Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Summary
This chapter covered extensive ground under a general remit of "2D-ness". 2D
was defined here not so much in the conventional sense of 2D games, but with a
texture-based understanding that's critical to both 2D and 3D games more generally.
The topics included the operations and ideas that pertain to the 2D plane and within
the 2D space. Specifically, it explored how to create rotating Skybox backgrounds
by building a manual Skybox, combined with the camera depth settings to create
a layered render. Then, it explored how to generate procedural geometry such as
planes. With the addition of Unity Quads as primitives, the generation of planes is
more limited when taken alone, but the methods and concepts deployed to generate
the Quad are more useful, allowing us to edit and tweak any mesh, whether it is a
Quad or not. The real-time editing of meshes is important to create a wide range
of effects, from shockwave explosions to jelly-based trampolines. Moving forward,
we examined the animation of mesh UVs. They allowed us to scroll indefinitely
across a 2D background Quad, with a tile-able texture, which is useful for parallax
effects as well as for water and other motion-based illusions. Finally, we considered
dynamic texture painting on a mesh, where, using the mouse, we can click on a
mesh to paint a source texture onto the mesh texture that allows its UV coordinates
and the alpha transparency to blend. This feature set is especially powerful and has
wide applicability to create real-time decals, such as bullet holes, blood splatters,
and player-based drawing. In the next chapter, we will consider a range of tips and
techniques to work better with Unity projects.
