Ideas for level creation workflows

I started making a 2d game prior the native support and now I'm in the process of adapting the workflow.

What I was doing: the level geometry was all made in 3ds max, using an extruded spline. When this was imported to unity it automatically generated a collider. Now that collider is useless because I'm using the physics 2d system, any suggestions on how to create level geometry?

I'm still learning my way in the new features, but I got my eye on that polygon collider 2d that can be edited in the editor. However, I need a way to tile a texture inside the created polygon, just to complicate things a bit.

Ideas? suggestions? I'm considering stepping back to 3d physics again, just to keep my previous workflow

 

I'm in a similar situation. I'm currently working on a 2D game as well. Previously I've been using my own engine for which I developed a quite nice work flow to create and prototype levels. I decided to switch to Unity but I wanted to keep my work flow so I developed an Editor extension for Unity. It let's me draw polygon shapes directly in the scene view similar to vector drawing applications like Illustrator. Moving and selecting vertices works actually like in 3dsMax. If you are interested I just uploaded a getting started video of it - it shows how I use it to prototype and set up levels:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=menRugu5IKY

I'm still in the middle of the process getting it on the Asset Store so the voice recording is probably not the best, but I'll hopefully be able to change that soon. I might as well upload 5-10 minute feature highlight version.

Your contact details and I can send you a Lite version, because at the moment the tool is awaiting approval. I would love to get some feedback on it.

 

Hey Swamy, thanks for the offer! At the moment the only internet connection I have is on my cellphone, so I can't neither download or check your video, but I'm definitely interested. I'll let you know when I get back to XXI century

 

Edit: Just got accepted by the asset store (the pro version at least) and I'm not too sure how it works with the whole MIT licensing and the asset store legal regulations of the open source light version so I had to take it down for now, but I'll put it up online as soon as I know how things work and if I can.

You can still just PM me with contacts and I can get you a test version.

It probably still requires some testing but basically any feedback would be great.

 

Congratulations on the asset store! I'm still on the cellphone internet, I can't even check out your video. But I have a question, can this system make concave shapes?

I scouted the possibility of making my own system, learned how to create meshes, how to create them inside the editor etc but discarded the idea. Way too much trouble; I'd rather step back to my 3d solution before going down that road. And that is starting to sound like a damn good idea right now.

 

Thanks a lot, only got a few downloads so far, but I got some good feedback so I have stuff to work on.

The free lite version has also been accepted so you can download it here from the Asset Store and try it out yourself. https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/13012. And yes you can create concave shapes with it.

If you want some more detailed information or if you have ideas to improve it just send me a PM.

 

Phew, finally managed to download and import.
Unfortunately I don't think it will do for me. A 2d polygon collider creator is the only part of what I want that I managed to make on my own, it has a very useful function to create it from a set of points, but the problem was creating a mesh with it. (for some reason I got into my head that your project did that too) I need the mesh to hold a texture for me. And creating a mesh is slightly more complicated, as you have to define points and triangles.

But anyway, it's a great tool.

 

Sorry to hear that it couldn't help your case. Thanks for the kind words anyways - I'll keep improving it and hopefully if my job allows for it I'll be able to put in some new features next week.