Unity 5.6 Now Available

The 3D Game Development platform Unity gets updated with the latest version 5.6 which the company claims is the final installment of Unity 5 cycle.

 

Unity 5.6 has arrived two years after the release of Unity 5, and it contains a lot of enhancements and new features which can provide the best experience to the developers and through them to the gamers and end-users.

 

Let’s have a look at what is new.

 

 

The new version of Unity is equipped with Progressive Lightmapper preview, a new technique to provide immediate feedback to the developer while testing different lighting scenarios. Also, it helps in sorting out the faster iteration compared to the current Enlighten solution. Along with this, Light Modes are also integrated in order to offer a functionality to mix real time and baked lighting for static and dynamic objects.

 

 

The company’s official, Alex Lian writes,

 

 

 

Users expect a better graphic performance each time a software is updated. In the case of gaming tools, it is like a ground rule to improve the graphics. This is why, GPU instancing has been improved and it is now supported by Procedural instancing. Computer shaders for Metal are added so that users can work on even minor details in a game and harness the power of chipsets, especially in Apple devices.

 

 

Unity 5.6 will offer more options and controls to the users with the help of extended range of particle effects. And, in order to reduce driver overhead and CPU workload, the Unity team has brought Vulkan support in Unity 5.6. This not only keeps CPU free but saves RAM storage along with increased battery life for mobile platforms.

 

Now, you can play 4k videos in a multi-platform video player; this will help you in building 360-degree VR experiences for your gamers. An unbelievable move of the Unity team is the free, native integration of TextMesh Pro which is the most popular and high performing tool on the Unity Asset Store, and offers advanced text rendering and improved control over text formatting and layout.

 

 

 

In Unity 5.6, the performance reporting feature is improved massively. Now, it collects all the information of crash instances happening in iOS. Additionally, exception reporting is added and profiler is improved, which will help sorting the performance issues out.

 

 

As an experiment, this wrap-up version of Unity 5 cycle is integrated with experimental support for WebAssembly that improves the Unity WebGL experience.

 

In the official announcement, the company states,

 

 

Unity 5.6 is available for download and use now for existing users as well as for new users. For a full understanding and a thorough read of the features Unity 5.6 encapsulates, you can go to the official blog or read the release notes.