I really like ShiVa but I think I'm going to have to go with Unity and here's why.
- French, I don't know French and a lot of support on the forums is in French. They (the devs) try to translate when they can which is nice but it's not always there.
- Industry Status, Unity has it. With company's like Cartoon Network using it knowledge of the tool becomes a resume builder.
- iPhone support, now I played iBall3D on the iPhone and it runs quite well. Check it out in the free section of the App Store, it's the first ShiVa entry. However, I know that ShiVa doesn't support every feature of the iPhone (for example turn your iPhone's sound off and ShiVa doesn't comply). Unity seems to be picking up on more of the subtleties. Also, there is an issue about the interpreted code. I read on the ShiVa forums that they interpreted that line of the iPhone licensing agreement a certain way. When they started talking about various interpretations of interpreted code a red flag was raised.
The only thing that was stopping me from going with Unity for the whole of the last year was getting a new Mac. I have a G4 Mac Mini that I used to do my little ports over the last few years and it doesn't hold up to Unity well. In fact I really just don't like the work flow of a Mac. Windows is so much more efficient it's not even funny. However, for the iPhone it looks like I'm going to have to get a new Intel machine because I just can't seem to get the various G4 deployment tricks working. If I have to upgrade to an Intel machine anyway I might as well go all out.
Don't get me wrong ShiVa and Unity are both very good tools. In my opinion they are the best available and I might end up using both. ShiVa is afterall just $200 with iPhone support. My extensive testing of the tool was successful but I'm getting a slight feeling that something is off and my gut doesn't lie.
- French, I don't know French and a lot of support on the forums is in French. They (the devs) try to translate when they can which is nice but it's not always there.
- Industry Status, Unity has it. With company's like Cartoon Network using it knowledge of the tool becomes a resume builder.
- iPhone support, now I played iBall3D on the iPhone and it runs quite well. Check it out in the free section of the App Store, it's the first ShiVa entry. However, I know that ShiVa doesn't support every feature of the iPhone (for example turn your iPhone's sound off and ShiVa doesn't comply). Unity seems to be picking up on more of the subtleties. Also, there is an issue about the interpreted code. I read on the ShiVa forums that they interpreted that line of the iPhone licensing agreement a certain way. When they started talking about various interpretations of interpreted code a red flag was raised.
The only thing that was stopping me from going with Unity for the whole of the last year was getting a new Mac. I have a G4 Mac Mini that I used to do my little ports over the last few years and it doesn't hold up to Unity well. In fact I really just don't like the work flow of a Mac. Windows is so much more efficient it's not even funny. However, for the iPhone it looks like I'm going to have to get a new Intel machine because I just can't seem to get the various G4 deployment tricks working. If I have to upgrade to an Intel machine anyway I might as well go all out.
Don't get me wrong ShiVa and Unity are both very good tools. In my opinion they are the best available and I might end up using both. ShiVa is afterall just $200 with iPhone support. My extensive testing of the tool was successful but I'm getting a slight feeling that something is off and my gut doesn't lie.