Unity Technologies has announced a beta version Unity 2018.1, its first this year. And I really feel like this is going to be the release that really rounds out Unity. Download the beta Here!
One reason is that Unity 2018 now includes a Shader Editor in it. Wow! I mean its about time. I have been using Shader Forge and Amplify Shader editor for so long now. I cant wait to dig into it and begin to post some videos about using it. It'll probably be early days for the tool, but I am excited Unity finally made it native to the application.
One reason to start using the new Unity Shader Editor is to make shaders for Unity's new Scriptable Rendering Pipeline. Called SRP if you are looking for another acronym to add to your vocabulary. ;-) Anyways, the Scriptable Rendering Pipeline allows anyone to set up Unity's rendering structure how they see fit. This is huge for developers who want a very custom way to render their game and not use certain features of Unity's built in Rendering Pipeline. read more about the Unity Scriptable Rendeirng Pipeline here:
One item I was sad to see go was the deprecation of MonoDevelop. I have loved using MonoDevelop throughout the years and I feel like a piece of me is dying with its removal from Unity. Oh well, I bet it is for a good reason and Its time I step up to Visual Studio so I can be like all the other cool kids. ;-) You can still use Visual Studio Code with Unity, which is probably hwo I will start my transition.
Not available yet but also coming soon in the 2018.1 beta cycle is the C# Job System and Entity component system to make it easier to write safe multithreaded code and increase performance.
Anyways, its time to get cozy with the next version of Unity! I am very excited and am downloading as I type this post. So what are you waiting for? Download now!