Make more noise

I second this. I watched the Unity Roadmap video that was released a few hours ago and the guy representing the 2D team stressed the importance of feedback. It would be good if this forum was moved and/or advertised a bit more. The developers who put out the videos of the new 2D features are also pretty quiet. Please make more noise, guys.

 

Yes we will be making more noise and definitely working on making this forum more visible.
But we do want to keep it separate from the 2D forum so that discussions and feedback can won't be confused with release version questions and feedback.
Also long term, expecting a lot more in these forums.

 

When is the next preview out?

 

Putting together the last bits for Preview2. If all goes well, might be end of this week.

 

Just a question. Why you simply don't release FUNDAMENTAL FEATURES like 9-slice and Atlassing as first and ASAP and the rest of BUILDING ABOVE later? We really do need those feature since 2D group was formed 3 years ago. And to be honest after 3 years of development we are even not close to have 2D released in 5.5 :-(

 

Hi Marek. We will be releasing each feature when they are ready. What this means is that, a feature in the Experimental Preview doesn't have to wait for other features to be completed.
Part of the purpose for the Experimental Previews is do determine when a feature will be ready to be released. While Alphas and Betas are already pretty advanced in the development stage, the previews are still very very early. But we want to get it into the community hands to try out and let us know what you think about it. Then the more feedback we get, positive and negative will help get it ready for release faster.

 

Hi Johaness,

Sorry I'm with unity almost 8 years. So actually what you say is only partly true. 9 Slice and Atlassing are so fundamental features of the engine that I simply don't understand why you focus so much on high end features instead of solving the core.

Moreover we both knows that sprite tagging and bundle variants are not very good implementation for what developers really need.

On the other hand I can understand that atlassing is somehow related to those high end features. BUT 9 slice???? What is the problem to release 9 slice moreover developers gives you so great feedback that they need it. For every game we make we have to create hack because of this simple and fundamental feature is missing. Which after years with unity makes me a bit angry when I see now and in the past we how your postpone and postpone and postpone. In the past we were in Preview 3 then again it was reseted to Preview 1 and now we are preview 2 but without any timeline when things will be done and we can use them in production. For me this 2D group seems like neverending neverreleased story. Sorry to say that. I'm waiting for SIMPLE SPRITE 9 SLICE from the time SpriteRenderer was released.

So again we are starting new project and again after years of development we have to use hack solution for 9 slice. Oh my goodness. Is this even true or am I dreaming?

Sorry, I bother more Unity people. Especially in beta forum. But hopefully you see the point here. Please release 9 slice and attlasing first and then the rest whenever it is ready if ever. ( Sure I understand that it is simple to say and that the complexity behind is not easy to solve.

Thank you for reading these lines. Have a great day. I go back to use hacky 9 slice. AHHHHHH......

Marek.

 

These 2D Features are pretty core to an Engine that supports 2D Development.

The longer they take to stabilize and release, the more developers will opt for other engines.

HTML5 is gaining a lot of momentum- Unity should put more dev time into 2D Experimental Features.

There is absolutely no time-line, and I know a handful of extremely competent developers who'd make use of these tools. Don't neglect us. At the very least we deserve proper communication on a regular basis. We'd like to know what's being worked on.

To be frank, this forum looks dead. Don't let these 2D Features die with it.

 

Hi Marek,
I understand your frustration, and sometimes we need a place to voice it out. Which is still feedback for us!

 

Do we get next update before coming weekend? (its LudumDare)

 

@Lavenblade: Apologies if you've felt neglected. This is all in development. The high and low of the forum is expected. When something new is out, there will be more noise which will gradually slow down as we keep going and then rise again with something new. These 2D features will not die. They are actively being developed.

@mgear: Yes will be released before that.

 

Hi Johaness,

thank you for understanding We need 9 slice so desperately. We want to get rid of other libraries so that our build is nice and small. Really, because of this small fundamental feature we have to combine other libraries with UI system which brings complexity and mess into development. I look forward to your Preview 2. Will be first to test also your Atlasing. As I stated years ago or so... We need similar atlasing system as 2DToolkit has. And I'm sure you are bringing it with Preview 2. ( Just a feeling )

So again I feel like 9 Slice and Atlasing should be released in first wave and the rest in second wave. Since if we have those two feature in production build I'm sure other developers can write their own systems or their needs. Without 9 slice and Atlasing we are actually very limited or forced to make very hacky solutions for simple things.

Thank you again for your work and please push things a little bit forward. Thanks to your 2D tools we will be able to bring education to the whole world. So however this forum and group seems dead there are people who are waiting for your features. ( Not too much for the HIGH END feature rather for the simple ones )

Marek.

 

Hi Paul, I think we had already discussion about this months ago. Anyway. I feel like good start.

One question :

How can I access the .spriteattlas from script?

So basically we have our tool that looks like this : https://www.dropbox.com/s/ivx4o64ruhv93u3/exporter.png?dl=0 from which we export ( illustrator or photoshop ) all possible pieces for our builds. So we are basically able to select all exported graphics from our tool and need to tell your .spriteatlas to include them. So I need something like AssetDatabase.Load<SpriteAtlas>("path").AddFolder or AddSprites(Sprite[] sprites) and for sure If I can set all those parameters you have there from our tool then it would be super awesome. I feel like this will be easy to implement.

How we solve now sprite swapping is through Texture Max Size. For platforms like mobiles we simply set current sprites with tags to be for example 1024 max size and unity will automatically pack those tagged sprites accordingly. Which also our tool handles. We have like compressions presets and are able to set them very quickly for each exported file.

So is it possible to set altas max size ? I see that you have MaxWidth and MaxHeight but I 'm referring more to Texture max size where I can set for example for 2048 texture to be max size 1024 and unity will scale it down but only behind.

BUT how you want to solve REAL sprite swapping? I feel like TK2DToolkit did it correctly. But here I would recommend something like a MasterAtlas asset. Where one can specify what atlases belongs together and under what rules we swap them or may be just callback function where we fill in the rules. Let me know your thoughts. I can share skype of our 2D Integrator tool so you get better idea how we are able to generate and recreate whole PS or AI files in Unity and also in Spine. I will present this tool next year at UNITY 2017 and feel like developers will be very greedy to get it though it is already in asset store.

Thank you very much, Marek.

 

And I see you are going the right direction Since AssetDatabase.Load<SpriteAtlas>() works Really good start. Now only to solve sprite swapping.

AND PLEASE RELEASE THIS FEATURE PLUS 9 SLICE. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.

Since to do this with hacky 9 slice and 3rd atlasing is terrible work.

Thank you and let me know I will be happy to help. May be we can work closely together and make our 2D Integrator Tool compatible with what you create so that developers has real tools for real projects.

 

It's not the work of AssetBundle to do this ?

 

ok

 

Yes I see that the spriteatlas is completely independent of current system very great idea. I mean with given historical evolution I feel like it is correct implementation.

It also seems like it does not matter what system I use now. If I select a few sprites and include them into spriteatlas the result is one drawcall AND also if I sprite tag them the result is the same. Which gives finally power into our hands.

We can go easy and just tag sprites and let unity do the work OR include sprites in spriteatlases and decide what and when to load. I even feel this spriteatlas solution is enough to have in order to achieve and write our own sprite swapping code especially if spriteatlas can be loaded from resources or assetbundles. FINALLY A SOLUTION and for us enough. If unity goes further and as Paul mentioned in Preview 3 there will be an option to sprite swap automatically via spriteatlas path then it is just a bonus for us. But as I feel it right now current solution in preview 2 is enough for developers to write their own systems.

I state again... please release this spriteatlas and 9 slice and we are good to go the rest is just on top of this

That's all from what I see now. I will post more as I work with it more deeply.

M.