Unity for ID@Xbox Developers!

I have heard about Unity3D for a long time now, and while I was writing samples and learning all I could about games and graphics programming in XNA I never really gave it a second thought. I think this was because it looked like a simple drag and drop interface for creating simple games, granted across many platforms, but at a price, which as a bedroom coder/hobbyist is not an attractive thing to be.
But, with the announcement that the Unity Pro version would be FREE to ID@Xbox developers, I had to check it out. I first heard about this via the awesome Facebook group I am a member of, Xbox Indie Devs, where one of the guys on there reported that Unity had posted an article on their blog about it, which then also took me to the Xbox news for the same thing, so I had to go and get me a copy to try it out, and I have to say, I am quite impressed with what I was able to do in just a few short hours.
This is the culmination of a couple of lunch hours and an evening with Unity and the Unity online beginners help.

My First Look at Unity

In this scene are three animated mesh’s (you must recognise Dude!) as well as three point lights a number of cubes, and a cavern mesh, I have some physics in there too for the box’s and the dudes.
I am really impressed with Unity, and how easy it was to create something so quickly, even if you are not part of the ID@Xbox program, then I would suggest you check it out anyway. I am just hoping I am going to be able to write my own shaders for it, as well as do Post Processing and all the other great stuff I have learnt from XNA. I dare say I will, I just have lots to learn, again…
So, with that I am hoping to start posting my adventures in the world of Unity, and hope it helps others as they come to use it.