i still think all gs needs is better editors, material editors and pixel lighting
I don't know what "pixel lighting" is meant to mean to you, but sounds to me like you need to either learn shaders, hire a shader programmer, or use Shade-C ^^
Yes, Unity Free lacks render-to-texture so Gamestudio Commercial has an advantage if this feature is important to you but Gamestudio doesn't come with good dynamic shadows in any edition. Like has been discussed in this thread already they theoretically could be added by yourself but it still seems like nobody has been able to achieve that. All attempts so far are missing something.
Perhaps all attempts that people are going to give away for free are missing something. You'll find that most of the best-looking games use very simple shadow systems -- from the Unity lighting demo's own completely unfiltered and low-resolution point lights to the shadow-mapping in any gorgeous PS3 game (Uncharted 2, anyone?) which is quite sneakily low in range, but the complexity and confined nature of most scenes hide it quite well.
What you miss is that render-to-texture and post-processing effects are required for some very, very simple stuff: bloom, HDR, depth of field, screen-warping effects such as heat-haze and refraction, real-time reflections, and the list goes on. And I've only mentioned the really simple stuff -- stuff that shouldn't be an issue to implement.
I think Unity has a very good balance -- multiplayer and simple shaders would be much preferred over free GS's features. And yes, "simple shaders" is appropriate, because even though you can write your own, almost any advanced shader effect needs render-to-texture. I think Extra would do very well with shaders but no render-to-texture. But if you already have Commercial, or especially Pro, I don't see a reason to move to Unity Free.
Jibb
