Over the Edge has released Unity v1.5, a new version of their 3D gaming engine for Mac OS X. Unity is available in “Indie” and “Pro” versions for $249 and $1,499 respectively. It’s a free upgrade for registered users.
Unity is used to craft 3D games and simulations using an advanced visual editor. It lets Mac game developers create a game that can be deployed on Mac, Windows, or even as a Tiger Dashboard widget.
Unity 1.5 is the first version to emerge as a Universal Binary that runs natively on Intel and PowerPC-based Macs. Also new in this release is a Windows Web browser plug-in; a new character animation system that supports blending, mixing, additive animations, layers and more.
Unity 1.5 also features a dedicated wheel collider and other effects used for high-speed car physics. More full-screen filters have also been added, including Noise Filter, Glow Filter and Contrast Stretch.
Unity 1.5 also provides a mesh script interface that provides you with access to all vertex data; textures and particles script interfaces; lightmap support, TrueType typography, Cinema 4D importing; five times as much documentation as before, and more than 256 other new features and improvements.
System requirements call for Mac OS X v10.3 or later; G3/500MHz or faster and ATI Radeon or Nvidia GeForce 3D graphics with at least 32MB VRAM.