Education Ecosystem Blog

The release of Unity 2018.1 marked the beginning of a new cycle of making game development hassle-free, easier, and more exciting.

Furthermore, the Unity team added several captivating features to the engine, such as Scriptable Render Pipelines (SRP), Shader Graph, C# Job System, and Particle Systems.

Dzim, who has more than four years of game development experience and likes to teach people his skills, says that “in 2018.2, Unity Technologies is taking things a notch higher by building on the features of the previous version and adding several new capabilities to make the lives of game developers much easier.”

Here are some of the exciting Unity 2018.2 features that clearly stand out.

1. Enhancements to the SRP

Initially introduced in the 2018.1 version, the SRP is a wonderful feature that adds flexibility and versatility to the way Unity development build does rendering.

In 2018.2, SRP has been improved by adding the following key features:

• SRP batcher: It accelerates CPU rendering without influencing GPU performance. With this new feature, you will not use legacy SRP rendering code again.
• Scriptable shader variants stripping: This new feature allows you to minimize player build time and data size that usually increase as your project becomes complicated. Since the number of shader variants produced often increases with the complexity of a project, this feature enables you to strip all shader variants easily and reduce performance-related issues.
• Lightweight Render Pipeline (LWRP): This feature provides high performance, especially for lower-end infrastructure and performance-thirsty applications.
• High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP): It was initially introduced in Unity 2018.1. The new HDRP has gone a step further to assist you to realize optimal high-end visual quality for high-end platforms like consoles and PCs.

2. Enhancements to the Shader Graph

Shader Graph was introduced in 2018.1 to allow developers to create amazing shaders visually, instead of writing complicated lines of code in Unity web games.

The Unity 2018.2 engine has several enhancements to this powerful shader tool, including:

• Support for shaders built for both LWRP and HDRP platforms.
• Ability to modify vertex position through the Position slot on the PBR (Physically Based Rendering) and Unit Master nodes.
• Ability to edit the Reference name for a property, allowing you to reference the shader properties from scripts without complicated steps.
• Ability to edit the path of Shader Graphs and Sub-Graphs, allowing you to modify their locations easily.

3. Enhancements to Particle Systems

The team at Unity has been rebuilding the Particle Systems feature with each update of the system.

Here are some enhancements in Unity 2018.2:

• Support for eight UVs to increase the utilization of custom data in projects.
• MinMaxCurve and MinMaxGradient features for optimized styling capabilities.
• Ability to change colors into linear space before adding them to the GPU.
• The popular Solo Mode feature has been made more discoverable and accessible together with other previewing options.

4. 2D enhancements

Here are some 2D features that have been incorporated in the new release of the Unity engine:

• Pixel Perfect Camera tool to assist you to make sound pixel art decisions using flawless, crisp pixels—irrespective of the screen size you are using. It will automatically complete every calculation for you—maintaining a sharp pixelation—allowing you to achieve the best.
• 2D Sprite Renderer, which allows you to use the pivot point as the reference point for the different sorting methods—instead of relying on the traditional center of the sprite.
• Ability to build captivating 2D Hexagonal Tilemaps such as flat-top and point-top Hexagonal Tiles.

5. Ability to import SVG

Another wonderful new feature in Unity 2018.2 is the ability to import Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) into your game development projects without complicated hassles.

With this feature, you can build sprite assets using a minimal file size without worrying of loss in quality at any resolution.

Conclusion

The team at Unity has done commendable work in improving the engine’s core technology.

The improvements make it easier for games made with Unity to have enthralling graphics while harnessing the capabilities of the modern hardware to provide satisfying user experiences.

You can download the latest Unity game development software from here and unpack some of its other incredible features.

Which feature in Unity 2018.2 excites you the most?

Please provide your comment below.