Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Working with Textures,
Models, and 2D
Most game engines today orient their feature set towards the creation of 3D games
rather than 2D in a general sense. This often, ironically, makes 3D tasks and
workflows simpler than 2D ones, at least to pick up and get started with initially.
In this chapter, we'll explore a variety of 2D issues with some provisos. Since the
release of Unity 4.3, a wide range of 2D features have been added to the editor:
initially, a native sprite system and then, a new GUI system. While these are both
useful in their respective ways, the main focus of this chapter will not be on these
features specifically. The first reason is that a lot of tutorials already explain them
in considerable detail, but the second and most important reason is that even with
the added 2D features, there are still more fundamental questions that arise about
working in 2D, in a looser sense. These include questions such as how to manipulate
geometry such as the vertices and edges of 2D planes, how to adjust and animate
texture coordinates, how to edit textures and also how to texture paint onto textures
in real time using a brush-like system to create decals and blood splats, and so
on. These questions are more 2D than 3D insofar as they pertain to geometry
and textures in the 2D plane, but their relevance is to both 2D and 3D games
generally. Their importance is highly significant today, though their coverage is
somewhat under-represented in the tutorials available, so I have covered them
here. Consequently, I'll restrict this chapter mostly to the unconventional side of 2D.
