Upgrading Unity 3.5.7 -> 4? Advice?

Kilgore__Trout

Hi,

Wondering if anyone has any experience of migrating a project between Unity 3 and 4?

I'm well through my current project and my initial plan was to complete this project on Unity 3, but I'd like the option of releasing for Linux down the line, which is a 4 only feature.

Have a general tendency to sandbag when it comes to upgrading to new software, (worked well for Vista and Windows 8), but I'm not sure what to do here.

Would it be better to take the plunge now, or finish, release for Windows and Mac, then think about moving to Unity 4? I'm aware that the transition might be smooth, but I'm afraid of introducing bugs into the game by migrating in the late stages of development.

Advice?

Torakx

I think thats a valid concern.
There are some things they changed and stopped doing, new 3rd party plugins they integrated etc
For example they use a new occlusion culling system and possibly nav mesh.
I would think if you know you need Unity4+ then do it as soon as possible and adjust any changes needed.
Make a copy of the project and zip it for storage before upgrading.
Also if you know someone with a later version of unity you could make a copy of your project now and upgrade the project on their version to see if it's buggy.
Or have two installs? Not 100% on how/if that would work.

Kilgore__Trout

Thanks Torax. There aren't a huge amount of Linux gamers, but if it's not too much work might be good to get it on that platform too. Might be best to move on it, as you say.

Going to check if the middleware I'm using is Linux compatible first, as it probably wouldn't make sense having to rebuild these components manually.

Anything else you can think of that has been phased out in 4? I'm using 3 Free atm. Guessing the legacy particle systems are still supported?

Torakx

Yep pretty sure legacy particles are still there in the standard packages.
Can't remember what other things they might have changed.
Most likely it will work ok. Sometimes I have come across shaders and effects having conflicts with upgrades but nothing serious so far.
All the scripts you made should be ok anyway Thats the bit I would worry about most.

Kilgore__Trout

Ended up making the upgrade from 3.5.7 -> 4.3.4 yesterday. Thought I'd post incase anyone else is in same situation. Didn't really want to do it, because it felt like I was getting close to finishing. What forced my hand in the end was the inability to add a custom hardware cursor in 3.5.7.

Possible to add a software cursor (by switching off cursor, and drawing a texture through OnGUI) but I didn't like the feel of it (not as responsive) and the fact I used a lot of GUI windows/layers made the cursor dissappear, meaning you had to switch it off in one layer, and on in another. Doable, but a nuisance, so figured time would be better spent upgrading.

Made a backup beforehand. There were a number of errors, mainly null pointers (caused by classes having the Monobehaviour extension, when they shouldn't have). Worst of the bug hunt was over in a few hours. Also some minor changes to fonts. Overall, it seems to have gone fairly well. Haven't got around to performance testing, but it seems like per pixel lights are more efficient in 4.3.4.