Unity

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Hello Everyone,

Today I will introduce one of my digital tools that I will be using for my project. The digital tool I am using is called Unity. Unity is the real-time cross-platform development engine that creates 2D, 3D, VR, and AR contents. There are different AR engines, but I chose Unity for many reasons.

One of the main reasons is that I already have experience in developing programs in Unity. I have taken a class with Unity development in Gettysburg College and also I have worked with Unity last year to create a VR content during the DTSF Fellowship. Of course, some might ask why have not try to diversify my skills and try other tools. I have looked at other tools and I have checked that Unity has a very good support to create AR content, so that will help me to easier build my application. Also, because of time constraint of 8 weeks, I know I do not have a lot of time, so I can not waste time on just exploring tools without working on my main project.

Another important reason is that Unity is free for developers who are not earning money for building the Unity project for $100,000 per year. For my project, I am able to use the free version of Unity and still be able to use the full capability of Unity. Because Unity is free, then this tool is open and  accessible for anyone to use it, without excluding anyone. Unity is also sharing collaboration value, as you can share your project with other users and collaborate with them using the Unity Teams function under Unity Collaborate. However, the downside is that for the free version, only maximum of 3 users can collaborate with only 1GB cloud storage, you can increase the cloud storage to 25GB for $9 per month.

Furthermore, many software development kits (SDKs) for AR development are used in Unity. Unity is a platform that is hosting diverse tools that I can use to create AR content. So I am not limited to only what Unity is providing, but I can also implement different projects to Unity.

There is, however, a limitation to my tool as AR is still a new product, so there are not many tutorials out there for me to watch and learn. So I will have to learn on my own. Fortunately,  Unity has a big community that is willing to help and provide hints once I need any help. I can use the Unity Forum and one of the Unity experts can help me with a problem.

Another limitation is that if I would like to create my own scripts, I can only use 3 scripting languages: C#, JavaScript, or Boo. Unity is very up to date and is updating almost every month. However, there can also be problems when creating a project in different versions of Unity, because they might be not compatible, so then the projects might not load in different versions, so I have to be careful with that.

But as I said, I will use this digital tool for my project, because of many pros (and cons)  that I have provided. I hope after experimenting with Unity, I will be able to master some skills essential for my project.

Have a good weekend,

JHA

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