Official 2D Tilemap Extras 2.0 released for Unity 2021.1

I am the coder and my friend is the level designer so he is the main user of this brush. I just found it because he really needed it as we have several tilemaps and it takes a long time for him to move all the tiles on each map. He hasn't used it yet (as I just found it) and will use it in the next month.

My first experience with it just testing it to see if it would work for him:

It suits the need perfectly. It grabs all the tiles, no matter the layer, and moves them while maintaining our rule tiles. Without it, it takes much longer to edit a tilemap with multiple layers.

It is extremely simple to use. I don't know what else to say about it. You select and move . It is also easy to setup as there really is no setup requirements that I can see. You simple select the brush and move the tiles you want!

 

I am not the one you were replying to, but I just wanted to say that I agree with this, and to add that I hope you extend it to the GameObject/Prefab brush. Having to constantly switch back and forth between game objects to use the brush is not convenient.

In my use case, I am building a platformer with a variety of different objects and categories - items, hazards, special platforms, interactables. It would be great if these could be put in a palette in the same way as the normal tiles, so that I can quickly select objects and paint them on the grid.

At the moment, there is a list in the GameObject brush that only seems to accept a single item. Clicking the + does not add more items, nor does changing the Cells value.

I am using 2020 LTS, with 2D Extras 1.8.1-preview, so it may be different on 2021/3.0.0.

 

I think I understand now. The list of Cells is tied to the Size property, allowing you to place multiple objects at once in a grid pattern. Still, this doesn't seem like a very intuitive approach, and it doesn't solve the main issue which is that we would want to be able to select from a list of several potential prefabs/gameobjects.

For example, I'm making a tile based platformer game. I use the standard tile palette to lay out my level tiles, picking different tiles from the palette and painting them onto the tilemap. Then I add a tilemap layer for my items, and I switch to the gameobject brush to start placing my interactive items on the grid. Now I have to drag in a new prefab from the project every time I want to add a different object type to the scene. I have at least ten different object types, so I end up switching frequently while working on levels.

If used as it currently seems to be intended, I would have to repopulate this list of elements every single time I wanted to add some items to the grid. It would end up being more effort than simply placing them manually.

Personally, I would expect this tool to allow me to build a palette of objects, just like the level tiles, and pick from them at will to start painting on the active layer. You could even create arrangements of objects to be painted at once using the filled box tool.

However, looking at the documentation, it does appear that this feature is more intended as a demonstration for other developers of what can be done, rather than an end user feature.

 

In the video demo you have 2 configurations: (1) small cube + big cube; and (2) small cube + big sphere. It would be better if we can save these configurations into 2 brushes and be able to switch between them just by clicking on the brush icons.

Maybe we can utilize Presets rather than invent another data structure?

 

So, I've been working with the Tilemap system on a small game for a few weeks now, and I honestly have to say, that I'm close to giving up. The entire system is not fun to work with, extremely finnicky and has so many workflow issues that I'm considering just switching to Tiled and import the maps from there.

I've tried to give helpful feedback quite a few times here in the forums, on the product roadmap and via mail. I'm also constantly reading about the exact same issues I'm having from other people, but it has been months, if not years, and there haven't been any improvements at all. I'll just say it, because I feel like it needs to be said: the entire Tilemap system needs a complete rework from the very ground up. Like scrap the entire UI, probably large parts of the underlying systems, and start over.

I realize this is completely unreasonable, but those are my feelings after working with it for some time. I don't see any other way to fix this system. Small improvements, like moving the brushes to the scene view, can be made, but that doesn't fix the major workflow problems in the slightest.

I would be extremely happy to give you detailed feedback with examples on what exactly is wrong with the current system. I could probably write an entire essay about those issues to be honest. I just don't know where to turn with this. I want the Editor to become better for 2D games, but I feel like feedback is not really taken into account at all.

--------

Take the issue of swapping tilesets for example that has been discussed in the forums already. Currently the 'hierarchy' works like this: Image -> Sprite -> Tile -> Tile Palette

If I set this up and then decide to create a snow version of my tileset with tiles in exactly the same places, I don't have any way to tell Unity to just use the new image with all of the same settings. Because the tiles are using sliced sprites and not the spritesheet itself. Which means I also have to re-do all of the collisions. And then I'd need to swap out each sprite in those tiles separately. For rule tiles I need to go through the entire list of extremely small images to select the new sprites.

This entire issue, and a lot of others, stem from the fact that a Tile is a separate asset that is referencing a sliced sprite. Meaning I can only swap out individual sprites. When in fact, I just want to swap out the Image itself.

I can swap out the file on the hard drive and everything works exactly how I want - why can't this just be in the Editor itself? I want a single field that says "Source Image", and when I change the image the entire tilemap changes. Tiles, Tile Palette and Rule Tiles. This works flawlessly in other programs, like Tiled (which I honestly think you should take a look at). This is the reason why I'm advocating for a complete rework. I think the entire underlying system hinders the progress towards an actually good tilemap system.

I'm sorry for the long post, but I think you can tell I've gotten a bit annoyed with Tilemaps.

 

I'm thinking about using the tilemap package in my next game. The only thing holding me back so to speak is the blurry micro-postage stamp previews for pixel art tiles.

Whats the best way to get this issue under the radar of Unity? Could it be considered a bug? The current situation is largely un-usable for pixel art tilemap game development in Unity.

Again for reference, this is the current experience of tile selection, these are at full zoom:

Which then appear blurry in the tile editor:

 

Apologies if this has already been asked and I missed it, but is there a solution to rule override tiles not working with rule tiles? From my understanding rule overrides are there to blend with the existing rule tiles you put in and act like variations, but my rule overrides have just been acting like another, separate rule tile.


Here's an image where I've selected the rule override, but the two sets aren't combining. I have selected the initial rule tile in the inspector for the override and I can't for the life of me seem to find any other resources that explain this.

 

This request isn't specific to tilemaps necessarily but I find myself often wanting this exact thing in that context, so I'm making the request here: add a secondary search box to pre-populate asset searches if the "Memory Checkbox" is checked.


If you've typed something in the white box and clicked the Memory Checkmark, the next time you search it'll prepopulate the search field with that string.

To the right, there's an example context in which this feature would be very useful. Let's say there's 30 shapes that I'm plugging into a rule tile. The sprites follow a naming pattern. Each time I click to assign a sprite, it's back to square one (an empty search box) despite knowing I want assets with a particular prefix. It's annoying to type manually or Ctrl+V.

With this feature, it would mean that it automatically brings up a subset and I can immediately click on something right away, or I could further narrow that subset by typing ("_1" or "_subcategory_3").

This saves typing and clicks for repetitive tasks.

The additional search field doesn't need to appear until the Memory Checkbox is turned on to keep things tidy.

 

Hello, with animated tiles: is there any way to update the custom physics shape each frame? It's currently stuck on the first frames shape.

 

It's a beach tilemap, the waves rise and fall on the shore. I'd like the player to only walk on the sand while the water is out, and be pushed back by the water.

 

Just curious, but will the 2D Tilemap Extras be ported to Unity 2020, and will there be a feature to generate the auto tiles seen here from a map like below?

I know Fang Auto Tiles from the asset store does this, but I was wondering if this functionality would be built into this package.
Thanks!

 

Hello
I'm using Unity 2020 LTS, since our project is for production, and we can't consider using 2021 yet

Currently we are limited to version 1.8.2 from this package in unity 2020
are you planning to support version 2 for unity 2020 in the near future?

Best regards

 

Thank you for your kind response

Yes we noticed a bug in 2020 LTS with 1.8.x-preview that got solved in 2021 with with 2.2.x

When using Rule Tiles with isometric grid
we get some gabs in the tilemap while drawing on borders


(when we fill the cell with red circle, some gabs appears as shown in the picture)


after tons of tests, we tried the 2021 with 2.2.x and the problem is solved there

 

Hey,
Any plans on adding Sprite Mask for Tilemap?

My current workaround is creating an object containing a Sprite Mask, then applying it to my Rule Tile. This seems to be what most people do these days, but this makes my scene very heavy if I were to ex. zoom out.
Would you happen to know of a different workaround that is less performance heavy?

 

I've started using animated tiles, but have a question. When setting the speed of the animation, what exactly is that? Is it FPS and the same no matter if the vsync changes or the fixed time step changes? Would it run faster for someone with a 120Hz display?

I'm assuming it works such that it is the number of FPS and does not run at a different speed if enviroment factors change.

I'm using version 1.8.2 in Unity 2020.3.32f1 btw; incase something with this changed in later versions.

 

I have two questions. How do I add methods (OnTriggerEnter2D) into an Animated Tile?

Can I make a sprite in Animated Tile last longer despite having set minimum speed. I have set minimum speed to be 8 and I want to make a sprite last 16 frames.

 

This is not what I meant for the last one. I want to make individual nodes have different frame durations despite having set maximum and minimum overall speed, just like in Animation tab.

 

Sorry for the late reply, but thanks a ton for letting me know about that. I was worried, but had a feeling it might work be like that.

 

So I'm building a proc generated game where rooms are instantiated at runtime, each rooms is made up of some tilemaps and some of them have Rule Tiles with an attached GameObject. Every single Rule Tile that has a GameObject attached is spawning a second copy of the GameObject at 0,0,0 relative to the room at runtime only in a build. This issue is not reproducible in the editor but has been happening since before 2022 was released. I did some searching and it seems I am not the only one experiencing this issue. I did submit a bug report regarding this issue, but I'm wondering if there is a possible workaround for this issue. Right now I'm checking the objects' position in Awake() and just destroying it if its localposition is 0,0,0 but this feels hacky and honestly shouldn't even be necessary

 

Can you at least make tiles (even rule tiles) that I can add SpriteRenderer, Animator, RigidBody2D, BoxCollider2D and other scripts to?

I don't want to create prefabs, because I find these very redundant, and I don't want to put these components to a whole TileMap.

EDIT: To be specific, I want to make a tile that will e.g. change its color when the player character steps on it (enters its box collider), trigger player's animation and decrease player's health periodically.

 

@IgorArnaut Tiles/Tilemaps are specifically to render simple things. They have a very low memory footprint and can be rendered more cheaply than many SpriteRenderers. To make tiles more complex would defeat their purpose. You want a gameobject / prefab for something like you described. You can attach a prefab to a tile if you want if you want a convenient way to paint prefabs on a grid. It's often best to use tiles where you can, but prefabs for anything more complicated, requiring custom data/logic/components.

 

Can you make Rule Tile tab look better? I don't like the current list view, especially if you make many Rules. I have to scroll down if I have more than 16 Rules. A grid view would be better.

Can you make Animated Tiles be dragged directly into Rules instead of making animation per Rule?

EDIT: I am making a Rule Tile and it's so tedious to look at especially if you have 47 Rules, and you can't even select multiple Rules.

 

What I have said. Adding sprite by sprite into rule tile to make an animation makes the Tab longer.

 

just wanna suggest you add the RandomTile not sure why its not included from the original old repo but its def useful

 

I can't see 2D Tilemap extras preview package in version 2020.3.40f1

I am using Unity 2020.3.40f1 and have enabled preview packages but I can't see the package.

But if I use Unity 2020.3.34f1 and have enabled preview packages I still can see the package.

What is happening?

 

Could you add overloads to Tilemap.SetTiles that accept Spans instead of just arrays? Or at least overloads that take a start index and length.

 

For my game, I need to generate a large terrain size in 2d. I use Tilemap and generate layers through seed and noise, set the filled and the chance of this or that object appearing.
The essence of the mechanics is that I draw only the visible part of the space and take all the data from the seed. And when the player starts running in one direction, I paint everything in front of him and clear everything behind him using the SetTiles method.
And with an interesting camera setup for the player, I get 4k cells. And it causes GC memory cleanup spikes.
And I think that this is due to the fact that in all methods that can change tiles in a tile map, the "Tile" type is boxed as "Object".

According to the algorithm, I collect all the changed tiles (some are cleared, some are filled) and apply the changes like this:

tilemap.SetTiles(posArray, tileArray);

I was looking for any method that won't box tiles. But they all do it. Including the TileChangeData structure.

Code (CSharp):

1. /// <summary>
2.     ///   <para>Sets an array of Tiles at the given XYZ coordinates of the corresponding cells in the Tilemap.</para>
3.     /// </summary>
4.     /// <param name="positionArray">An array of positions of Tiles on the Tilemap.</param>
5.     /// <param name="tileArray">An array of Tiles to be placed.</param>
6.     public void SetTiles(Vector3Int[] positionArray, TileBase[] tileArray) => this.SetTileAssets(positionArray, (UnityEngine.Object[]) tileArray);
7.  
8.  
9. /// <summary>
10.     ///   <para>Fills bounds with array of Tiles.</para>
11.     /// </summary>
12.     /// <param name="position">Bounds to be filled.</param>
13.     /// <param name="tileArray">An array of Tiles to be placed.</param>
14.     public void SetTilesBlock(BoundsInt position, TileBase[] tileArray) => this.INTERNAL_CALL_SetTileAssetsBlock(position.min, position.size, (UnityEngine.Object[]) tileArray);
15.  
16. TileChangeData.cs
17.  
18. /// <summary>
19.     ///   <para>The Tile to set on the Tilemap.</para>
20.     /// </summary>
21.     public TileBase tile
22.     {
23.       get => (TileBase) this.m_TileAsset;
24.       set => this.m_TileAsset = (Object) value;
25.     }
26.  
27.    public TileChangeData(Vector3Int position, TileBase tile, Color color, Matrix4x4 transform)
28.     {
29.       this.m_Position = position;
30.       this.m_TileAsset = (Object) tile;
31.       this.m_Color = color;
32.       this.m_Transform = transform;
33.     }

I have few questions:
1. Am I doing something wrong?
2. Why are tiles boxed in all API methods? Is it really necessary? Or can it be changed/fixed?
3. Is it possible to add some kind of tile pooling system to the tilemap? So that it does not recreate beyond what is necessary and use what is available to the maximum? And all this under the hood?

 

I was trying to use GridInformation class to save some extra data about tiles.
Thing is.. data is lost after reload. You forgot to add [Serializable] attribute to your internal structs.
I'm surprisged nobody noticed it before - it was in the pacakge since forever.