What's new in 4.3?

The Forma Editor 4.3 release includes quality-of-life improvements and fixes.

Increase the minimum Unity Editor version

Unity Forma now requires the Unity Editor version 2021.3, which lets you use the Unity Editor's latest features, improvements, and fixes.

Remove Forma Mode Editor layout support

This release removes the Forma Mode Editor layout. The previously used windows (refer to Unity Forma User Interface) are still available and you can place them in the Unity Editor so that the interface resembles Forma Mode. For information about how to customize a workspace, refer to Customizing your workspace.

User interface improvements

The Forma Menu in the Application menu is reorganized and simplified.

With this release, you can do the following:

  • Install the Forma Render package using the Forma menu.
  • Provide a fallback font in the Project Settings in case the default font fails to render specific characters. This supports multiple languages (including currency symbols).
  • Associate a camera to a feature set. Selecting any feature in that set automatically activates the camera.
  • Export the current product as a Unity package (.unitypackage).

The following are performance improvements:

  • The Product Outline can now handle larger data sets.
  • The camera selection is more responsive.
  • The Variant Table is optimized and switches variants faster.

Changes

  • The UI Canvas is now automatically created in the scene when you select the Configurator GameObject.
  • The environment scene, instead of the scene containing the Configurator, is now the active scene.

Builds

Relative build folder paths

Build profiles can now use relative folder paths, which simplifies sharing projects with others.

Compatibility settings

The Unity Forma Editor is bundled with a variety of Compatibility Settings assets that provide sane defaults for builds that target different platforms. Those settings are applied at build time and based on the target platform of the currently selected build profile.

The Unity Forma Editor 4.3 release has the following improvements:

  • The mobile device default screen orientation is added to the Compatibility Settings.
  • A dialog appears and prompts you to indicate which value to use for each project setting that's different from the value stored in the Compatibility Settings asset.

Public API

This release makes the following changes to the Forma Editor public API:

  • Adds an API method to determine a Variant Set's type
  • Adds an API method to get a Variant Set's assignments and targets
  • Adds an API method to show, fade, and hide the splash screen
  • Adds an API method to change the active Profile Definition
  • Adds a TryGetFeatureSet method in the VariantTable class to get feature sets with their codes
  • Makes the BuildHelper class public
  • Makes the VariantTableExtensions class public and accessible at runtime

Stability improvements

This version of Unity Forma fixes issues from the previous release and adds quality-of-life improvements. For more information about stability improvements in this release, refer to the Changelog.

What's new in 4.0?

This release includes several new tools and updates to help Unity developers, professionals responsible for product correctness, and technical artists complete critical technical tasks faster, so that they can spend more time creating.

Notable new features and improvements include:

WebGL optimizations to enhance loading time

Optimizations include:

  • Mesh compression, mobile-friendly textures, texture streaming, and loading order optimizations.
  • Sequenced loading to support, for example, loading environments on demand.
  • Optimized Unity Engine delivery.

Smart Merging

To support CPU-constrained scenarios, such as projects with raytracing, Unity Forma now lets you:

  • Automatically reduce number of batches to optimize performance

  • Merge objects with respect to the Visibility and Material variants

Continuous Integration Support

APIs and ingestion points support custom Continuous integration setups.

Camera Improvements

You can now customize camera position, interaction, and post-process for product viewing and navigation experiences.

Improvements include:

  • Multi-location camera behavior (you can position and rotate cameras at Waypoints, and more)
  • Camera controller damping
  • Camera blend (Fade In)
  • APIs for adding and updating cameras
  • Enhanced animation editing

Hotspot improvements

You can now add annotations and navigation when you configure hotspots for enhanced authoring and viewing experiences.

User interface improvements

This version of Unity Forma brings significant usability enhancements to Quality Profiles and Rules.

Stability Improvements

This version of Unity Forma fixes several issues over the previous release, including quality-of-life improvements. For more information about stability improvements in this release, see the Changelog.