Daniel Lawrence

26 March 2015
Genre Analysis Assignment
Unity is a game engine made by Unity Technologies. It essentially provides a framework
for developers to build on when creating games, as well as an editor which makes development
easier. Recently, Unity 5.0 was released, which added a feature called global illumination, or GI.
This feature, essentially, allows for more realistic graphical rendering. Unity is a very popular
engine, and global illumination is a valued feature for developers, making good-looking games
easier to achieve.
The two genres being examined are a post on Unitys official blog, and a news article
about Unitys announcement from the website CinemaBlend. The CinemaBlend article is from
2014 about a year ago, when the announcement that Unity 5 would ship with global illumination
was made. The Unity blog post was made about six months ago, and goes into detail about the
global illumination system, even though version 5 of Unity was only released this month.
The CinemaBlend article is merely reporting on an announcement, giving quotes from
Unitys then-CEO David Helgason, and mentioning the history of global illumination in other
games as well as other game engines. The Unity post, however, provides deeply technical
information, aimed at developers who need to be able to make use of the feature.
The audience for the CinemaBlend article is, in general, knowledgeable and hardcore
gamers people who play games, as well as some who develop them. It is hardly technical, and
mostly informative. Its purpose seems to be more along the lines of informing gamers that, soon,
they will be able to play Unity-made games on all platforms (including mobile) that look much
better than before. The audience is likely to know what global illumination is, but very little

other knowledge is required outside of that, and because of that, they will not need to spend
much time with the information presented.
The Unity blog post, on the other hand, is very technical and very obviously targeted at
developers. The audience is assumed to know about Unitys development workflow, computer
graphics, and a fair bit of mathematics. They will probably spend a large amount of time with the
information presented, in order to understand the systems involved so that they can use the new
tools effectively as soon as they are released. As a Unity developer, knowing how to use a feature
on the day or week that it drops is a good way to remain competitive, and this blog post allowed
many developers to avoid skipping a beat when Unity 5 was released.
The CinemaBlend article establishes credibility by including, for one, a quote from
Unitys then-CEO: were looking to empower developers with technology thats more powerful
and easier to apply than ever before. Also, the article links to other articles with related subjects,
as well as the official Unity website and the website of Enlighten, the software Unity is licensing
in order to include global illumination. The article evokes an emotional response of excitement,
partially by simply giving the news of upcoming global illumination, and also by listing the new
features that Unity will also be including, such as better audio mixing and WebGL access
(allowing someone to play an actual, fully-featured game inside of a web browser). The article
supports its claims by including Unitys feature preview video and linking to Unitys website,
and links to other articles on the CinemaBlend website to support its discussion about global
illuminations in other enginesspecifically, Unreal Engine 4.
The Unity blog post is very credible, mostly because it is written by a Unity employee
and posted on Unitys blog. It uses multiple screenshots and videos to show exactly what global
illumination can do, including professionally made scenes as a demo, but these elements are not

exactly necessary for establishing credibility. Most of the posts credibility comes from its
context, not its content. It does not, however, purposefully evoke an emotional response. Its
purpose is much more informative than emotional, but it does end up, like the CinemaBlend
article, evoking excitement simply because of its content. Developers will be excited about the
new features, even if the article doesnt make an effort to excite them. They support their claims
in different ways. The first claim that the post makes is that true global illumination is hard, and
that is backed up by a mathematical formula:

This formula shows that true global illumination is actually hard, mostly because, as the article
says, L(x,w) is on both sides of the equation and inside an integral to boot. This means that it is
completely non-trivial to compute. For the claim that path tracing (a different rendering
technique) produces very noticeable artifacts until it converges, making it impractical for use in

games, the following image is included:

Its caption is path traced images at various stages of convergence. Later in the post, to show
what Unitys global illumination system is capable of, there are several screenshots of a viking
village scene at various times of day. Finally, there are two videos: one of a real-time scene
making use of global illumination effects, and one showing the workflow needed to work with
and control global illumination. These are all very appropriate pieces of evidence, and they are
very effective at demonstrating the claims made by the author of the blog post, Jesper Mortensen.
The CinemaBlend article is kept short because of its audience and context. People
reading that article are not likely to have come there for a long, in-depth discussion of global
illumination. Because of this, the article presents the news, along with a basic explanation of
what it means, and a small mention of Unreal Engine 4, which also planned to include global

illumination, and Forza Motorsport 5, which was forced to bake most of its lightmaps and
reflections. This meant that it still looked good, but it was completely impossible to change
anything about the tracks or cars on the fly. For example, you couldnt see yourself in another
cars mirror, and dynamic time of day (the sun moving through the sky over time) was
impossible. The short, sweet, and to-the-point structure of this article was effective for its
audience, but it limited the information that could be presented.
In contrast, of course, the Unity blog post was completely free to be as long-winded and
detailed as the author liked, and he took advantage of that fact. Because the posts are not limited
in length, and the audience generally needs a large amount of detail, this particular post could
include lots of very specific information. Videos and screenshots are used to show off Unitys
new feature, and there is also a frequently asked questions section at the bottom of the article,
which answers potential questions from developers, such as Can I do opening of doors and
gates? (This is an issue because opening a door changes lighting in real time, and much of
Unitys global illumination system depends on large-scale geometry being static and known in
advance.)
Overall, the tone of CinemaBlends article is relatively formal, but there are some lapses
in that. For example, the author writes if I must say so myself at one point, which is slightly
informal as well as in the first person, which implies a more conversational tone. He also writes
the fact that now indie games can have all the fancy AAA-style lighting at a fraction of the cost
is awesome, right? which is also informal. He additionally says what good is light sources if
everything looks samey[?] Samey is not exactly a common word, but it does get the point
across: If every object looks the same, it still looks very unrealistic, even if the lighting

technology is advanced. The author also uses the AAA classification multiple times, referring
to games that, essentially, have a very big budget (such as the Call of Duty Franchise, FIFA, etc).
On the other hand, the language used in the Unity blog post is consistently informal. It
does, however, use a lot of specialized vocabulary, such as path tracing, convergence, realtime, caustics, (specular bounces via diffuse surfaces) and transport (as in the simulation of
specular transport). These are just some of the vocabulary used; In general, this topic requires a
large amount of background knowledge in computer graphics and some physics knowledge.
Personally, I prefer the Unity blog post to the CinemaBlend article, but that may be
because I am a better fit for the target audience of the former. Both the post and the article
conveyed their messages effectively, CinemaBlend showing a less detailed version of the
information presented in both, as well as talking more about the history of global illumination;
Unitys blog giving lots of detailed, extremely useful, and slightly dry information. I, personally,
prefer the long-form format of Unitys blog to the short and surface-scratching articles of
CinemaBlend, and I believe that it has value well beyond the scope of game development. Wellwritten, informative articles are good, effective things to have, even if theyre long, and for that
reason, I think the Unity blog post was more effective in conveying its message.

Works Cited
William Usher. Unity 5 Announced With Built-In Global Illumination. Cinema Blend. Cinema
Blend LLC. Web. 26 March 2015. <http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Unity-5Announced-With-Built-Global-Illumination-62868.html >
Jesper Mortensen. Global Illumination in Unity 5. Unity3D. Unity Technologies. Web. 26
March 2015.
<http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/09/18/global-illumination-in-unity-5/ >