Unity3D 3 Announced!

Unity 3 was announced a few days ago. Don't know how I missed it since I'm currently building a game with Unity 2. Anyways, looks like version 3 is finally going to get an update on its lighting system now that it is going to be based on a deferred renderer.

For anyone wondering what a deferred renderer is, it is simply a rendering technique where geometry, shading detail and lighting are all rendered individually, then later added together into one final image. The following picture demonstrates this:

Image was found at: http://lhyanor.org/index.php?s=gravitation

Now, there are different ways of doing deferred rendering/shading. The picture above only shows the diffuse layer, normals layer and pixel position layer. You can include an ambient occlusion layer(for pre-rendered AO), light cookies layer, rediosity mapping(ala Source engine)... the list goes on and on.

Anyways, I didn't want to turn this post into a deferred shading lesson. I'm just excited for what's to come from Unity 3.