is end of life and permanently dropped as supported product.

[damned]

I dont know that Classic wont be updated - it certainly wont keep feature parity.
But many ruleset features will still appear in Classic.

Classic does not work on 64bit only OS like new Macs.
Unity will not work on 32bit computers and may not work on W7 or W8.

[johnecc]

Unity will not work on 32bit computers and may not work on W7 or W8.

Hi damned, I can confirm that Unity does currently work on Win8.1, can’t guarantee the future though.

[damned]

It does work on your W8 but neither Microsoft nor Unity officially support W8 anymore.
There have been 2 (that I can recall) people using older Windows that have not been able to get FGU to install as some other Microsoft dependancy didnt work.
The likelihood is that most can use it - but if it doesnt work no one is going to spend too much time on trying to get it to work...

You should consider doing the W10 upgrade - it works pretty well most of the time :bandit:

[Jiminimonka]

Ok, so I've been reading a lot on the forums. Been looking at different sites too.
Now, I will admit I am the least bit tech-savvy in programming and such. Only really know how to use software, not debug to anything, nor really play video games that much.

I've read that "Unity" is some sort of game programing language as well, but don't understand what is good about it. Why the upgrade when there are fewer features?

But, with features that have been removed from Classic to Unity; night/day icons and lighting effects of darkvision, torches, so on; why did FG move to a new version?

Unity does more than Classic. Classic doesn't have lighting. It has a mood lighting feature to alter the colour of the desktop for night, day, campfire... but that was it.

Unity is a game engine framework.

There are more feature in Unity and more coming, not fewer so I don't understand why understand what you mean by that. Are talking about an extension that works differently in Unity?

[Poe the Homunculus]

Unity does more than Classic. Classic doesn't have lighting. It has a mood lighting feature to alter the colour of the desktop for night, day, campfire... but that was it.

Unity is a game engine framework.

There are more feature in Unity and more coming, not fewer so I don't understand why understand what you mean by that. Are talking about an extension that works differently in Unity?

I'm confused because I thought all the test features with lighting were just what Classic had. I think what @Valyar and @LordEntrails are helping to clear up what I was confused about.
I still don't understand about Unity being an engine or language or what, I'm not a full computer program writer, but you all are saying it is easier to write extensions, I believe it.

[LordEntrails]

Classic has no vision or lighting, and there is no plan to do so. It has "Mood Lightning" which simple colors the whole screen so you get a day, night, campfire, etc atmosphere. Their is no simulated torchlight, or darkvision, or line of sight in classic. That is all Unity (and Unity Beta).

[Kelrugem]

I'm confused because I thought all the test features with lighting were just what Classic had. I think what @Valyar and @LordEntrails are helping to clear up what I was confused about.
I still don't understand about Unity being an engine or language or what, I'm not a full computer program writer, but you all are saying it is easier to write extensions, I believe it.

yeah, as the others wrote, the lighting stuff you saw in videos with that light bulb is unity, not classic :) (in beta, as mentioned above)

There was mood lighting in classic, this is something different, which is been replaced by an Fx effect in unity; it works a bit different but I personally prefer the unity version of that :)

[Griogre]

A game engine like Unity is a generic piece of software to allow you to create other games. So it is software that allows you to create software, usually faster and easier than starting building from scratch.

There are some cons to FG going to Unity, in that well build software built from the ground up should outperform something build on a generic platform. Performance is not everything there are other factors like required expertise, time to build, cost to build, cross platform capability, software matainabily, ability to add features, ect. It's the last set of factors that led Smiteworks to decide to use the Unity engine.

[TXCBoy36]

I dont know that Classic wont be updated - it certainly wont keep feature parity.
But many ruleset features will still appear in Classic.

Classic does not work on 64bit only OS like new Macs.
Unity will not work on 32bit computers and may not work on W7 or W8.

It does work on W7 which is the machine that I am using but I have to admit that it would probably work better on a newer machine which I am considering but for the purpose of this discussion, it will function on W7

[Trenloe]

It does work on W7 which is the machine that I am using but I have to admit that it would probably work better on a newer machine which I am considering but for the purpose of this discussion, it will function on W7
It works on *your* Windows 7 computer. A few people have had issues installing FGU and running it on Windows 7. So saying "it will function on W7" is not an ideal statement to make to people reading these forums. It's not supported for FGU and people have had issues with it. I'm glad it runs OK for you, may it continue to...

[TXCBoy36]

ok, did not realize that. Is it preferred to run it on W10 then? How do export my FGC & FGU to a new machine since everything i have done with FG is on this machine??

[Valyar]

ok, did not realize that. Is it preferred to run it on W10 then? How do export my FGC & FGU to a new machine since everything i have done with FG is on this machine??

You have to copy paste the sub-folders in the /campaigns folder within FG data directory from the old to the new machine. You have to copy and paste also any extension that you are using from the /extensions directory from the old to the new machine. And every other module or token/image that you stored locally and is not part of content delivered via the vault.

[Trenloe]

ok, did not realize that. Is it preferred to run it on W10 then? How do export my FGC & FGU to a new machine since everything i have done with FG is on this machine??
1) Open FGC on your current computer, click the folder button in the top right to open file explorer at the location of your FGC app data. To be safe, and include all modules, cache data, etc. make a backup copy of everything displayed in file explorer.
2) Open FGU on your current computer, click the folder button in the top left, make a backup copy of everything displayed in the file explorer window that opened.

Do the reverse of the above on the new computer, overwriting the data in the FG data directory with the backup you made for the relevant version (FGC or FGU). Then run an update.