Unity 4.2 Now Available

Unity Technologies Releases Unity 4.2

Unity 4.2 is now available! As previously announced, this new version of Unity includes three new platforms: Windows Phone 8, Windows Store (for Windows 8 and Windows RT), and BlackBerry 10. Developers using 4.2 can publish to any mobile platform without charge.

Additionally, new technologies are available for the free version of Unity, which were previously only available for Pro users.

1. Realtime shadows (one-directional light with hard shadows only)
2. Text-based serialization of materials, prefabs, scenes etc. (which assists in version control)
3. NavMesh baking

Of course, a number of new features have been added to the Unity engine in 4.2.

Graphics

• OpenGL ES 3.0 support for Android
• GPU Skinning (for DirectX 11, OpenGL ES 3.0 and Xbox 360; Unity Pro only)
• Optimized and updated Image Effects
• Stencil buffer operations for shaders (Unity Pro only)
• Batching for shadow
• Shuriken Collision Event Callback Scripting

Editor

• Integrated Perforce version control
• Ability to cancel platform switching, player building and asset importing
• Support for custom resolutions and aspect ratios
• Save curves, gradients and colors as presets
• Memory Profiler now shows references
• Shader Importer now includes default textures
• Texture Importer performs color dilation (helps correct edge artifacts)
• Warn when RenderTexture usage is not optimal for mobile target

Mobile

• Deferred Lighting is now enabled on Android and iOS
• Support for Android Library Projects
• Support for implementing Java interfaces in C# (AndroidJavaProxy)
• iOS CrashReporter API for crash detection (Unity Pro only)
• Configure iOS player and build iOS AssetBundles from Windows
  Note: Building an actual iOS player still requires Mac OS X & Xcode

Audio

• Added Bypass Listener and Bypass Reverb Zones
• Added Disable Audio property
• Added Player Setting to Prepare iOS For Recording

Mecanim

• Added Avatar Creation API via scripting
• Synchronized Layers option
• Option to set the default layer weight

These are only a portion of the huge number of additions and modifications to the Unity engine. See the full release notes for details on the hundreds of changes in Unity 4.2.

Go get it!

Unity 4.2 is available at Unity3D.com.