Testing Unity3D editor on gnu/Linux

Few days ago Unity3D editor support on gnu/Linux reached an important milestone. Thanks to efforts of Na'Tosha Bard and her team, we now have mainline beta builds of Unity3D editor for gnu/Linux operating systems. This has been my long time feature request (Kudos Na'Tosha!).

Now gnu/Linux could become a platform of choice for Indie game developers. Along with Blender for 3D characters design and game environment asset development and Audacity for game audio.

You can download the Unity3D gnu/Linux beta builds in this thread. The latest builds would be in the latest post of this thread, so don't forget to scroll down until you find that last post.

# Download the Unity3D editor .deb package using wget or torrent. 

$ wget -c http://download.unity3d.com/download_unity/linux/unity-editor-5.5.0b1+20160830_amd64.deb
--2016-09-01 19:07:08--  http://download.unity3d.com/download_unity/linux/unity-editor-5.5.0b1+20160830_amd64.deb
Resolving download.unity3d.com (download.unity3d.com)... 175.28.3.10, 175.28.3.16
Connecting to download.unity3d.com (download.unity3d.com)|175.28.3.10|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 206 Partial Content
Length: 2680067522 (2.5G), 718427586 (685M) remaining [application/x-debian-package]
Saving to: ‘unity-editor-5.5.0b1+20160830_amd64.deb’

unity-editor-5.5.0b1+20160830_amd64.d 100%[+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++===================>]   2.50G   446KB/s    in 22m 36s 

2016-09-01 19:29:44 (517 KB/s) - ‘unity-editor-5.5.0b1+20160830_amd64.deb’ saved [2680067522/2680067522]

# Install the downloaded package using dpkg program 

$ sudo dpkg -i unity-editor-5.5.0b1+20160830_amd64.deb 
Selecting previously unselected package unity-editor.
(Reading database ... 697456 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack unity-editor-5.5.0b1+20160830_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking unity-editor (5.5.0xb1Linux) ...
Setting up unity-editor (5.5.0xb1Linux) ...
Setting permissions on chrome-sandbox...
Done.
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon (0.5.3~bzr0+16.04.20160701-0ubuntu1) ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf-2.index...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-6ubuntu3.1) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22-1ubuntu5) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.59ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.15-0ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.23-0ubuntu3) ...

# Start Unity3D editor on command line by typing  
$ /opt/Unity/Editor/Unity

You can track various bugs in this Unity3D Linux Editor forum. There are few of well known issues, such the excessive CPU usage bug (lovely nick-named 'Spock') and here.

Please don't forget to share your experiences with testing Unity3D editor on gnu/Linux.

Full-body game control using FAAST and OpenNI

FAAST is middleware to facilitate integration of full-body control with games and VR applications. The toolkit relies upon software from OpenNI and PrimeSense to track the user’s motion using the PrimeSensor or the Microsoft Kinect sensors. FAAST includes a custom VRPN server to stream the user’s skeleton over a network, allowing VR applications to read the skeletal joints as trackers using any VRPN client. Additionally, the toolkit can also emulate keyboard input triggered by body posture and specific gestures. This allows the user add custom body-based control mechanisms to existing off-the-shelf games that do not provide official support for depth sensors.
http://projects.ict.usc.edu/mxr/faast/

Dan Saffer 'Tap is the New Click'

Spent the first two weeks of January working on an interactive interface concept design for gesture and multi touch device. Can't ask for a better way to start the new year 2011!.
Don't miss Dan Saffer's 'Tap is the New Click' talk on designing for the new touchscreen and gestural devices for the public.

NYC IxDA - Tap is the New Click - Dan Saffer from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.

"Tap is the New Click"

Even though the technology has been around for decades, only now are we starting to see mass production and adoption of c. Jeff Han's influential 2006 TED demonstration of his multitouch system, followed by the launches of Nintendo's Wii, Apple's iPhone, and Microsoft Surface, have announced a new era of interaction design, one where gestures in space and touches on a screen will be as prominent as pointing and clicking.

But how do you create products for this new paradigm? While most of us know how to design desktop and web applications, what do you need to know to design for interactive gestures?

This introduction to designing gestural interfaces will cover the basics: usability and ergonomics; a brief history of the technology; some elemental patterns of use; prototyping and documenting; and how to communicate that a gestural interface is present to users.


ABOUT DAN SAFFER
Dan Saffer runs www.kickerstudio.com. He is an international speaker and author, his writing on design has appeared in BusinessWeek and many online publications. His acclaimed book Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices has been called "a bookshelf must-have for anyone thinking of creating new designs" and has been translated into several languages. His new book on interactive gestures will be published by O'Reilly in October 2008.

Dan is a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and the Interaction Design Association (IxDA). He received his Master of Design in Interaction Design from Carnegie Mellon University.