Unity 4.5 Update Available

Unity Engine

Today, Unity Technologies announced the release of Unity 4.5!

While mostly a release aimed at bugfixes, with over 450 bugs corrected since the last release, this release also includes some updates to the engine iteration and 2D tools.

Update to Unity 4.5! Get a bunch of new features & fixes! Btw, 4.6 is next and GUI with it! Release notes: http://t.co/DBCkmpTKxy #unity3d

— Unity for Games (@unitygames) May 27, 2014

Behold! Unity now has a Module Manager for platform specific hotfixes! Read more: http://t.co/VKCKpQ0sAz #unity3d

— Unity for Games (@unitygames) May 27, 2014

We have updated our 2D tools! E.g.: you can now drag 2D objects around your game in play mode. Read more: http://t.co/4Cf7DQ7eNC #unity3d

— Unity for Games (@unitygames) May 27, 2014

Features

• Shader importing has been massively improved. Instead of compiling all shader variants for all possible platforms at import time, now the needed shader variants for needed platforms are compiled on-demand. Shader compilation results are cached under Library folder, so identical compilations happen much faster.
• Added Sparse Texture support (also known as “mega textures” or “tiled textures”). This is a low-level API feature, see SparseTexture class. Implemented on DirectX 11.2 (via tiled resources) and desktop OpenGL (via ARB_sparse_texture).
• Added stereoscopic rendering on DX 11.1 (requires Windows 8.1 and compatible hardware).
• Introduced support for OpenGL ES 3.0 on iOS devices (starting with A7 devices), including support for 3D textures.
• Introduced Module Manager with updatable platform support. iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8, Blackberry Unity add ons can be updated without downloading full editor installer. Accessed through Modules menu, next to Preferences menu.
• New Hierarchy Window sorting – sorting of elements is now based on transform order instead of name.
• Introduced new editor API AssetDatabase.FindAssets (string filter, string[] folders). Search the Asset Database for assets by filename, type and asset label.
• Added Selection.assetGUIDs for getting the current selected assets in the Project Browser. It also returns the folder selection in the first column in the Project Browser (in Two Column mode) which is not part of the main selection.
• Added 2D Joint Gizmos.
• Added new 2D physics component: WheelJoint2D.
• Unity Remote 4 is our play testing solution for iOS and Android. As of Unity 4.5, there’ll be no more Wifi latency when playtesting your games on iOS devices. Plus, we’ve added support for the full range of iOS device inputs including accelerometers, gyroscopes and camera images. Unity Remote 4 is available free of charge from Google Play and the App Store.
• Added CanTransitionToSelf option on AnyState Transitions.
• Added new scripting function Animator.Rebind(). You can use this function to manually rebind the animator data set to unity when you change something in your GameObject hierarchy.
• For humanoid rigs, in the importer, you can specify a transform node that will be used as root motion for an animation clip. The transform node will replace the automatically extracted root motion computed by Mecanim. (Pro Only).
• Added Compass API to check for compass accuracy. (Windows Store)
• AppCallbacks methods InvokeOnUIThread and InvokeOnAppThread will detect deadlock and throw exception. Added TryInvokeOnUIThread and TryInvokeOnAppThread, which return true or false instead.
• Support for programmatically opening touch screen keyboard. (Windows Store)
• In Player Preferences added support for scaled resources: splash screen, medium and wide tile, store and small logos. (Windows Store)
• In Player Preferences added support for Windows 8.1 scaled resources and related settings. (Windows Store)
• New APIs for changing system cursor – AppCallbacks::SetCursor, AppCallbacks::SetCustomCursor, WSA.Cursor.SetCustomCursor. (Windows Store)
• Added support for changing screen resolution on Windows 8.1. (Windows Store)
• Introduced DisallowMultipleComponentAttribute for disallowing multiple components of the same type being added to a single GameObject.
• Add UnityEngine.ISerializationCallbackReceiver interface, to get a callback right before serialisation and right after deserialization.
• Structs with System.Serializable attribute can now be serialized. Also, fields of AnimationCurve[] and double[] now get serialised.
• WebPlugin: Added Enhanced Protected Mode support for Internet Explorer. Supports IE 64 bit.

Plus, hundreds of improvements, changes, and fixes!

Learn More

More more information on what is included in Unity 4.5, see the What’s new in Unity 4.5 document.

Go Get It

As always, you can download the free version of Unity 4.5 from their website and get started using it right away.