Unity Technologies Releases Unity 3.4

"We're excited to release Unity 3.4, a free update for existing Unity 3 customers and a really broad update and overhaul of the software," says David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies. "As we look ahead, we will continue adding support for bigger projects and larger teams. Our roadmap is accelerating in speed and scope, and these new enhancements and optimizations are part of our larger drive to make Unity even better--with features that will improve the tool and engine for everyone from the baddest AAA studios to the cleverest indie teams." 

Unity 3.4, through the integration of Allegorithmic's Substance technology, features customizable procedural textures that can be adjusted within the Unity editor and at run time. Using substances in Unity, developers can stream high-quality textures in just a few kilobytes, reducing download times. Those textures can also be modified in real time on PC and Mac or baked into traditional textures for mobile platforms. Substances also include smart filters, allowing artists to make awesome bitmaps and optimize their texturing pipeline. 

Other notable new features and enhancements include: 

• Editor enhancements, such as user-assignable Scene View icons and modifiable primitive colliders, allow for more efficient game development.
• Optimizations and performance improvements on everything from shadow renderers to animation components result in increased visual quality and faster rendering.
• Downloadable content with caching for complete scenes and asset bundles leads to smaller downloads and improved player experience across all platforms. 

Unity 3.4 also contains hundreds of minor improvements and fixes. 

Unity, Unity Technologies' entry-level product, is free for commercial use by startups, small companies, students, and individual developers. To get the free, feature-packed Unity for creating games and interactive visualizations, visit: http://unity3d.com/unity/download.