TextMesh Pro - Advanced Text Rendering for Unity - Beta now available in Asset Store

TextMesh Pro vs. TextMesh Web Demo
This is as plain as it can get. A simple line of text being updated each frame using the same Arial font.


Top text is TextMesh Pro. Bottom is Unity's Text Mesh.

When the count reaches 1000, while still using the same TextMesh Pro Font Asset, we switch to a different material preset and then back later on.

 

Thank you!

Are you instantiating the object via script?

The mesh is typically updated once per frame before the scene is rendered. As a result, the object that you just instantiated doesn't really exists yet when you try to get its bounds.

To force the object / mesh to be created when you need it, use TextMeshPro.ForceMeshUpdate(); which will update the mesh and then populate the bounds.

The MeshInfo isn't ready yet for primetime but it will be soon. But for your needs, the bounds should be there.

Let me know if this works. I'll be online for the next few hours so we can get this sorted out for you.

P.S. Make sure you register on the TMPro Forum, which will make it easier for me to assist you.

P.S.S. In the next release 0.1.43, a new function was added which is TextMeshPro.GetTextMetrics(text); which will return information such as # of characters, # of lines and # or words as well as the Height and Length of this potential text string. This will be useful to determine those metrics before creating the actual object.

 

TextMesh Pro Forum

 

P.S. This is a follow up post in the TextMesh Pro Asset Store Thread

The creation of this Gold Material

I wanted to show how this Gold material was created from the plain Impact SDF Font Asset. Once again, we are re-using the same (base) Impact SDF Font Asset. This is simply a new material with modified properties.


Here is an image of the text using this new Gold Material preset.




Close up on just the letter "G" reflecting the final settings of this material.




Lastly, an animated GIF of the process for creating this new material preset.




Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Just made some refinements to text justification in terms of handling line endings and paragraphs. The image below is a single text object using Justified Alignment mode with a blend of 50 / 50 between words and character spacing. The text was copy / paste from a webpage.

 

Not much I can do on my end since this is a Unity issue. According to the post below, multi-threaded rendering for Android appears to still be work in progress..

I am not sure if this behavior is consistent from device to device.

 

Performance Comparison (Unity's Text Mesh vs. TextMesh Pro)
This is somewhat of an extreme stress test as it is unlikely that you'll even have 5000 text objects on screen at once but just in case, you can count on TextMesh Pro to deliver in terms of visual quality and performance.

Here is a still image of Unity's Text Mesh.




and now a still of TextMesh Pro. Notice how much cleaner & more professional the text is using TextMesh Pro.

 

One of our users has discovered that TextMeshPro.SetText() which was designed as an alternative to using string.format or stringbuilder.appendFormat or the plain "Some string" + integer.ToString(); which all result in run time allocations, was incompatible with Windows Store builds as well as having issue with JIT compile mode. The reason for this was a result of using generic types and the iConvertible interface.

I have reworked the SetText function and added overloads instead. As a result, it no longer uses generic types and this iConvertible interface which means it should now work on all platforms and compile modes. In addition, it got even faster.

Code (CSharp):

1. _StringBuilder.AppendFormat("The sum of {0} + {1} is {2}", 2, 3, 5); // 7830ms - 132 bytes of Allocations
2. m_textMeshPro.SetText("The sum of {0:0} + {1:0} is {2:0}.", 2, 3, 5); // 260ms - 0 Allocations
3.  

Both functions produce the following text : "The sum of 2 + 3 is 5."

The performance numbers and allocations were gathered from Iterating over these functions individually 1 million times followed by then checking allocations in update in the profiler.

 

Since you are one of the users who requested it ... here it is.


Text Truncating & Ellipsis
One of the features that was requested in the WIP Thread was using Ellipsis to indicate when a line or paragraph of text is truncated. As part of the improvements to line justification which will be part of the next Beta Release 0.1.44, I was able to add this new feature which works in conjunction with TextMeshPro.maxVisibleLine property.

 

I posted the Release Notes for the next beta 0.1.44 in the Asset Store Thread.

 

New Beta 0.1.44 has been submitted to Unity for review.

 

I never thought someone would not want to see the pretty backside of the text. Oops.

In the shaders, you can temporarily set the culling to "Cull Back" instead of "Cull Off"

However, I will add a new property to enable this to be changed via scripts and a property in the Editor panel if you feel that is necessary.

P.S. Please make sure you register on the TMPro user forum. That way we can explore this more in depth without boring everyone here with details


EDIT: Already added the new property which is TextMeshPro.enableCulling = true;

Right now this changes the culling mode for all objects using that Material. It could be made to instance the material but I am not sure it makes sense to have some text objects with it on and other with it off.

 

Here is the link: TextMesh Pro User Forum


Although I have already implemented the feature, please add it to the feature request part of the forum which will be useful to other users.

 

No problem. Feel free to PM me if you have any issues with registration or anything.

I am off to bed since it is almost 5:00 AM for me

 

It is pretty hard to anticipate all the things that people may want to do with any given tool. The whole point of releasing the Beta was to get TextMesh Pro in the hands of even more people to gather even more feedback to make sure the product lives up to expectations. In other words, keep the feedback coming and lets figure out what you need

I see your issue here. Let me see what I can do to make the color properties work with the animation editor. I am surprised that Unity doesn't support color32 in their animator.

Color is substantially slower (10 X slower) than Color32 when it comes to updating mesh data. Having said that, once I have a better understanding of what you are trying to accomplish, I can most likely add a new function or property to allow you to do what you want using color.

Let's figure out how I can add the functionality you need in a way that it will benefit all other users as well


EDIT: I am looking into this. I wish the Animation Editor used property accessors instead of changing serialized properties directly.

 

Are you looking to mix graphics (shapes) with the current text or looking to use these shapes instead of text in separate objects and taking advantage of the dynamic / flexibility of our rendering?

 

One of the features that I would like to add is the ability to mix different fonts and sprites in the same text object. I started working on it and then got pulled in 5 different directions like making TextMesh Pro play nice with the Animation Editor for instance

TextMesh Pro User Forum

 

Here is a quick test using the Animation Editor to animated the color as well as character spacing.



This is not the best looking animation but it should be a good enough proof of concept.

EDIT: Looks like the challenging part of this will be to track when Unity is changing Serialized Properties via the Animation Editor.

 

The Outline is added at the edge and grows inwards & outwards. If having the Outline grow into the face of the character is not ideal, you can use Dilate to inflate the character to compensate. Here are a few examples:


Image of the text - plain



Image of text with an Outline extends both inward and outward. This makes the characters appear thinner.


Image of text with the same Outline but with added Dilation to compensate for the outline. Face surface area is the same is the first image but now the Outline is effectively added on the outside of the face.


Image of the same text but with an added soft drop shadow. Why? Just because we can

Hopefully this answers your question. Let me know if you need further assistance.


P.S. As a side note, all 4 of these examples are still using the same Arial SDF Font Asset. The only difference between these 4 text objects is their style which is amount to different material properties. Essentially, we are looking at the same Font Asset with 4 different materials.

 

Text Texturing Option in TextMesh Pro
About a week ago, I mentioned that I was going to create a short video to go over the various text (face & outline) texturing options in Text Mesh Pro. Well here is that video

 

Just going through potential things to look at...

Which shader are you using?

Are you getting the same behavior in d3d9?

Are you using one of the fonts included with TextMesh Pro?

If you are using a new font, is this new Font Asset located in a resource folder?


P.S. Take the time to register on the TMPro user forum when you have a chance.

 

You can certainly move the text object anywhere you want and position it based on some relationship of screen width and height. If you are trying to adjust the size of the text object based on the screen resolution, I would also adjust the point size base on the screen as well.

http://digitalnativestudios.com/textmeshpro/docs/ScriptReference/TextMeshPro.html

 

I can certainly see where having the outline applied just on the outside of the edge would be handy as you would not need dilation to compensate for it. However, all these options comes at some cost on the shader side which has to be considered.

 

Let me look at where to fit / add that option

 

Modifying an existing Font Asset
What if you have already generated a bunch of font assets and need to add new characters or change the padding / spread? What if you have several materials that were duplicated from this existing material?

Well fear not TextMesh Pro has you covered. Take a look at this video which explains the process.

 

@techmage: Looks like we will be able to play a lot nicer with the Animation Editor in 4.6. So animating the TextMesh Pro properties like font color, character spacing, etc... will be much easier when 4.6 arrives

 

@techmage: I forgot to mention that I switched over to using Color in the API which will make it work smoothly with the Animation Editor. Internally I still use Color32 due to its superior performance.

 

Single text object with a texture on the face + outline, bevel and shadow.

 

I was just informed by Chris West (SpookCat) that TextMesh Pro works nicely with his MegaFiers as well as MegaBook.

 

There is a first example in the Text Mesh Pro Asset Store Thread but more should follow.

 

New TextContainer Component
This is a preview of the new TextContainer Component for TextMesh Pro. This new component will provide much better control over the layout of the text when it comes to alignment as well as masking due to the new margins.

Also note worthy is the new Auto-sizing of the text to fit the TextContainer. As usual, I am looking for some feedback on this new feature / component.