After two puzzle games kubic & noded, we’re back with an pixel art action/arcade game called Hordes of Enemies.
The game is now available to pre-order on the App Store for FREE and Ii’s due to launch next week on October 3rd.
Hordes of Enemies is a fun pickup and play brawler with 3 main themes/scenes. It supports MFi controllers & iCade, iCloud, ReplayKit, Game Center, Haptic Feedback, 3D Quick Actions, animated iMessage stickers, localized into 12 languages and also available on Apple TV.
This is a truly free-to-play game that comes with two scenes locked, both can be unlocked simply by playing to reach required total scores. Players can also choose to unlock with In-app purchase.
Gorgeous pixel art graphics & animations created by Gustavo Viselner who is best known for his movie based artwork. You can read more about his work in this Kotaku article
We wanted to create a simple and fun game that we would want to play ourselves and we hope that you’ll feel the same, enjoy!
Well, it’s been almost two years (again) since I’ve posted my previous unity plugin suggestions. So, welcome to my now officially biennial post…
As before, Unity received major updates in the mean time and now sitting at v5.3. Some of the previous plugins are not needed anymore such as Unibill (now integrated to 5.3+) or NGUI as native GUI finally become something useable.
So, I’ll cut to the chase and here are my current suggestions for must have add-ons to Unity as of today.
Most Useful Unity Plugins
DOTween Pro (Link): Just go and get this, it’s super performant and useful. Especially if you are used to working with NGUI and switched to uGUI, you’ll find it’s Animation Component (pro feature) very very very useful.
Grids (any version depending on your needs) (Link): That one depends on your needs. But if you are planning to use any kind of Grids in your game, don’t torture yourself by coding everything and simply use Grids instead. It’ll save you lots of time.
InControl (Link): I’ve found this one by the suggestion from Amazon. You can support all kinds of game controllers and this is also very useful for developing games for TV’s (Apple TV, Chromecast, etc.)
Marvelous Techniques (Link): That one contains bunch of shaders along with some sample scenes. If you’re after a special kind of look for your game, that’ll be a gem.
CloudOnce (Link): One simple API to deal with iOS Game Center, Google Play Game Services & Amazon GameCircle. That was one the most time consuming parts of my work till that one came along. It also support Cloud saving for all 3 platforms, so do I need to say more?
And the rest
Those are still in my list, but I’ve already mentioned them before. Check out my previous post(s) for more information.
Time flies away, it’s been almost two years since I’ve posted my unity plugin suggestions for the first time. In the mean time, Unity received major updates, with added support for the new stores/devices. And of course new plugins appeared.
When it comes to scripting & editor extensions, usually there are more than one plugin that does the same thing. Plugins I’m listing here is the ones that stand out (based on feature set, support and updates) for my projects and I’m using them.
So, here is my current suggestions for most useful add-ons for Unity.
Best Unity Plugins
NGUI (Link): You may ask why I still prefer NGUI over the other alternatives. First of all even if it might not be the most elegant GUI solution, it gets the job done. Also, support is phenomenal. If you hit a wall and report a bug (or even a new feature request) you’ll probably get it in the next update which is usually only few days away. To me, that’s as important as the feature set. Besides, native Unity GUI is on the way and I don’t feel like investing (both time/money) into another add-on GUI.
Unibill (Link): If you are developing for multi-platform and planning to use in-app purchases that’s the only plugin you’ll ever need. It currently supports all the major stores (Samsung support is coming soon), the feature set and the support is great and the plugin is easy to implement. It’s also one of the most expensive plugins I’ve purchased, but if you don’t need it ASAP I would suggest keeping an eye on it for any possible discount promotions.
xArm (Link): I wish I had this two years ago, but I’m happy to have it now! That is another tool essential for multi-platform development. It’ll give your the preview of your game for all different devices & screen resolutions you’ll need. That is especially important when developing for Android…
Build Report Tool (Link): Provides an easy to read summary of your build size (iOS, Android, etc.) so you can effectively optimise it to reduce the size. You’ll know the importance of that if/when your app goes over the cellular download limit just with few megabytes…
Pool Manager (Link): Garbage collection is not your friend (one of the biggest problems on mobile), it’ll cause frame drops, hiccups and generally bad performance when not handled properly. This plug-in does it for you, make sure to check it out…
Wait, there is more…
I haven’t actually used those throughly (yet) but each one of them is a gem… Make sure to check them out before making any decisions…
Two days ago we have received the notification e-mail and today, Trains & Transports Puzzle for Toddlers featured by Microsoft on the US store for all phones…
We have started developing mobile apps using Flash. Then saw it’s shortcomings and decided to move to CoronaSDK and released our fist app with it. Currently, we’re working with Unity3D.
Each of those changes had a big impact on how we work and yet, the change was necessary. But there is one tool we are using since the day 1 and I’m sure it’ll be a major part of our workflow for a long time, it’s Texture Packer from Code’n’Web.
Andreas Löw created an exceptional tool for working with sprites and the more you use it on your workflow the more you’ll understand it’s value. First of all, as I noted above we have switched our core tools 3 times but the Texture Packer was compatible with all of them. That was a big plus for us as working with sprites, bitmaps and optimising the texture memory is the core part of mobile development no matter which SDK you are using.
Texture Packer has many time/life saving features that’ll be hard to cover in one blog post. So, today I’d like to mention one particular feature that recently saved the day for me. It’s a little tick box located in Layout section called “Reduce border artifacts”.
Let me explain the problem first. When dealing with the sprites & sprite sheets, you’ll use transparencies in almost all cases. Your alpha transparency might good look on Photoshop, but depending on the device (or your framework/SDK) hardware accelerated textures & transparencies might be handled a little bit differently.
In Photoshop, transparent or semi-transparent pixels have an undefined color and Photoshop handles them in software based on layer blending methods among other things. But with graphics hardware / OpenGL transparent pixels still have a color, even if it’s fully transparent. When the graphics card mixes a transparent pixel with the image below it, color value of the transparent pixel also gets mixed in. This colour is black and as a result “ghost” outlines, a thin grey border might appear around your sprites.
Unity uses straight alpha blending, and alpha textures needs a special treatment to prevent that problem as explained here. The trick is expanding the RGB section of the image (not alpha) so transparent pixels would have proper color. They have even provided a AlphaUtility (actions for Photoshop) to help you with that problem.
But if you are working with Texture Packer, fix is one click away. Simply enable “Reduce Border Artifacts” checkbox and Texture Packer will handle that for you when exporting the sprite sheet!
Here is a simulated sample image, take a look at the three light green dots on the top left. Image on the left shows expected/fixed result while image on the right shows the alpha problem.
Texture Packer is simply the best sprite sheet generation tool you can get your hands on and it will save you many precious hours. Andreas just released v3.0.0 and I must say it’s now better than ever…
After moving up & down for a while, as of today we have three games in Amazon’s Top 10 Free Apps for Kids, ranking at #2, #7 and #8. Check it out! (P.S. We also have a 4th game listed at #27)
It’s been a while since we started working with Unity 3D. One of the fist thing I’ve noticed is the community contributions and the great stuff that you can find at The Unity Asset Store… Simply put, The Unity Asset Store is a place to buy things you can import and use in your own Unity 3D projects. Of course there are other plugins available at developers own web sites too.
As my main motto when start working with a new platform is “do not re-invent the wheel!”, I’ve looked at most of them. Many great programmers developed top notch applications that will save you loads of time & even inspire you to do something you’d never thought before.
Since we had a limited budget, reviewed most and decided on few which stands out. And finally chosen few of them to purchase first.
If you are looking for a way to greatly enhance your Unity 3D experience, I’ll strongly suggest looking at those… Hopefully, in near feature when we have enough experience with those, I’m planning to write a short review on each of them…
* Best match to our current workflow and planned apps. This is not a complete list and there are other great ones. So, make sure to check asset store for yourself…
After weeks of evaluation of today’s cross platform SDK options, we have finally decided to move forward with Unity.
While evaluating Unity, I have created a small helper MAXScript to export Vray rendered cubemaps from Max to Unity. Since I’m unable to find something similar, I have decided to release it to the public as I think it might be helpful for the community I’m about to step in… After polishing it up a little bit (UI, etc.) here it is…
What it does?
With this script, you will be able to easily render cubemaps ready to import to Unity for use as reflection maps or skyboxes. After execution, script will generate 6 image files with the correct naming scheme for Unity.
Keeps your current render settings, after you’re done executing the script your settings will be restored.
Rendered images will match max’s bitmap output gamma settings.
You may output to all type of images supported by 3DS MAX.
You will be able to select your output path.
Rendered images will have correct naming scheme appended based on the type, skybox or reflection.
Fully selectable cubemap sizes.
When creating skyboxes you have option to render bottom piece 1/4 smaller than rest of the image set.
There is an experimental blur feature, might be useful specially for reflection maps.
Detects if Vray is your current renderer and offers an easy switch if it is not.
New: Option to rotate back piece by 180 degrees. (v0.2)
Planned Features
Rendering from the point of view of selected scene object.
Using existing (max or vray) scene camera to render, keeping it’s settings.
Better seam free blur with more precise control.
Option to save default launch preferences.
Your suggestions.
Requirements & Compatibility
In order to use that script, you will need Unity, 3DS Max & Vray. Script should be compatible with all versions but it is not widely tested. So, if you use it please let me know so we can keep a compatibly matrix and/or fix any possible bugs…
Installation & Usage
After downloading the zip file place included maxscript (.ms) to the following location: 3dsMaxRoot\Scripts\Startup
After launching max, go to Customize -> Customize User Interface. Click on Toolbars tab and within the Category pulldown, locate “Pixel Envision” entry.
From here you may drag&drop it to anywhere suitable for your use as shown in the next image.
Now, clicking on the icon will bring up the interface. Usage should be pretty self explanatory but there is one thing to point out. Once imported to Unity, make sure to set texture wrap mode to “Clamp” or otherwise you may see “seams” especially on the skyboxes…
This code is free to use, distribute, modify and study. If you modify it please keep my copyright intact. When referencing please link back to this website / post in any way e.g. direct link, credits etc. If you find this useful, please leave a comment and share using the buttons below!
