Chinese Unity has advanced features not available globally – miHoYo and other local partners may be why
Unity Technologies′ game engine Unity has a separate Chinese version called Tuanjie (which translates literally to “Unity”), developed by Unity China. Recently, certain custom features exclusive to the Chinese version of Unity, such as a Nanite-like virtual geometry system, have come to the attention of global communities.
Unity China is a regional joint venture formed in 2022 and funded by miHoYo, Alibaba, Douyin Group and other investors. At the time of its announcement, it was mentioned that Unity China would begin development of customized local versions of its core products to meet the needs of Chinese game developers, including Tuanjie, a Chinese version of the Unity game engine. Tuanjie was officially released in January 2024.
Tuanjie has recently become a topic of discussion, after user laurentlavigne reported on the official Unity forums that it includes specifications not found in the global version. A manual for the Chinese version of Unity includes references to a virtual geometry solution, which has not been implemented in the global version of Unity at the time of writing.
Nanite is a system used by the game engine Unreal Engine 5 to implement virtual geometry. Virtual geometry allows developers to improve performance while achieving high quality expression by automating or dynamically controlling conventional techniques such as Level of Detail (LOD) and normal mapping. For example, when a large number of 3D models are displayed at once, the processing speed slows down and performance is compromised. LOD is a countermeasure to this problem. Performance can be improved by preparing models with a reduced polygon count and switching between them according to the distance from the camera. Normal mapping is a technique for expressing unevenness while reducing the number of polygons. By using textures to express the reflection of light, it is possible to economize on polygon count for the details.
Virtual geometry is a technique that combines LOD processing and normal mapping to express details in geometry, which is automatically performed by the GPU. In other words, it is an easy way for developers to achieve high quality graphics with minimal load.
The fact that only the Chinese version of Unity includes this feature has caused controversy, as users express disagreement with the seemingly region-locked expansion of the engine. In addition, a report by gamefromscratch also mentions the existence of a Lumen-like real-time dynamic global illumination solution and mobile raytracing in Tuanjie.
MiHoYo’s Genshin Impact is a game that was famously developed in Unity. According to a presentation by Zhenzhong Yi, a studio technical director at miHoYo, the developer has a team that specializes in Unity customization. For example, many features were added for the PS4 port of the game. The addition of new custom features to the Chinese version of Unity may have been the result of feedback, funding and cooperation from local companies.
Written by. Amber V based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2024-03-01 12:52 JST)
Is it really a custom version of unity or just a studio’s overhauled version, like say a studio who built some Cool tech around their game that was built on top of unity, like playdead or whoever else? I.e. where does chinese unity get its funding? Is it part of the official offering of unity? Is it subject to the same type of censorship like all yhe other western internet? This article smells like an odd form of propaganda and would be nice to know more.
Seems like China has exclusive features that no one else has and is not subject to the same rules as everyone else due to behind the scenes dealings and the high userbase that has been tempting to U.S Anglo companies to ignore.