Unity Beta 5.6 Released

 

With the release of Unity 5.5 a couple weeks back, we had to know that Unity 5.6 beta would be just around the corner.  Well, we have officially rounded that corner, Unity 5.6 Beta was released today. 

So, what’s new in Beta 5.6 release?

  • Vulkan renderer support (Android, Windows, Linux, Tizen)Unity56
  • Metal Compute support (iOS, Mac OS/X)
  • GPU instancing and particle system performance improvements
  • EncodeToEXR to Texture2D, save HDR textures to EXR on disk
  • 2D Game Dev workflow improvements
    • Axis Distance Sort for Z sorting
    • Outline Editor added to Sprite Editor Window ( automatic tessellation or manual mesh shape editing)
    • 2D Physics casting API and new 2D Contact API
    • CompositeCollider2D, merge multiple colliders
    • 9slice (9patch?) support
  • New video player with 4K and 360 degree support
  • Unity Collaborate improvements (partial publish, ignore files, rollback)
  • iOS added to Unity Performance Reporting
  • Google Daydream and Cardboard support added ( was previously a forked version )
  • Support for Facebook GameRoom
  • Physics Debug Visualization
  • Physics.ComputePenetration and Physics.ClosestPoint functions added

 

They also discussed some upcoming features for 5.6:

  • Progressive Lightmapper for baked lightmaps
  • more light modes
  • redesigned lighting window + new Light Explorer window
  • timeline (cinematics system)
  • multithreaded jobs system
  • new platforms (such as Nintendo Switch)

 

You can read more details about the 5.6 release here as well as more details of their upcoming features here.

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