RageTools: Flash-like 2D Vectors and GUI for Unity

In all honesty, Breno/Sandro did 95% of the work for RageSpline update too.

 

For a -very- good reason http://juhakiili.com/blog/working-for-unity/

Thanks guys RageTools 1.1 is now submitted to the Asset Store! As soon as it's live, it'll be RageTools Pro submission turn!
The updated userguide PDF is already live btw, check the new stuff (marked with a "new" word in blue):
http://www.freakow.com/ragetools/RageTools-userguide.pdf

Release notes:

Out of the many goodies, I'd highlight the new RigidBody multi-setup macro and Group styling + physics features. Oh and the new pivotools per-branch, that one is candy-sweet - there's a demo scene for it in the project's 'demo' folder, be sure to check it out.

Once it goes live, remember you have to first update RageSpline to the latest version, then delete any previous RageTools version before importing RT 1.1. Deleting the RageTools folder entirely from a existing project before importing 1.1 is recommended.

PS.: Final countdown to RageTools Pro's release begins...

 

I feel like a kid in a candy store...

Btw, do you have the user guide for pro features ready? If so, I would like to have a peek while waiting for it's release...

 

Updated both and it seems cool so far
Unity warns me that there are inconsistent line endings in the 'Assets/RageSpline/Code/RageTriangulator.cs' script btw
I know that wont stop it from working.. just saying

I am going to go forward on creating my ragesplines in unity now with svgin, and wait for ragemagnet to be able to animate them the way I want. This wont be a problem right? When RageToolsPro comes out I can just buy and use on everything I have been converting?

I am sure thats the case, but dont want to do any wasted work
Thanks!

 

Proud to announce that RageTools 1.1 is now... LIVE! http://u3d.as/content/freakow/rage-tools/2nj

Patience, padawan ^_^ The RageTools Pro userguide should be live later today or first thing tomorrow, as soon as I submit RageTools Pro to the Asset Store. Just gotta do that last minute code check - which can eventually change one thing or two in the docs.

I know, I'm that perfectionist.. hate that tbh lol

Great, have you checked the new 'Pivotools-branch' tutorial?

That's an annoyingly recurring problem due to my very own GIT noobness. Don't mind it, it's harmless.

Exactly, that's how it works. Have fun!

 

I have not.. can you point me in its direction?

 

Sure, it was originally just a test scene, but I've updated it right before submission into a full new tutorial. Just make sure you've got RageTools 1.1 and open its scene, located here: \RageTools\Demo\Tutorial\tutorial-4-PivotoolsBranch.unity

That scene is especially tailored to show people how much easier it is to set up a separate-parts animated character with RageTools compared to other over-touted bitmap solutions for Unity. You can even remove overlapping outlines (previously created in your illustration software), or have outlines show up only around the full character and not within the character body itself. Pivotools new 'per-branch' option really makes this ridiculously fun and easy to do, play with it a bit and you'll see what I mean

 

Hehe ok ok, I hear you...

Just went thru tutorial scenes and I must say new features in 1.1 are awesome...

 

Hey guys, I've *finally* took the time to make that much-needed tutorial video on how to properly prepare your vector art for importing into Unity using RageTools + RageSpline. Many tips also useful for RageSpline-only users, so don't miss out! This took me two days of hard work to prepare, record, edit, yada yada but I found it was fundamental for the forthcoming RageFont preparation tutorial - people will just come at my throat about it after RageTools Pro is live So there you have it, enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lypTZmNOkbY (part1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrHpJfs00hA (part2)

 

I thought i read somewhere that with 1.1 you would be able to load an svg from anywhere in your project, not just from the "RageTools/SvgFiles" folder. I just updated and it looks like this is still a requirement. Are there still plans to fix this.

 

Nice job on tutorials, I watched them yesterday when I saw your tweet just to make sure there isn't any tricks I've been missing... Btw, we're also using VectorScribe and couldn't agree you more on it's usefulness.

Just a quick Q after watching the 2nd vid... How does RageText deals with the hallow shapes on font characters?

 

You now have the folder path option in "Settings", just edit it to the path where you put your SVG art at. I think Sandro worked some on getting the path automatically when dropping the file in that field, but he didn't get it done, I'll ask him about it.

Excellent, I had to make sure everyone was on the same page - you have no idea of how many e-mails I get wanting more details on this BTW, did you already do the straight lines behind the overlapped shapes? It's something people don't usually do in Illustration packages since it generally becomes a 2D bitmap in the end of the pipeline, but if you have a background in 3D graphics it comes naturally to you.

The very same way. Right now you have to slice up the character shapes (with holes in them of course) like I show in the video before importing them in Unity. Talking of which, we have some very promising research already done for an automatic compound shape splitting option in SVG-In.

 

Hi MaDDox, a while back you posted a script to fade a RageGroup. It seems to have some issues with the latest RageSpline/Ragetools. Would you have a look when you get a chance.

Thanks

iByte

 

Hi MaDDox, anotherr one for you. in RageCanvasAlign you have a few lines like

public Action UpdateAction;
public Action StartAction;

This seems to conflict with an existing Action class (unityFSM) that I already have defined. I wasn't able to determine where your Action class was defined?

Thanks

iByte

 

The day has come! RageTools Pro submitted to the Asset Store. Docs now online:
http://www.freakow.com/ragetools/RageToolsPro-userguide.pdf

This was a very complicated deployment process, which involved a minor update to RageTools (now 1.0.1). I've quadruple-checked everything, fingers crossed that it works fine for the reviewers - at times those 'missing references' show up randomly like in a scare movie...

iByte, bear with me, I'll get back to you later today. This was a loooong Sunday - that hasn't ended yet for me.. *_*

 

Congrats on the release

No worries ... Thanks

iByte

 

Great! That was a hard release, so big congrats

On a side note, it's good to know that, even if Keely is "out" (sigh, RagePixel looked so interesting), you will take care of RageSpline too

 

Sure, I've updated it to work with 1.1 data structure. Basically we now have a RageSpline "wrapper" which allows us to decouple a bit from RageSpline so we overwrite some of its inner functions - especially needed to improve RageMagnet performance, we have a "refresh" custom tailored for it. To directly access the RageSpline API from a RageGroup member item you call its "Rs" property. So for instance, supposing you want to make all your group members fill color black, you'd do this:

var group = GetComponent<RageGroup>();
foreach (var item in group.List) {
item.Spline.Rs.SetFillColor1(Color.black);
}

I've also optimized a bit the script so it now accesses the RageGroup list directly instead of holding a local duplicate, renamed it to RageGroupFader and added it to our repository to make sure it'll be properly maintained in the future (besides being available for all RageTools users).

Actually 'Action' is a default System class, it's basically a delegate (a variable that "holds" a method in it, for who doesn't know what's that). You're probably using Playmaker, right? Please try replacing these lines with:
public System.Action UpdateAction;
public System.Action StartAction;

It's compiling here but I haven't tried it with Playmaker, please tell me if it fixes the issue. If it does I'll commit it for the next update (or go after another fix, ofc).

Thanks Izitmee, although I can't publish new RageSpline versions myself, Keely proposed that we share a common repository to make things (much) simpler for us. I complied of course Talking of which, don't think I forgot about adding those HOTween samples to RageTools, I definitely intend to. TA!

 

I only see RageTools not RageTools Pro. Did you decide to merge the packages?

Thanks for the docus...it looks like nearly what I was hoping for,


! This is what I was looking for!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yUk0cqzNGI&feature=relmfu

 

It takes some days for Unity to review the package and put it online. I'll let you guys know as soon as they do it.

If you have any specific requests or ideas, we can't promise anything but are more than willing to listen.

 

Hello Maddox,
when i import RageTools , i get this error:

Assets/RageTools/Code/RageCanvasAlign.cs(67,25): error CS0103: The name `Mathfx' does not exist in the current context

Unity 3.5.1
RageSpline 1.1.30
RageTools 1.1.0

Thanks.

 

Thank you for the updated script and extra info

I am still using the the older UnityFSM code but same idea. Prefixing the Action with System is working, Thanks

One other issue (I think it's my own doing) is that it appeared to me that you moved some directories around from the previous version (noticed after in place update). So to clean things up i removed the RageTools package from within Unity and reinstalled it. In doing so I think i broke a lot of my prefabs as i now get many many The referenced script on this Behaviour is missing! (when the code is running) that seem to point to ragespline obejcts. When i look at the actual objects in scene or as prefabs they look correct so it's kind of got me baffled. These messages occur when I destroy some objects that were loaded in the first scene and are no longer required when the second scene is additivly loaded.

iByte

 

hmm, you can ignore my issue with the Behaviour is missing issue. I updated one of the prefabs and the msgs are gone now.

About the Fade script, would it be better to take a direction flag or an end transparency value for the fade target?

iByte

 

sefou, I'm 100% sure this error only happens when you don't have the latest RageSpline installed. Probably the Asset Store updater failed in some weird way, so try it as follows:
- Create a new project
- Go to Asset Store, find RageSpline, click "update" if it shows in there
- Do the same for RageTools (although apparently you already have the latest ver). Import it.
See if that works. If it does, try selecting the RageSpline folder from this new project, exporting a package with it, then importing it in the original project you got the problem. This way you shouldn't lose any reference.

Yeah, these missing prefab links even got me a rejection in my first RT 1.1 submission, they're so inconspicuous.. BTW, it's a fact that 1.1 is not backwards compatible with 1.0, I've mentioned it here a couple times. I'm glad it didn't completely ruin your scene

Ok, you got me completely lost here, care to explain it in a bit more detail?

 

Unless I misunderstood, RageGroupFader takes a visible object and makes it invisible by adjusting the alpha down to 0?

I want the ability to fade "in" as well as fade "out" a RageGroup (direction) and be able to specify the amount of fading.

iByte

 

Thanks Maddox,
it work fine now.

 

Oh gotcha! In fact that script is currently a bit "hack-ey" since it applies a modifier on the current alpha, and not based on the original alpha. That's the only way to make its 'duration' field actually precise - and reverse-able like you want it. The right thing is to make an update to RageGroup to additionally hold the style data of each shape when you click 'update'. I've got some bigger stuff in line, but I'll play with that when I get the time, thanks for the suggestions!

Glad you got it working sefou, my pleasure

 

RageTools Pro is now... LIVE!

http://u3d.as/content/freakow/rage-tools-pro/2Rv

Hard to say how happy I am to finally be able to say that ^_^
When you get it, make sure to update RageTools to the latest version (1.0.1) before importing RageTools Pro.
Play with the demo animation/ scenes, check the new tutorials - and tell us what you think, ofc. Enjoy!

PS.: I'll add a separate topic for RT Pro after I update the web site, for now we can keep the discussion here.

 

Virtual high five!

 

Yes! Thanks guys.

 

Ditto! Thanks for all your support and openness Keely, all the beers I (and now Sandro and Rafael) owe you
will surely result in a huge hangover...

...but it'll be more than worth it

 

Just grabbed my copy of RageTools Pro and playing with tutorials... Great job!

 

Thanks Pixel

Check my (super-WIP) Ludum Dare 48 jam entry: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2012/04/23/hangry-ants/

In spite of all the lame "I didn't devote enough time" bugs, that's a no code, no bitmap-atlas, 100% Playmaker and Ragetools fun in Unity3D

 

Hey guys, I am jumping into RageTools again for my game, redoing the characters. I have run into something that I can not figure out.
At seemingly random times I get these errors reported by unity.

!IsFinite(outDistanceForSort)
!IsFinite(outDistanceAlongView)
!IsFinite(outDistanceForSort)
UnityEditor.DockArea:OnGUI()
!IsFinite(outDistanceAlongView)
UnityEditor.DockArea:OnGUI()


At one point, a parent (like 3 level up) is scaled to 0,0,0, could that be the issue?

 

Hey ShreddinPb, I'm not an expert of RageTools, but afaik you should never scale something to 0, since it might cause all kinds of errors (not only with RageTools).

 

Hi Shreddin. Like Izitmee said this is probably the cause, but I'd like some more info if you may. What components are attached to this GameObject (and its children)? Are you using Edgetune? Thanks in advance!

 

I just bought RageTools + RageTools Pro, and are getting my feet wet with the SVG importer. I've encountered a few hiccups and oddities that you might be interested in, Maddox:

1. Once I import RageSpline + both sets of RageTools, I get this notice: "There are inconsistent line endings in the 'Assets/RageSpline/Code/RageTriangulator.cs' script. Some are Mac OS X (UNIX) and some are Windows.
This might lead to incorrect line numbers in stacktraces and compiler errors. Many text editors can fix this using Convert Line Endings menu commands."
Not a biggie, of course, but worth fixing, I'd think - it would give a better first impression, if nothing else.

2. If I follow the RageTools manual instructions and tag my camera "CameraMain" to import an SVG file, I get a whole bunch of error messages and no import happens. However, if I tag my camera the Unity default "MainCamera", the import works - sort of. Which leads me to point 3:

3. Once I import, I do get the imported object as a RageSpline vector. So that's good. In addition, though, I get one large orange rectangle, dotted with lots of irregularly shaped white blobs. This stuff is not in any of my files. See the attached image for an example of this (it shows the orange rectangle, white blobs and the actual imported shape; a black, rounded rectangle with no outline). It happens with all imports from files that I've created in Illustrator, but it doesn't happen with the sample SVG files that come with RageTools. I can just delete the offending orange rectangle and white blobs, so it's not a showstopper. But it is a bit annoying, and didn't provide a stellar first impression.

My guess for number 3 is that either of the following is true:
- I have some setting in Illustrator wrong, in which case I don't know where to look.
...or...
- My version of Illustrator is too old to provide the SVG output that RageTools expects. I'm on CS3.

 

Also, the RageTools manual linked to from your website should be updated; it talks about RageText as something that will show up in the future, and has no content for RageTools Pro. Speaking of teaching materials: The tutorials that Pixel Envision mentioned playing with in a recent post - where are they? I've been goggling and haven't really found anything else than the general RageTools video and the two on preparing for SVG import.

 

Well, duh. Sorry, I just discovered that I'd managed to not see the Tutorials folder that comes with RageTools :-o

Sorry.

 

Well, I changed my animation curves to go to 0.001 and then turn off the renderer and that seems to work fine
There really isnt much attached to them, its a couple parents then I have rage group, rage pivottools, and rage svgin

 

That's on the RageSpline side, Keely is aware and commented about it in his thread. No worries though, it's innocuous.

That's a typo in the docs, I'll fix it. Thanks for the report!

As far as I'm aware, Illustrator CS3 SVG export is good enough for SVG-In, so I suspect there's something else going on. Can I check one of your files? Any that causes the issue would do, please send it attached in an e-mail to contact@freakow.com and I'll look into it ASAP.

If you're talking about "5.1.2.1.7. Text – Will be supported in the future through RageText." that's actually correct since RageText still doesn't support importing text through SVG-In. If you're seeing any other references that'd mean you don't have the latest RageTools manual - what does it show in the first page (revision), 1.1 or what?

Other than that, I admit I've got so much to update that it's disheartening.. But I'll get to it, I'm just focusing on fixing the major bugs of these two (massive) releases, then I'll get back to video tutorials and updating the web site. Hopefully we're the ones mostly hurt by these, if you find any truly misleading/harming info please tell me and I'll update it ASAP.

One last mostly RageTools-Pro related notice, if you're using RageMagnet and are having refresh delay issues (affected shapes "lagging behind"), please set your RageGroup update step to zero. Higher values lead to higher performance as documented, but it's causing some issues during editor time due to some Unity refresh issues. We're checking if we can push Unity to get this working, if it's a blocker we'll make the progressive update only active during play time.

ShreddinPB: Glad that you got it sorted out!

 

Sure, I just sent a file. Also, what I was talking about in regards to the manual was indeed the 5.1.2.1.7 mention - I guess I didn't read it thoroughly enough :-o Sorry about that.

 

Thanks, just check it out. I got a bit confused at first because the SVG file actually had that data (the points + square), then I found out the culprit - it's simply a 'pattern' that's defined in your file, even if not used in the art itself. SVG-In skips commands it doesn't understand and just keep parsing, thus the pattern-defining shapes came in as originally defined. I've simply added pattern commands to the ignore list, since RageSpline doesn't support that anyways. I'm sending the latest SVG-In version attached, simply replace it. Thanks again for sending the file and please tell me if you find any further problems or have any doubt.

BTW, this weekend I've worked on an *awesome* new RageTools feature that you guys simply have to see in action to understand its beauty I'm working on a video to showcase it, keep tuned!

 

You're full of surprises, can't wait to see it!

 

Hi MaDDoX

I've got a scene with a hierarchy like this:

GameObject (empty gameobject with RageGroup Pivotools)
---Terrain1 (empty gameobject with Rage Svg In)
------<Path0> (RageSpline object import from SVG)
---Terrain2 (empty gameobject with Rage Svg In)
------<Path0> (RageSpline object import from SVG)
---Terrain3 (empty gameobject with Rage Svg In)
------<Path0> (RageSpline object import from SVG)
etc

I'm trying to get the various<Path0> objects pivots to center using the Pivotools object on the root GameObject. I've got it set to "Geometric" "In Place". When I click on center nothing seems to happen.

If I place the Pivotools component on the Terrain1 object and click Center it works fine. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

 

Hi Robin! First, are you sure you don't want to use the 'reference' mode? If you do, I know there was a bug with pivotools that didn't allow you to use a reference object in the middle of the target chain, i.e. you got to use a reference object out of the chain. We've found a way to fix it and apply it to the new 'per branch' mode, yet I suspect we didn't float the fix to the 'reference' mode. If you really wanted to use Geometric, no idea what's going on, that should work. Maybe you can send me so I may check on the scene and see what's the catch?

BTW, just to make you guys aware of it, I've got a report of group style 'apply' action not working on all shapes of a group. That's in fact a side effect of you creating a style in one of the grouped shapes and not removing it afterwards. You must remove the style from the spline, or else it'll override any setting later applied by RageGroup (or anything else, for the matter). You can also use RageSpline's "override" style settings, but it's not worth the trouble if you ask me.

This issue also affects Group tweak, edgetune and RageText + edgetune.

 

Unfortunately, reference mode seems to have the same problem. I'm sending you an email with the scene now.

 

I'm back home so tomorrow is the official "fix remaining bugs and wrap up next RageTools and RageTools Pro versions" - so it's perfect timing to check your sample scene, thanks

Edit: Robin, I've checked your scene, no real problem there you're just using the wrong Pivotools option. Both 'Geometric' and 'Reference' modes only change the pivot of the root object, ie. the object where the pivotools component is. What you want, centering each group item around its own geometric center, is achieved through the "Per Item" mode option. Worked flawlessly here.

 

Thanks and apologies for being an idiot. I could've sworn I tried that. I was up against a deadline and stressed, so probably made a mistake. Thanks again.