Data compression - it’s a daunting subject. It is completely fundamental to our lives though very few of us actually understand it. We all use compression software such as 7-zip or gzip to compress our data, often compressing text files to 30% of their original size or less. Learn more about data compression and bit packing.

One of the most intensely debated topics in the Unity community is how to go about removing jerky movement from games, and rightfully so. The issue is universal to all engines, and is directly derived from what timesteps your engine uses. There is no single solution that works for every situation, but there are certainly sub-optimal practices. Many developers have encountered the issue of motion stutter at one point or another, but getting help can prove difficult. There is a surprising amount of misinformation out there regarding timesteps in Unity. Many answers on the Unity forums, while correct, aren’t comprehensive and leave gaps in understanding needed to fully resolve the issue. This article aims to tackle the issue in more depth by explaining timesteps in Unity, where and why they can lead to stutter, and presenting a solution that helps resolve the issue. An asset package is provided, along with a demonstration of the solution.

We have learned a lot from its beta and want to share one of our frequent customer use cases that we thought you might find interesting: an alternative to scene merging.

Linear space lighting is a term that game developers are becoming ever more used to hearing as games reach for the next level of realism with physically based rendering models (PBR). Though linear space and its counterpart, gamma space, are fairly simple and important concepts to understand, many developers don't learn what these terms really mean. This document will define gamma and linear space, how they differ, and how it applies to the Unity engine.

Having a programmatic way of integrating testing tools with Unity can benefit teams greatly by offloading repetitive tasks like build releases or running unit tests on an automated system. Luckily Unity has an often overlooked feature: its command line toolset. This is available on all supported Unity editor platforms, including the Unity Linux beta. By using the command line toolset, teams can automate events like builds and unit testing.

In an industry flooded with competition on every level from indie to AAA, creating better games and doing so quickly has become extremely important. Not only do developers need to concern themselves with the quality of their game, but in many cases company longevity can be based upon how quickly they can bring great games to market.

There are some amazing tools for Unity that can give studios the speed and efficiency boost they need to reduce development time

KinematicSoup has been named a Top 25 Up and Coming company in the annual Branham300 listing of tech companies in Canada. Founded in 2013, the company has since been at the forefront of tools development for game developers worldwide.

Interview

26 April, 2016

Alex Thiessen from KinematicSoup Technologies talked about Scene Fusion – a new collaboration tool for Unity 5 developers. It’s a new instrument, that allows game developers to build big complex worlds together in one environment. Great stuff for large-scale game production.

Here is another introductory video to our multi-user Unity scene collaboration tool, Scene Fusion. Developers shouldn't have to change their current workflow while using the Scene Fusion system as it is a non-intrusive, organic extension of Unity. 

This video will give you a brief overview of what a typical workflow would look like with Scene Fusion.

Scene Fusion is a tool that we developed to help teams build worlds faster and more collaboratively. The system allows multiple users to edit a Unity scene simultaneously and see their edits in real-time.