Text Mesh Pro - The Ultimate Text Solution for Unity - Powerful & Flexible - Advanced Text Rendering

Added a new vertical alignment mode which uses the geometry to align the text vertically instead of the standard Ascender / Descender. This isn't proper vertical text alignment but several users were asking for it.



The top left TextMesh Pro object and top right UI Text object show normal vertical text alignment. The 2nd row shows the added Midline vertical alignment mode. The remaining rows show how much of a vertical shift can occur using this mode based on the text.



Using the Ascender and Descender is the correct way but this mode does make text look better aligned inside a button

 

Here is an example of how to setup a scene / script to Scroll Text Horizontally across the screen in a continuous loop using TextMesh Pro.

 

Bold like other material properties like Dilation, Outline, Underlay, Glow, etc extend the size of the character up to the edge of the adjacent character. When one or a combination of those properties, gets up to that edge, visual artifacts or this grey ghostly outline will occur. Basically, this is simply a sign that those properties are being pushed to their max.

So how do you address that? When a font asset is created, the padding value determines the range possible by those properties. So if you find yourself pushing those values near their max because of the visual style you are trying to achieve. It is best to re-create that Font Asset with a larger padding value. Typically on a 512 X 512 a padding value of 5 is pretty good. Increasing this padding value to something like 8 will give you significantly more range. On a 1024 X 1024 these values should be doubled to keep thing proportionally the same.

So why not always create a font asset with a large padding value? The larger the padding the smaller the point size / sampling size of the Font Asset will be. The larger the sampling size, the more accurate the font asset will be.

Basically, you have to balance those two things. When creating a Font Asset, think about how you plan on using it. Will this font be mostly used for smaller text with little visual styling? If so, you can maximize sampling size by lowering the padding value to something like 3 on a 512 X 512. On the other hand, if you know ahead of time that you'll want to use crazy outline, and deep shadows and glow, then you'll want a larger padding value like 8 or even 10. Typically, you want to keep that sampling size well above 36 points but sometimes you want more characters in the Font Asset and larger padding which is when you consider increasing the Font Asset size to a 1024 X 1024 for instance.

There have been numerous posts about this in the forum thread here and on the TextMesh Pro User Forum with examples. Should you have further questions on this, feel free to reach out to me.

The is an issue in version 0.1.44 where if the space character was not first in the list of ranges, the plugin would fail. This was addressed in subsequent releases of TextMesh Pro which also includes additional packing features.

My recommendation is for you to update to the latest beta release of TextMesh Pro which is found on the TextMesh Pro User Forum. These new releases include several new features along with support for the new UI. There is also a new beta release for Unity 5.0.

The latest best release for Unity 4.6 is 0.1.46 Beta 4.4 and the latest for Unity 5.0 is 0.1.5 Beta 1.2.

 

For a custom solution, I would look at the scripts that I posted on the user forum where I have the TextMesh Pro component do a initial layout of the text and then use those script to further modify the vertex attributes. You could revise one of those script examples to instead of modifying vertex position or color, have it tessellate the geometry per character.

 

The source code is include so it is not wrapped inside a DLL.

In terms of the solution I propose, you can set TextMeshPro.renderMode = TextRenderFlags.DontRender; which will tell TextMesh Pro to parse and layout the text but not render the geometry. In this secondary script, you can get the result of what was done in the layout pass and tessellate each character as you see fit. From a performance point of view that wouldn't be so bad.

 

I do not at this time but it is on the list of features to add.

I showed a preview of a run time Text Input Component a few months ago but that was before the Unity 4.6 and Unity 5.0 frenzy began which threw my schedule out the window.

 

There should not be any issues. At scale 1.00 the sprites are scaled to the font size / line height. So whether the sprites are 10 X 10 or 1000 X 1000, they are rescaled. Now if you need the sprite to appear larger or smaller than this line height, you simple change the scale of that sprite in the Sprite Asset Editor.

 

I already have several users using TextMesh Pro with NGUI where they are replacing the text labels by a TextMesh Pro object. There are several posts on the forums here as well as on the TextMesh Pro User Forum so as far as I know it is all working well.

For doing masking using the UIPanel, you will need an extra script from the TextMesh Pro User Forum.

Should you have any questions or run into any issues, please feel free to reach out to me. I am here to help

P.S. If you end up picking up TextMesh Pro, be sure to register to the TextMesh Pro User Forum to pick up the latest beta releases which include new features as well as releases for Unity 4.6 and Unity 5.0.

 

You are welcome.

You'll need the script and one shader modification which is posted on the TMP user forum to make it work nicely with the UIPanel masking. Other than that everything else appears to be working fine.

 

New Beta Releases of TextMesh Pro for Unity 4.6 as well as Unity 5.0 are ready. Unless new issues are reported, these will be release by the end of day Monday.

As usual, these releases will be available to all registered users of the product and available on the TextMesh Pro User Forum.

 

The only issue with using different sources for the image is that you would then get a draw call for each individual image used since they are in contained in their own texture.

It is pretty easy to take individual sprites and add them into a texture where you now have potential 100's of sprites that can be referenced and collectively taking just one draw call since they all use the same material.

Is there a reason why you want this alternative format?

 

Does each texture contain a single sprite or multiple sprites packed into them?

 

The way the current <sprite=xx> tag and Sprite Asset works is essentially a Texture that contains a bunch of sprites along with a data structure that contains the location of these sprites within the texture.

Basically, you could implement your own system to fetch those individual sprites (texture) at run time, pack them into an atlas and then update the data structure for the newly added sprite(s) / textures. This would have the benefit of using one draw call and only requiring a single sub object.

I am not saying the other method isn't possible. I am just trying to find a way to avoid having a text object made up of lots of different sub mesh / objects.

Next, the width and height parameters could be tricky since these sizes may not make sense based on the font size being used. In the current sprite implementation, a quad is created for each of the images and then scaled based on the height of the font while maintaining the aspect ratio. This ensures that the images remain size relative to the font while allowing you to tweak the scale to make it larger or smaller relative to the font size.

P.S. Since it is getting close to 3:00 AM for me, I might not reply until tomorrow.

 

In the Font Asset Creator you can define custom range(s) of characters to include in the Font Asset. For instance here is an example of a set that includes the ASCII set + Cyrillic.





Hopefully whoever wrote these few lines about StarCraft did a good job.

This was created using Unity 5.0 and one of the latest beta release of TextMesh Pro which is available to all registered users of the product on the TextMesh Pro User Forum.

 

Here is a post from the TextMesh Pro User Forum which explains how. http://digitalnativestudios.com/forum/index.php?topic=224.0

 

That is not possible at this time. However, that is a feature on the list to be added.

That is not possible either. Since Underlay / Outline / Etc. are material properties, changing those would affect the whole text object since all the characters share the same material. This is the same as using different fonts or material within the same text object.

The form of the font tag will allow to change fonts and material using something like <font="ARIAL SDF" material="ARIAL SDF Drop Shadow">

 

The line breaking for East Asian languages was added in later beta releases of TextMesh Pro.

Please take the time to register to the TextMesh Pro User Forum. There you will be able to get the latest beta releases for Unity 4.6 or Unity 5.0 which include the line breaking support as well as additional features.

 

Once you have the latest release, look in the Resources folder. There are two text files which contain the LineBreaking Leading Characters and Following Characters. Those define when a line can be broken and which characters are allowed to be at the start or at the end of a line. You may need to edit those to add or remove certain characters based on the language.

 

Support for adding links in the text using a Rich Tag is on the list of features to add.

 

Beta Release 0.1.5 Beta 1.4 for Unity 5.0 is now available.
This release is available to all Registered users of the product and available on the TextMesh Pro User Forum.

P.S. New beta release for Unity 4.6 should be out within a day or so.

Important Note for Windows Users: If you are NOT using Visual Studio, you will need to install the Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013. Please download and install "vcredist_x64.exe". These dll's are required by the Font Asset Creator and sadly no longer included in Unity 5.0.

TextMeshPro 0.1.5 Beta x.x Release Notes

• The native plugin(s) used by the Font Asset Creator are now located in the "TextMesh Pro/Plugins/..." folder. Since both the Personal and Professional Edition of Unity 5.0 include support for native plugins, it is no longer necessary for these files to be copied to the root of the project.
• Renamed the native plugin .dylib to .bundle as the dylib was not found in the Plugins folder. [Beta 1.1]
• The custom material editor for the TextMesh Pro Shaders has been updated as a result of the change to the material RangeProperty function.
• The package has been updated as to no longer require the Automatic script conversion. This includes lots of minor changes.
• The Surface shaders have been updated to use the alpha:blend revised implementation in Unity 5.0.
• Added a few extra example scenes showing a few more of the recently added Rich Text Tags.
• Added the ability to define Tab Size in the Font Asset Editor panel. [03/15]
• Vertex Color Alpha now also affects Glow Alpha. [03/15]
• Added a new vertical alignment mode (Midline) where text is aligned vertically based on the character's geometry instead of font metrics. [03/15]
• Added the ability to create font assets as large as 8192 X 8192. Those take a while to produce even at Distance Field 16. [03/23]
• Vertex Colors and text alignment should now be maintained when migrating from version 0.1.44 of TextMesh Pro. [04/26]
• The TextMeshProUGUI Component now inherit from Graphics to improve compatibility with Layout Components. [04/26]

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where preferredHeight was incorrect when using \n or when spaces were at the beginning of a line.
• Fixed an issue affecting word wrapping for East Asian languages.
• Fixed a bug where the save button was not working in the Font Asset Creator when Smooth or Raster modes were used.
• Fixed a calculation issue with text auto sizing which caused unnecessary iterations. [03/15]
• Fixed an minor issue with text auto sizing. Sizing is now at increments of 0.05 point size.
• Fixed an issue related to sorting order based on scene hierarchy when using the new UI TMP Component. [03/15]
• Fixed an issue where truncating and ellipsis where not handled correctly. [03/15]
• Changed the Render Queue for ARIAL SDF which was set incorrectly. [03/15]
• Fixed an issue with Depth sorting when using the Canvas Renderer Mode Worldspace. [03/23]
• Fixed a minor GUIStyle issue with the Font Asset Creator. [03/23]
• Fixed an issue where multi-object selection was resetting alignment on the objects. [03/23]
• Fixed an issue related to prefab editing where a new TextMeshProUI Component is added to an object in the prefab. [03/23]
• Fixed an issue where object scale of zero would cause the text to not render. [03/24]
• Fixed an issue where the TextContainer.pivot would not match the TextContainer.anchorPosition. [04/26]
• Fixed an issue where underline would not be applied correctly. [04/26]
• Fixed an issue where the child Inline Graphic object would not be aligned propertly. [04/26]
• Fixed an issue where Dynamic Batching was causing the text object to be fuzzy at small scales. [04/26]
• Fixed an issue where textInfo.lineCount was inaccurate when word wrapping was no longer possible and character breaking was used. [04/26]
• Fixed several issues when Layout Components were used. [04/26]
• Fixed an issue where character UV coordinates were wrong when the Font Asset Size (Height) was larger than the Width. [04/26]
• Fixed an issue where destroying text objects could cause Masking Material references to be lost on other objects sharing this material. [04/26]
• Fixed an issue where Material instancing would misbehave when Masking is used. [04/26]
• Fixed a few issues that occur when Canvas Scale is being modified via scripting. [04/26]

Changes

• Updated the examples scenes using a Canvas to all use Render Mode - Screen Space - Overlay.
• Improved how scaling is handled where the text object no longer needs to be regenerated when translation and scaling of the transform occurs. [03/15]
• Changed how the Canvas Render modes and Canvas Scaler are handled in relations to Distance Field Font Scaling. This was resulting potentially fuzzy looking text. [03/15]
• The color of the underline will be that of the first character where underline begins. [03/15]
• GUI Skins and Textures are now managed by a separate script which ensure they are only loaded once. [03/15]
• Changed how pixel size is computed by the shaders as a result of Unity's 5.0 using a different method to render the scene view. [03/15]
• Text auto sizing point size accuracy is now 0.05 point size. [03/23]
• Color tags are now nested. This means </color> will clear to the previous color as opposed to back to default color. [04/26]
• The <indent=xx.x> tag is now relative to font size and its value is now consistent with the <pos=xx.x> and <space=xx.x> tags. [04/26]
• The Ellipsis (Char 8230) is now included in the Font Asset Creator - ASCII Set since it is needed for the Overflow Mode - Ellipsis.[04/26]

NOTE: Due to Unity not setting the "_ScreenParams" shader built-in value correctly when multiple cameras are used or when the Canvas is set to Screen Space Overlay or when the Canvas Scaler is used, the text in the SceneView render incorrectly (fuzzy or too sharp). However, it should render correctly in the GameView. I have filed a bug report on this issue and awaiting feedback from Unity.

NOTE: There are several shader related warnings due to some changes to custom material editor in Unity 5.0. These will only be visible the first time the package is imported. I'll be updating the custom material editor in the next few days to make these go away.


03/09/2015 Release 0.1.5 Beta 1.1 - Addressed an issue with the native plugin on OSX. See notes above.
03/15/2015 Release 0.1.5 Beta 1.2 - See notes above.
03/23/2015 Release 0.1.5 Beta 1.3 - See notes above.
03/24/2015 Release 0.1.5 Beta 1.3.1 - See notes above. Minor quick fix.
04/26/2015 Release 0.1.5 Beta 1.4 - Release contains mostly bug fixes related to recent changes Unity made to the Auto Layout System. See release notes above.

 

Masking in Unity 4.6 / 5.0 is done by using a Stencil. So when a UI Mask Component is used, the shader need to have support for Stencil. This error indicates that whatever shader / material is used doesn't have a Stencil property.

Both Mobile Distance Field and Distance Field shaders in TextMesh Pro support this Stencil feature. The surface shaders do not as I am not sure it makes sense. The bitmap shaders do not support it although that could be added. The Overlay shaders do not either since those are designed for the normal TextMeshPro Component.

Without a better understanding of your scene, I would guess that you are either using the bitmap shaders, one of the overlays or the surface shaders.

What shaders are you using with this TextMeshProUGUI object that is affected by a UI Mask Component?

What version of TextMesh Pro are you using?

P.S. If you have not already done so, make sure you register on the TextMesh Pro User Forum. This will give you access to the latest beta releases of TextMesh Pro.

P.S.S. Since it is almost 3:00 AM for me, I might not be able to get back to you until I wake up tomorrow.

 

Do you mean Beta 1.4?

What shader were you using?

 

With the release of the New UI and Unity 5.0, Unity has kept me busy over the past few weeks / months. Now that things are starting to settle down, I'll take a look at Brady's last communication and see what I can do here.

 

Just something new to look at

 

New Release Available
Release 0.1.5 Beta 1.5 of TextMesh Pro for Unity 5.0 has just been released. It is available to all registered users of the product on the TextMesh Pro User Forum.

New releases are always located in the "TMPro - Alpha & Beta Releases" section of the forum. Please note this section of the forum is only visible to members and registered users of the product.

 

NEW - Strikethrough Rich Text Tag
I just added a new Rich Text Tag for Strikethrough in TextMesh Pro. The format of this tag as well as some of the other tags available can be seen in the image below.



Strikethrough will be available in the next release which should be in a few days.