Migrating to UNIGINE from Unity

You may find the Scene View and the Editor Viewport controls looking very much alike.

Unity Scene View	UNIGINE Editor Viewport

You can use:

• Camera panel to switch between cameras and configure the current one.
• Rendering Debug to display the contents of rendering buffers the same way as using the Draw Mode in Unity Editor.
• Navigation panel to quickly set up and switch between camera speed presets and change the camera position.

Navigation inside the Editor Viewport is pretty much the same as in Unity Scene View. However, get familiar with Scene Navigation so as not to miss details.

Also, a set of global switchers is available in the top toolbar:

• Helpers panel provides quick access to auxiliary visualizers, such as icons, gizmos and wireframes.
• Precompile All Shaders toggle is used for Forced Shaders Compilation
• Animation toggle
• Physics toggle
• Audio toggle
• Play controls

You can use as many Editor Viewports as you need.

You are accustomed that Unity Editor has the Play mode inside the Game View which is rendered from the camera(s) in your scene, being representative of your final build.

In UNIGINE, the Play button is used to run an instance of the application in a separate window. You can switch between Play presets to change essential parameters of the play mode, such as VR Mode to enable compatibility with one of supported VR headsets, as an example.

By default, the mouse cursor is grabbed when clicked in the Play mode. There are two ways to setup default Input Bindings (key states and the mouse behaviour):

• In the Controls settings of the Editor.
• Via code.

As well as Unity software, UNIGINE has the Console used for standard input, output and error logging. A set of console commands is provided.

It is available both in UnigineEditor and a running application. To open the Console window in the Editor, go to Windows -> Console menu:

A built-in console is called by pressing the F1 key:

You can use it to print user messages from code.

You got used to building your projects via Unity Editor. In UNIGINE, packing a final build is also done via UnigineEditor.

A project in UNIGINE, just like a Unity project, is stored in its own folder, project settings are stored in the *.project file. There are various subfolders inside the project's folder, where your content and source files as well as various configuration files and binaries are stored. The most important are the data and source sub-folders.

In UNIGINE, each project has a data folder. Similar to a Unity project's Assets folder, this is where your project's assets are stored. To import assets into your project, simply drop files into your project's data directory and they will be automatically imported and appear in the Asset Browser. The assets in the editor will update automatically as you make changes to the files using an external program.

Unity software supports a wide range of file formats, while UNIGINE supports the most commonly used and some specific ones:

Meshes

You can import an asset you used in Unity software to UNIGINE if you have it as an FBX model. When importing the FBX model to UNIGINE, check the required import options depending on the model.

UNIGINE uses the same units (meters) as Unity software, so you don't need to rescale meshes.

Materials

Similar to Unity software, UNIGINE works with PBR materials and supports both Metalness and Specular workflows (similar to Unity materials based on the Standard and Standard (Specular Setup) shaders), a rich out-of-the-box library of materials enables to create almost any material. Similar to Shader Graph in Unity software you can use UNIGINE's Material Graph Editor to create your own materials visually simply by adding and connecting nodes and building a graph! Materials created for your model in Unity software can be re-created in UNIGINE using Material Graphs or a sort of PBR uber-material called mesh_base material.

When importing your models, UnigineEditor will try to automatically recreate materials for them along with the textures they use. This works good in majority of cases, however, sophisticated materials may have to be re-assembled using the Material Graphs, but that won't take much time!

Textures

Textures can be imported as a part of a model or separately and then applied to a mesh. To import textures, you might have to do some adjustments in advance. For example, the Shading texture in UNIGINE stores the metalness, roughness, specular, and microfiber maps in its corresponding channels, so you need to modify the texture using third-party software, such as GIMP or Photoshop, and then import it to UNIGINE.

To import the Normal texture, you should invert the G channel. This can be done while importing the texture (or even later) by using the Invert G Channel setting.

Animations

You can import a bone-animated model you used in Unity software to UNIGINE if you have it as an FBX model. While importing the FBX model, enable the Import Animations option and fine-tune the import using additional options.

For more details, see import recommendations.

This section gives a brief description of basic scene objects in both engines as well as their basic similarities and differences.

Prefabs#

How to Collaborate?#

Cameras, the entities essential for rendering, are treated slightly differently in both engines.

In Unity software, Camera component is responsible for capturing a view and sending it to render. All enabled cameras present in the scene are rendered in the viewport (Game View) and may overlap each other. To switch between cameras, one usually needs to toggle off the current camera and enable the other one.

In UNIGINE, the Camera is a rendering-related object and implemented by the Player nodes in the world. There are several player types with different behaviour provided in order to simplify creation of the most commonly used cameras controlled via the input devices (keyboard, mouse, joystick):

• Dummy is a simple camera wrapper. You can use it for static cameras or enhance with custom logic.
• Spectator is a free flying camera.
• Persecutor is a flying camera that has the target and orbits it at the specified distance. It is a ready-to-use simple solution for a third-person camera.
• Actor is a player that is capable of providing physical interaction with scenery. It has a rigid physical body, which is approximated with a capsule shape. It is a ready-to-use simple solution for a first-person character similar to Unity Character Controller.

Only one player can be rendered into the viewport at a moment. To switch between cameras in the Editor Viewport of the UnigineEditor, use the Camera panel:

By checking the Main Player flag of a player you set the default player, which will be rendered when the scene is loaded in the Play mode.

In Unity Editor, Asynchronous Shader compilation is toggled on and off in the Editor settings (menu: Edit > Project Settings > Editor > Shader Compilation).

In UNIGINE, a similar editor feature, Forced Shader Compilation, is available via both the toolbar and the Editor section of the Settings window.

You use Presets in Unity Editor when you need to reuse property settings that have bearing to different tasks, be it component settings, import settings or especially Project Settings. You can save the settings preset for a certain section of the Project Settings as a .preset asset and reuse in development later.

Presets are an Editor-only feature in Unity software.

In UNIGINE, you can save and load presets for general physics, sound and render settings. The presets are stored as assets with the *.physics, *.sound and *.render extensions respectively. Use Load and Save .* asset buttons of the Settings window to work with presets of the corresponding settings section.

Saved assets appear in the Asset Browser. You can load the render settings by double-clicking the required .render asset.

Presets are not an Editor-only feature in UNIGINE. You can use Physics, Sound and Render classes to manage presets for corresponding settings, for example, to switch between quality levels at run time.

In Unity Editor, settings for graphics quality are mostly gathered in the following sections:

• The Graphics section contains global settings for graphics. The Tier Settings provide platform-specific adjustments to rendering and shader compilation. One of the three Tier levels to be applied is defined automatically based on the platform used.
• The Quality section handles levels of graphical quality defined for each platform.

In UNIGINE, the rendering settings of the world can be found in the Render section of the Settings window. You can also toggle on and off the most common render features by using the Rendering menu:

There is no platform-dependent quiality adjustments in UNIGINE, you should write your own logic to control the quality levels. You can use Render Presets for this purpose.

Let's consider the most commonly used rendering settings in Unity software and their corresponding analogs in UNIGINE:

Rendering Paths#

Post-Processing#