Unity 2017 Changelist



Removed deprecated component accessors on Component



Reduced standalone memory usage



Added ComponentRef (automatically fills with the sibling component)



Allowed resources folder to be over 2GB without using bundles



Editor Dark Skin is the only skin



Steam is treated as a platform (includes Steam SDK)



Cloudbuild can upload to Steam



Added GameObject.Spawn which spawns a prefab but doesn't call Awake/Start/OnEnable until you call go.Instantiate() (allows setting up before actual creation)



Added PrefabPool



Added ParticleSystem.AutomaticallyRecycle bool (deletes gameobject when particle finishes)



Layer renamed to RenderLayer



Added PhysicsLayer



RenderLayer/PhysicsLayers are a bitfield, objects can be in multiple layers



Up to 64 RenderLayer/PhysicsLayers



Tags are bitfields, objects can have multiple tags



Added Sound.Play( clip, position, volume, pitch, etc )



Built in components aren't sealed, are derivable, default editor still works



Up to 64 tags



Changing platforms no longer requires reimporting every asset



Added search/filter to console



Console uses monospaced font



Can click on stack trace in console to jump to that file/line



Added back/forward buttons to project folder



Pressing mouse 4/5 navigates project folder history (like a browser)



Common functions are now thread safe



Editor will detect and break out of infinite loops



Profiler shows breakdown of visible meshes, vertices per mesh



ParticleSystem can be placed on overlay canvas



Replaced Mono with NETCore



Getting Object.name no longer allocates memory



Added dynamic occlusion culling



Special hook functions like Update, Awake, Start are virtuals instead of magic



Folders can be marked to compile to dll (compile times, modularity)



Removed Javascript support



Editor no longer freezes when changing files in a huge project



Added Physics.OverlapFrustum



Can serialize components/scriptable objects at runtime (saving, loading, configs)



Can load models, animations, shaders at runtime



Added loopback mode to UNet for singleplayer games



UNet Loopback mode can be used to record/save/play demos



UNet Loopback can be used for saving, loading



Added VoIP support to UNet



UNet transform sync interpolation works (without rigidbody)



Added CSS like styles to UnityUI elements (allowing you to change your games entire UI style from one place)



Headless/Console/Server is treated as a platform



Added automatic LOD generation



Editor child windows don't disappear when alt tabbed



Terrain.Max Mesh Trees works again



Added version number on editor icon



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We do a thing in Rust's subreddit where we get people to post their ideal changelog.I find these threads a lot more useful than reading people's dissertations on what they want changed. They're brief, skimmable, and they're not full of justifications, speculation and predictions.So here's my changelist for Unity in 2017.