Unity Technologies details version 3.5

Engine company Unity has used its ongoing Unite conference to detail the forthcoming improvements and new features to be added to version 3.5 of its hugely popular technology.

While it was not confirmed if Unity’s new ability to export to Flash will be part of the 3.5 update, it was suggested that the new edition will be made available by the end of this year.

The additions and improvements released with Unity 3.5 include, according to a statement to the press:

• Multi-threaded rendering
• A high-performance designer-centric GUI system
• HDR rendering with gamma correction
• Native level-of-detail support
• Radiosity Normal Mapping lightmaps
• Shuriken – an entirely curve driven particle effects system
• Improved occlusion culling
• An Integrated GPU profiler
• Pathfinding and crowd simulation built in
• Integrated version control support for Perforce and Subversion
• Asset cache server to accelerate import times 100-fold or more
• Improved workflow for editing multiple objects and working with prefabs
• A massive stacking up of optimisations have made Unity 60 per cent faster

In addition to the list above, a further 30 more upgrades are due, says Unity.

“Unity 3.5 is a huge deliverable in our pursuit of creating a fully-featured high-end engine that allows developers to create bigger and better top-tier games,” said Joachim Ante, Unity Technologies CTO.

“We’re adding a lot of very cutting edge features and will continue to do the same in all future releases. Our goal at Unity is to always be increasing our technical capabilities to meet the highest standards in the industry.”

“Unity is accelerating as a platform and as a company,” added David Helgason (pictured), CEO of Unity Technologies. “Unity 3.5 demonstrates our intense commitment to bringing seriously advanced technology to the masses, and we’re only getting started.”