VLC for Unity now supported on Linux

82 pointsposted 7 hours ago
by martz

20 Comments

tmtvl

4 hours ago

On a similar note: Godot VLC (<https://github.com/xiSage/godot-vlc>), because let's not pretend we don't remember the Unity terms change controversy.

thih9

3 hours ago

Context about the Unity terms change controversy: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/unity-is-killing-its-...

> Initially, the Runtime Fee sought to charge developers a per install tariff once projects had passed certain milestones. It was a decision that left many users reeling, resulting in a colossal backlash (…)

How users reacted: https://old.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/16h9lnw/whats...

> Any install, any reinstall, any installation on a second device, each and every one slap the dev with a fee. It gets dumber, because that cracked copy of your game on the high seas still incurs a fee when the pirate installs it. You might think we're at peak stupidity. You might think anyone who makes anything with Unity is a "fucking idiot" (the CEO certainly does), but we're not done yet. It's retroactive. (…)

benoau

2 hours ago

Sounds similar to Apple's "Core Technology Fee", literally a mechanism for sabotaging third party app distribution in the EU.

gumby271

44 minutes ago

Except at least there are alternatives to Unity without replacing your entire OS and hardware.

martz

3 hours ago

yes this is good too, actually started contributing to this :)

martz

7 hours ago

Recently added support for Linux to VLC for Unity, with full hardware decoding.

It uses OpenGL rendering through GLX and EGL, with DMA-BUF texture sharing to pass video frames efficiently to Unity’s renderer.

Only x86_64 is supported at this time. In the future, I will add ARM64 support as well as Vulkan.

sylware

4 hours ago

Don't forget to build 'correct' ELF64 binaries for broad elf(glibc)/linux distro support (-static-libgcc -static-libstdc++, and tight glibc ABI version control with binutils VERSION scripts).

At least those build options should be default.

martz

3 hours ago

thanks for your comment, will look into it!

fusslo

4 hours ago

Can a unity dev/game dev help elucidate why you'd use vlc in unity?

For cutscene playback?

harrisoned

4 hours ago

For a sandbox game this is very useful, where you can spawn video players in-game. For social games (like VRChat) this is also great since synced video playback is a very popular feature for people to watch content together in VR.

csande17

3 hours ago

Unity includes its own video player implementation ( https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/Video.html ), so presumably you'd mainly want to use VLC for wider range of supported codecs?

kjjohnsen

2 hours ago

Basically. Unity video player is fine if you control the content. The other very reasonable option is to funnel shared content through a synced web browser interface. I've developed a few collaborative XR applications, and have used a blend of things to support sharing.

ComputerGuru

24 minutes ago

It’s not hard to use libavcodec to transcode, though.

martz

3 hours ago

RTSP support, twitch-style in-game visio, any kind of non-game Unity apps (there are many), 360 video playback, mediaplayer in VR headset, simulators of all kinds, etc..

Hendrikto

3 hours ago

To everybody else being confused: This is about Unity the game engine, not Unity the desktop environment.

tokai

2 hours ago

Unity (the DE) was discontinued 9 years ago..

ekjhgkejhgk

4 hours ago

Blocked because I don't use cookies. Ok, I've always preferred mpv anyway.

nisiddharth

3 hours ago

I've 3rd party cookies blocked and it works just fine. Have you disabled all cookies?!

xena

2 hours ago

Why do you do this to yourself?