Unity Roadmap

Support for Android App Bundle (https://developer.android.com/guide/app-bundle/) the new upload format for Google Play, which allows to generate and serve optimized APKs for each user’s device configuration.

Faster APK package build times on Android with internal build system: allow using apkzlib instead of aapt / apkbuilder when building Android applications.

Methods for doing raycasts on the NavMesh, compatible with the C# job system.

Update to use the Roslyn compiler. This will let users use the latest C# 7 features.

Support for GPU acceleration of the Progressive Lightmapper. Light baking with the Progressive Lightmapper will be significantly faster. This will improve iteration and baking times. Does not affect the Enlighten baking backend.

We now provide APIs for triggering haptics on the Windows Mixed Reality headset controller, Vive controller through OpenVR, and Oculus Touch controllers. We’ll continue expanding platform support and creating more feature abstractions in future releases.

Enables tilemap users to build isometric or hexagonal tilemaps.

Sometimes probes cannot faithfully represent the actual lighting information in a scene. In such cases “ringing” may occur which manifests itself as unwanted rings in objects lit by light probes. When enabled, the new feature removes ringing at the cost of reduced accuracy and contrast.

This update introduces a number of improvements to Unity’s Prefab workflows.

1. Nested Prefabs. Yes, it’s finally happening.
2. Prefab Variants. This feature lets a Prefab inherit the properties of another Prefab.
3. Prefab Mode. New workflow for editing Prefab assets in isolation. You’ll no longer need to drag a Prefab to an open Scene to edit it.

• Burst Probability: Adds a new property to the Burst UI, which gives bursts a random chance of not being triggered at all.
• External Forces Upgrade: Introduces a new ParticleSystemForceField Component, which can be assigned to the External Forces Module of Particle Systems. This new Component offers a variety of controls, for gravity, drag, vortex motion, etc, when particles are inside its volume.
• Flip Option: We have moved the FlipU/FlipV options from the Texture Sheet Animation Module into the Renderer Module and enabled flipping on each axis for Mesh Particles. Be sure to use a shader with backface culling disabled, when flipping your meshes!
• Ordered Mesh Emission: A new option in the Shape Module for meshes, called "Vertex Ordered", which emits particles from each vertex of the mesh in order. This option behaves similarly to the Systematic option in the Legacy Particle System and is being added prior to the final removal of the Legacy Particle System.
• Ring Buffer Mode: A new Particle System mode where particles don't die when their lifetimes elapse. Instead, they remain until the Max Particles property is exceeded, at which point the oldest particles are replaced when new ones spawn. Useful for footprints, bullet holes, etc, and other persistent objects, where the user wants them to stay as long as possible, whilst maintaining a maximum budget.
• Roll Option (for VR): A new checkbox to disable roll when the camera rolls. This is most useful in VR applications where users do not want particles to follow the camera when the user rolls their head from side to side.
• Shape Module Improvements:
  • Add visualization of the Radius Thickness property in the Scene View.
  • Allow the Arc property to be used on the Sphere/Hemisphere shape.
• Texture Sheet Animation Improvements: Adds 2 new modes to the Texture Sheet Animation Module:
  • An FPS mode, where animations play at a fixed FPS, regardless of particle lifetimes.
  • A speed-based mode, where the animation frame is chosen based on particle speed, rather than age.

Upgrade NVIDIA PhysX from 3.3 to 3.4

It is time to remove the Legacy Particle System.

We are providing an upgrader on GitHub, which will convert Legacy Components (e.g. ParticleEmitter) into new Components (e.g. ParticleSystem). this upgrade should be performed in Unity 2018.2 or earlier.

Starting with Unity 2018.3, Legacy Particle Components will not work.

In 2018.3 SpeedTree v8 assets (*.st files) are recognized and imported using SpeedTree importer:
• A new SpeedTree8 shader is used by the generated materials.
• Supports per-LOD approximated sub-surface scattering effect.
• Supports top-down billboards.
• Supports back face lighting.
• Improved vertex shader performance.

• GPU-instanced render path for terrain, yielding a dramatic reduction in draw calls for most cases.
• Auto-connect of adjacent terrain tiles.
• Seamless painting across multiple connected tiles
• An experimental C# API for building custom terrain tools, which can interact with newly introduced asset types for terrain materials and brushes

Implement multi-threading support in WebAssembly using the upcoming Shared Array Buffers feature in Javascript. This will enable Unity's system and feature to perform faster and more efficiently on supported browsers.

Developers can now target the ARM64 64 architecture when building for the Universal Windows Platform.

Methods for obtaining polygonal geometry from the NavMesh, compatible with the C# job system.

Experimental support for incremental garbage collection, which should reduce stutters and time spikes.

Improve the Shortcut Management in the Editor. Make it possible for users to be able to remap keyboard shortcuts, and let feature developers be able to expose actions that can be mapped to shortcuts. The system is able to gracefully handle conflicts, where 2 actions are assigned to the same keys.

Texture Mip Map Streaming was added in 2018.2 for Play Mode and Standalone players.

This new feature enables Texture Mip Map streaming in Edit Mode in the Editor:

• This saves GPU texture memory in Editor by only loading the mips required for the Scene View or Play Mode views.
• This feature is disabled by default but can be enabled in the Editor settings.

Author VR in VR:

• Lay out your scenes in VR
• Adjust component properties while in VR
• Profile your performance as you edit
• Create custom tools and workspaces

Forum: https://forum.unity3d.com/forums/editorvr.126/
GitHub: https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/EditorVR/

Editor: Linux Support
Unity Feedback Link - Linux Support for Editor

Create a better, more adaptable input system for Unity.

• Event-based, framerate-independent input delivery
• Custom device creation
• More consistency between platforms and input devices
• Better integration of variety of input types
• Better support for multiple control schemes
• Better separation between input and game logic
• Deeper API access
• More customizability

The icons are getting a stylistic update, while being designed for greater consistency.

The Unity Hub provides a convenient new way to manage your Unity projects and installations. You can use the Hub to create your Project, associate a default version of the Unity Editor with the project, and manage the installation of multiple versions of the Editor.

• Expose low-level collider primitives of circle, edge, polygon & capsule and ability to retrieve from existing Collider 2D components.
• New 2D collider with ability to be composed of low-level collider primitives.
• Super fast, primitive intersection tests with batching support not requiring 2D collider components.
• Gizmo support for primitive collider shapes of circle, edge, polygon & capsule. Useful in visualising/debugging intersection tests.

• Multi-instance 2D physics worlds.
• Ability to assign simulation group(s) to Rigidbody2D and simulate specific group(s) and/or calculate contacts for those group(s) only.
• Expose contact processing allowing users to defer contact solving, enable/disable contacts etc.

Addressable Assets handle the code complexity of creating, managing, and loading content by removing the steepest part of the learning curve and automating tedious tasks. Addressable Assets decouple the project code and content layout to eliminate the need for tracking assets and refactoring code. By starting with Addressable Assets, your game development can scale without increasing complexity. The game creator no longer needs to think about shipping details while making their game.

User definable IK chains

Add the ability to record Main and Mixer outputs to file

• Integrate V-HACD
• A single mesh can be automatically decomposed into a set of convex MeshColliders
• Helps with collision detection performance and accuracy
• Enables sophisticated meshes on dynamic bodies and triggers

The basic player localization feature is a set of features to add localization support in games made with Unity.

Deeper, more prominent reporting of information about the player build process and outputs.

Methods for obtaining polygonal geometry from the NavMesh, compatible with the C# job system.

Polish the Hackweek X project on distributing lighting builds (precompute/baking) across machines on a LAN. The aim is to make a system that will automatically discover available machines and use them for time consuming lighting builds. No setup should be required. Video .

Extend Game View resolutions by also emulating a given DPI.
Particularly useful for getting accurate representations of UI layouts on target devices.

A form of rigging that uses a collection of interchangeable parts that connect together to create a modular rig. Each interchangeable part is comprised of a series of RigConstraints that defines how the part moves, deforms, and is influenced by other parts of the ControlRig.

Allows creating texture and rendertexture with all the formats supported by modern GPUs

Gives the users ability to easily view all the draw calls for the IMGUI, with the option to open the source file in the right location, view all the data used to render the item.

Localization of the Editor UI. (No runtime or building localized assets)

Standard shader needs optimizations for low-end mobile/PC platforms. Some of these need to be GPU specific (for very popular GPU families)

• Optimizations for Apple/PowerVR GPUs
• Approximate/simplify for low-end GPUs like Mali-400
• Automatic switching between "do math in shader" vs "texture lookup table" depending on GPU
• Procedural Skybox shader optimizations

Low-overhead C# Samplers. Ability to collect high-level performance data in non-development players.

Make it possible to selectively persist changes made during Play Mode so they are not lost.

Adds support for rendering textures directly to an HMD compositor, bypassing the application rendering.

A new retained-mode GUI framework to rapidly develop performant and reusable Editor Extensions.

• New Animatable 2D Collider that tracks SpriteRender mesh.
• Explicit Kinematic Rigidbody2D Hierarchy control.

• EdgeCollider2D 'adjacent edge' support allowing chaining of EdgeCollider2D together with virtual edges.
• EdgeCollider2D to EdgeCollider2D collision support

• New asset-based effector behaviour system allowing blending of multiple behaviours.
• SurfaceEffector2D "speed-up only" support disabling slowing down if surface speed is too high.

• LiquidFun Integration

• HingeJoint2D motor "free spin" support
• Joint2D anchor local scaling support

• Full integrated shared physics materials

• Asynchronous CompositeCollider2D outline and triangulation.
• Asynchronous PolygonCollider2D triangulation.
• Multithreaded simulation.

• Transform write-back to planes other than XY using swizzle option i.e. write back to XZ, YZ etc.
• Customised collision modes allowing alternatives to layer-based detection.
• Distance based wake-sleep for Rigidbody2D.
• Ability to retrieve all Rigidbody2D, Collider2D & Joint2D.
• Wake/Sleep Callbacks.

Allows Android target to export Visual Studio project, you can the both build apk files and debug Android application from within Visual Studio.

In Visual Studio 2015, Microsoft added support for Android. It has capabilities of both building Android applications (with gradle) and debugging Android applications (with gdb wrapper).

Read more here - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2016/06/12/build-your-android-applications-in-visual-studio-using-gradle/

Support more than one version of a project, for selective development

• Streamlined and unified structure for the increasing number of windows, tools, and visualisations in the editor.

Physical units, CCT, IES, ...

Recording API provides a high-performance thin-layer audio and screen and front-camera recording functionality to Unity engine on iOS and Android platforms.

Recording API allows developers to record their gameplay moments so that can be shared to different audiences.

Give Asset Store authors the ability change their APIs with less friction and retain compatibility

• Allows you to visually compare differences in your Unity project for prefabs and scenes.
• Built on top of the existing Unity smart merge (YAMLMerge).

Initial prototype of Visual Scripting, for internal demonstration and feedback gathering purposes.