SM2 - 2D made easy and efficient!

Hi Brady

I am using myNewGameObject = Instantiate (myOriginalGameobject) as GameObject;

myOriginalGameObject is not a prefab, it is a GO already defined and setup in the scene ahead of time.
This object is the parent with no components and the children are all GO's with SM2 packed sprite components (etc) on them.

The GO is successfully cloned but my original GO and it's children are no longer visible in the scene or game view. If I select the parent or one of the child objects, I can see the transform gizmo in the scene but the PackedSprite is no longer visible.

Upon closer inspection of the original GO's all the mesh's are now missing (during run time, they are all back once the game is stopped).

Help!

iByte

 

This may have to do with how SM2 has to destroy the shared mesh to avoid memory leaks. Do the newly instantiated objects have "(Clone)" in their name, at least initially?

 

Yes

 

Strange, then they should be detected as clones and the mesh of the original shouldn't be touched. Is there any way you could e-mail me privately with a sample scene I could take a look at?

 

Hi all;

We're trying to implent 2d animations for the backgrounds of our game. Our systems crash when trying to create a picture atlas with size 4096; they crash at 8 images (1024x1024) on the mac, at 5 images of the same size on the pc. the file size of the images does not seem to matter (behaves the same whether it s png or tiff or whatever).

Are there limits to the maximum frame size that SM2 can handle (because it s geared towards the iphone?)? Are there limits to atlas size on PC? Anyone else run into similar limitations?

Any help or hints would be highly appreciated.

Sorry if this is explained in the documentation, so far I haven't found anything there and it s kinda urgent, thus the parallel problem solving attempt....

 

When I clicked on new posts THIS HAS 1,500 SOMETHING!!!! WOW!! :O

 

@davec1:
That is strange. SM2 uses Unity's PackTextures(), so if it is something happening internal to that, it would need to be reported to Unity. But to attempt to get at the problem, first, are you using any padding? If your source textures add up to 4096x4096, you might make sure that you set padding to 0. If you don't do this, normally the content of the atlas should be scaled down to fit -- not crash. But who knows... that could be something to try. I haven't experienced an issue like the one you describe, so I'm having to sort of start at square one on the diagnosis. The nearest issue I've seen was some time ago where if you had a TON of source textures which built to a TON of atlases in one go (and by a "TON" of atlases, I mean like 32 in one go), depending on your system and video memory, you could run out of memory and Unity would crash. But a LOT of optimizations have been implemented since then so that this should not happen. From the description of your issue, memory should definitely not be the problem.

If you like, you ca e-mail me privately with a package demonstrating this that I can look at.

 

Hi Brady,

in my project the first level has a sprite with DontDestroyOnLoad on it but when I load a new level the mesh is gone leaving a missing reference.

is it normal?
just updated to 1.8

thank you

 

hello, Brady!

sorry to trouble, but how can I use make mirror image in PackedSprite (mirror vertical and horizontal) via script.

Thanks!

 

@arioch82
Actually, this is what the "Persistent" checkbox in the inspector is for. That should also keep you from having to do the DontDestroyOnLoad() call yourself.


@LeshaVH
The first way would just be to invert the scale on the axis in question. The only issue there is that for as long as the scale does not match other sprites in the scene, it will not batch with them. If you change it back, it will again. The other way, which preserves batching, is to negate the size of the sprite on the dimension in question. So for example if you want the object to be mirrored about the X axis, then if it has a width of, say 30, you would give it a width of -30. The best way to do this would be:

mySprite.SetSize(-mySprite.width, mySprite.height);

The drawback to this approach is that if an animation is running at the time, then this re-sizing will be undone when the next frame displays. I'm planning on eventually adding a new feature, however, that will let you scale the object this way in a manner that will work in tandem with animation and without modifying the transform.

 

Is there a way to maintain a sprites relative scale regardless of how far or how close it is to a perspective camera? I need a sprite to appear the same size on screen whether it's 1 unit or 100 units away from the camera. Is there a feature for this built into SM2 or perhaps some thoughts on how to do this in script?

 

If you have it set to pixel-perfect, it will do this. You'll just have to keep telling it to update its size whenever it moves relative to the camera. To do this, just call its .SetCamera() method, and pass it its renderCamera. If this basically happens every frame, just toss this line into an Update() somewhere:

mySprite.SetCamera(mySprite.renderCamera);

Of course, if you want the sprite in question to always be in a particular place on-screen, you could just either make the object a child of the camera so that it moves with it, or else use a second camera to render it on top of your perspective camera.

 

Thanks, Brady that did the trick!

Hey by the way, I've started a tutorial series on making 2D games in Unity 3D using Sprite Manager 2. Check it out: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

 

Cool! Thanks for letting me know. Looks cool. I'll check them out further.

 

First of all, I want to thank you for your time-saving SpriteManager2 tool!

Is there a shader that will perform edge blending?
I'm looking for a way to smoothly blend the edges of my sprites by making these edge pixels slightly transparent to blend better against different backgrounds and I want to avoid using alpha-channel for a couple of reasons. My sprite objects were filmed against green-screen and although I can crop the edge pixels - I still see a harsh edge around my sprites that makes them look like playing cards.
I've seen a shader that finds the edges and performs a solid black outline around objects, but instead of this I need a blending effect and I haven't spent time looking into writing shaders.
Also, regarding the built-in shaders that work with the sprites: "Sprite Cutout" works but is harsh around the edges, "Transparent/Vertex-Colored" is too bright and over saturated and "Particles/VertexLit Blended" is too dark - what are your recommendations?
Thanks in advance for your time.
-Tim

 

First, I'm not sure about any shader fitting that description, but there may be such.

Second, regarding the Transparent, Vertex-Colored shader, per the SM2 docs, make sure you have the "Main Color" set to 128,128,128,255 (which is the default). This should result in correct color reproduction. You don't want to set it to 255,255,255,255 unless you're wanting it to be over-bright. Doing it this way leaves you the option to set your sprite colors to 128,128,128.255 (or 0.5,0.5,0.5,1) to achieve accurate color, and then when you want the object "highlighted", you can increase the color above that.

Finally, I think the issue you're experiencing is the common issue referred to in the Unity docs here:
http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/HOWTO-alphamaps.html

If you alter your artwork in the manner described in the link above, you should be able to use the "Transparent, Vertex-Colored" shader just fine.

 

hey brady i got ezgui for my programmer and she loves it...just wondering and sorry for being very ignorant (as i am an artist).i want to develop a very particle heavy game and would sprite manager be able me in that or is it just for world/character sprites
sounds very stupid

 

thanks, i really missed that

I'm also having some trouble with a couple of sprites (without that flag on) after I call an Application.LoadLevel they appear broken; also if i load the same level again on the first try (starting the editor from that level) they work fine and from the second on (first LoadLevel) some of them are just broken, the weird thing is that if I clone it without stopping the editor the copy works fine, it's displayed without errors

any thoughts?

 

@summerl0v3r
For particles, you might be better served to just use Unity's particle system. If there are capabilities you need from SM2 that you can't get from Unity's particle system, then yes, you could definitely use SM2, but generally for particles, I think the built-in particle system is the preferred thing to use.


@arioch82
Can you describe in what way they are "broken"? Also, if you're loading a level, the you should definitely have the "Persistent" box checked. Otherwise, they will definitely be messed up. Could that be the problem?

 

Hi Brady

If you have a PackedSprite GameObject that might be a child of another game object, ... is there a way to always have the sprite facing towards the camera even if the rotation of the parent GameObject changes?

 

Hi Brady,

I don't need them to "persist" in all the levels, they are only in some of them and when I load these levels the sprites in that scene are broken.
When I say "broken" I mean that they are not displayed correctly, it's like the sprite is using the wrong UVs from the atlas but as I said if I clone it without stopping the game the new sprite looks just fine; also in the same level I'm instantiating some sprites from an asset bundle and they works fine.

the problem it's really only on the sprites already in the level after I load it from another level (If I start it from the editor everything is ok), could it be an initialization issue?

----
EDIT: seems like opening re-saving the level (without making any change) solve the issue, it's like the sprites are corrupted... do you know what could have caused that?
(it's weird that they works fine if I start the levels directly from the editor anyway)

 

@dcp468
I think you might be able to use a billboarding/camera-facing script that's on the Unify wiki. I don't have the link handy, but you should be able to find it without too much trouble. You should just be able to attach the script to the sprite GameObject, and it will orient as needed. This would be built-in to the sprite classes, except that it would impose major performance overhead to have it in there in cases where it wasn't needed.


@arioch82
It sounds like it has to do with the atlas(es) having been re-generated, which assigns the updated UVs to the sprites, but then if the scene wasn't saved after having done that, then the new UVs aren't saved in the sprites. I'm not sure why cloning them would make them appear correct, but other than that, it definitely sounds like something like that.

 

Hey Brady,

Maybe this has been covered, but seems like a very common scenario which I'm missing. I have a PackedSprite with a few animation sequences on it. I created some new images that I want to add to the atlas. How do I add these to the PackedSprite and have it rebuild the texture? Even if I add them to a new animation, then rebuild... it just rebuilds with the frames that were there previously.

Thanks,
Matt

 

If you rebuild the atlas, it should always include all the images you have assigned. If it isn't, then there must be some exceptional case at play, such as if you are using Unity iPhone 1.7 and have "Only Scan Project Folder" checked, which means ONLY prefabs in the project folder will be scanned. If you are on Unity iPhone 1.7 and DO have it linked to a prefab, make sure you make the addition of the images to the prefab and not the copy in the scene.

Or another possibility is that you don't have the sprite in question linked to a prefab and have deactivated it in the scene. This means Unity's FindObjectsOfType() won't return it as it only returns active objects.

 

Question about using multiple atlases for a SuperSprite:

Is there an easy way to predict how many textures will fit on one atlas? I want to maximize the amount of images packed on to an atlas, and I know that an animation can be split over more than one atlas using SuperSprite. So how can I predict how to set up the PackedSprites and the animations to max out their material without causing the textures to be resized?

For instance, I set up a PackedSprite with a "walk" animation, but the atlas can still hold several frames of a "run" animation. So I set up "Run_part_1" on the first sprite, and plan to continue "Run_part_2" on another sprite. How can I tell what frame should be the last one of "Run_part_1"? Is it only trial and error? Will I have to make a guess, try to build the atlases, and if it tells me it's going to resize the textures, cancel it, remove a frame, and try again?

Or is there some way rebuilding atlases can help optimize that? I'd love to just set up each animation on it's own material so I know each one will fit without resizing, then assemble the SuperSprite, and then rebuild the atlases and have the frames juggled around to create the minimum amount of atlases required to hold those images.

(BTW - there's quite a bit of size change based on the motion in the animations, and I'm going to have SM2 trim the images when building the atlases, so I can't just do the simple math of dividing how many of my basic texture images at their current size would fit on a 1024x1024 atlas.)

Thanks for any suggestions / insight...

 

At present, SM2 uses Unity's PackTexures(), which doesn't give a way to know in advance of just pushing the textures to the atlas. However, in the future I'd definitely like to implement my own packing algorithm that could also do things like rotate textures into place, as well as automatically calculate what would fit and do exactly as you describe. I can't promise when something like that will be done, but it is definitely something I'd like to do and it is on my list of possible future features.

So unfortunately, at the moment, it's a mix of trial-and-error and "dead reckoning" (estimating the total size a set of images will occupy).

 

Right on, thanks Brady. Glad to know it will happen.... someday.

Right, so, on to the building of atlases...

 

Hi,
just wanted to say, that your Sprite Manager is just perfect! Very well documented, easy to work with, very efficient atlas-builder. It saves us a tone of work for our first iPhonegame.
Thanks a lot!
Eva Maria

 

Thanks for the kind words!

 

Ok, so I'm having a slight problem with my newly built SuperSprite.

I made it into a prefab, and ideally an instance of it will be instantiated by another game object script. The script I have set up to do that worked fine for instantiating the sprite when it was just a PackedSprite, but now that it's been upgraded to a SuperSprite, Unity crashes on play.

However, if I remove the reference to the prefab from the script that is supposed to instantiate it, but I drag an instance of the SuperSprite into the scene so one exists before pressing play, it does what it's supposed to do. Or at least, Unity doesn't crash and it plays the first animation that it's supposed to play, so I'm assuming the rest will work too.

Here's how it's set up:

ParentObject (contains the SuperSprite script, my script for controlling the animations, and a box collider)
- ChildObject1
- ChildObject2
- ChildObject3
- etc (all the child objects have the PackedSprite script and the associated Mesh Filter and Mesh Renderer that come with it)

None of the objects (parent or children) were prefabs before I finished building the whole thing. I built one completely, then made a prefab out of the parent object and that automatically made prefabs of the children.

Oh, and when it is instantiated through script, I am immediately making it (the SuperSprite) a child of another game object.


Any ideas why Unity would crash when trying to instantiate this SuperSprite?

 

No, I haven't seen that happen before. Is there any chance you could e-mail me privately with a sample package I could take a look at to try and see what's going on?

 

I know this thread is already quite long, but I just bought SM2 and I'm having a little trouble getting the sprite to look decent. In the timeline it looks perfect, but int the game window the quality is terrible. When I change the shader on the material from trasnparent/vertext coloured to self Illuminb/Diffuse the quality looks right, but I lose the transparency obviosusly.

Transparent/Vertext Coloured:



Self-Illumin/Diffuse:

 

I should probably show you the sprite itself:



This is what I am expecting to see in game, but I can't get the quality

 

Never mind, in typical fashion, as soon as I posted this I figured it out. Needed to move my light source so that it illuminated the sprite, I had it behind it. So when I tried the other Transparent shaders it was always dark.

 

However, I have a new problem. Attempting to get the animation control into script. So even though at this stage there is only a walk cycle, there will be jumping and dying, so I need this controlled in script. I attempted to just add some lines that would start the run up straight away. Now I get compile errors. 4 of them. All basically the same:

the namespace <globa lnamespace> already contains a definition for 'Sprite' CS1010.

I get the same for SpriteDrawLayer, SpriteManager and UVAnimation. Not sure what I have done wrong here.

 

Ha, I think once again the magic of posting something offered up the solution. I think what happened was I imported the 1.8 version first, then found the update, ran the script and then installed the 1.81 package. It seems that my folder system didn't quite get sorted out and there are two copies of some of the scripts.

 

Re: the image not appearing correctly, you shouldn't need any lights in the scene. The recommended shader is the Transparent, Vertex Colored shader, which is not a lit shader. The problem, as it appears from your screenshot, is that you have your "Main Color" set to white in the material. As described in the docs, the color should be set to 128,128,128.255 (gray). This is the default setting. Setting it to white means that if your sprite's color is also set to white, it will appear "over-bright". This lets you set your sprite color to gray and then "boost" the color to something brighter than gray to achieve a sort of highlighting effect. But for normal use, you'll just want to leave the sprite's color at white and leave the "Main Color" of your material set to the detaul gray.

Regarding the errors about duplicate class names, yes, this is due to changes in the folder structure. This is explained on the updates page under "IMPORTANT NOTE". A script is provided there which will automate the restructuring process for you.

Thanks!

 

Thanks Brady, I did read the important note and ran the script, but I must have missed something, it's all sorted now. Thanks for the note on the material colour, I missed that. Awesome software man, glad we bought it.

 

I assume you can have both EZGUI and Sprite Manager 2 in the same project? I have just started a new project to polay with some menu systems, importing only those two packages and I get a few errors instantly.

Assets/Plugins/EZ/GUI/Support/AutoSpriteControlBase.cs(206,33): error CS0507: `AutoSpriteControlBase.Start()': cannot change access modifiers when overriding `public' inherited member `SpriteRoot.Start()'

i get the same error for SpriteRoot.Start() with UIButton.cs, UIRadioBtn.cs, UIPanelTab.cs, UIProgressBar.cs, UISlider.cs, UIStateToggleBtn.cs, UITextField.cs and SimpleSprite.cs

What have I done wrong?

 

Yes, the two packages are designed to work together seamlessly. Just make sure you have the latest of both SM2 and EZ GUI installed. The latest SM2 is 1.81, and the latest EZ GUI is 1.053.

 

Brady, on iOS devices how much of an impact is the alpha with the sprites.. since alpha on iOS devices is a big performance kill. Also can a sprite be used as a pointer in a game, like in your cow video, if on the iOS devices u could touch the cow and move it around in the game with your finger or the various gestures on iOS.

 

May I know how to download latest ver. of SM2? I need to use it again for my next project. Thanks.

edited:
Found the links.

 

@gateway69
Alpha itself isn't that much of a performance hog, it's more alpha testing. Though a plain diffuse shader (non-blended) is definitely faster than a blended shader. But a lot of games use almost all-blended graphics, and they run plenty fast. To answer your other question, yes, there's no reason you couldn't have a sprite follow your finger. You'd just write a short bit of code where you would take the touch position and convert it to a world position for the sprite, using Camera.ScreenToWorldPoint().

 

Has anyone successfully updated their SM2 to 1.81 in a existing project? You're suppose to run the Folder reconstruction script first, but having the previous version of SM2 in a project opened in U3.2 introduces a runtime error (see below), So I can't run the Reconstruct Script to install the SM2 update.

Assets/Editor/Editors/SpriteTimelineEditor.cs(482,34): error CS0117: `UnityEditor.EditorGUIUtility' does not contain a definition for `UseControlStyles'

Any thoughts?

 

@brendang

I just upgraded to Unity 3.2 which in turn upgradded my project (which is ok as I keep a backup of it just in case) however to fix the error I simply

Changed this code (in the SpriteTimelineEditor.cs script)

Code (csharp):

1. #if UNITY_IPHONE  !(UNITY_3_0 || UNITY_3_1)
2.         EditorGUIUtility.UseControlStyles();
3. #endif

To this code:

Code (csharp):

1. #if UNITY_IPHONE  !(UNITY_3_0 || UNITY_3_1 || UNITY_3_2)
2.         EditorGUIUtility.UseControlStyles();
3. #endif

After doing this change everything seems to be working again. I wasn't aware of SM2 1.8.1 and I'm using SM2 1.78 ATM

Cheers

 

Yup... did the trick... thanks

 

Right on. Unfortunately, ever since Unity 3.0, they changed the behavior so that ANY compiler error will halt the ability to execute ANY script, even if they are completely unrelated and in different namespaces. So it won't let you run the restructuring script until those errors are dealt with.

Another way to go, and this will probably hit Asset Store users more since the Asset Store automatically dumps the new scripts into the project without a chance to do any restructuring first, is to go ahead and import the new package, and then just delete the old "Editor/Editors", "Editor/Inspectors", and "Editor/Wizards" folders, as the new versions are now grouped beneath "Editor/AnBSoft". That should solve any duplicate class errors and get things running. Then you can run the restructuring to clean up the remaining folders (such as Fonts, Shaders, Materials, etc).

Also, SM2 1.82 and EZ GUI 1.054 are now available as well. The Asset Store side of things is still pending...

 

Brady,

I have the same upgrade to Unity 3.0 issue as Brendang. Unfortunately the most current version on the asset store is 1.8 from Dec 13th 2010. There is no Editor/AnBSoft subfolder in the current Asset Store installation so importing from the asset store doesn't work.

Would you recommend that I just manually create the Editor/AnBSoft folder, move everything from Editor/Editor, Editor/Inspectors and Editor/Wizards into the newly create Editor/AnBSoft folder?

Thanks
Allan

 

I tried following my own instructions but it doesn't work.

I still get the following error.

Assets/SpriteManager 2/Editor/AnBSoft/SpriteTimelineEditor.cs(482,34): error CS0117: `UnityEditor.EditorGUIUtility' does not contain a definition for `UseControlStyles'

Do you have a recommendation?

Thanks
Allan

 

Sorry for the late reply, chaneya. Once again, it seems the forum "forgot" my subscription settings. The solution to that error is to do as dcp468 describes in his post above.