Hey, couple of quick (i hope) questions I can’t seem to find by searching:
With Image file formats, Apple says to use PNG for your images (72x72 px for the store photos), but is this also true when using Unity… I had been going with that, but…
If anyone else is using cheetah 3d, is it better to import the JAS files directly into Unity or export FBX files and import those?
I’m having fits with my d*mned models/textures, I originally had a semi-transparent layer in my texture… and I can’t seem to kill it!!! (programmer trying graphics lowers head in shame )… so I’m falling back to what I think I know… perhaps I’m not exporting/importing properly… thoughts? (oh, the models/textures work beautifully in Unity, deploy to the iPhone…welll… )
For #1 it doesn’t really matter - if Unity understands the image at all, it will then import it into a usable format. (Note: you can tweak the import settings for each texture individually within Unity.)
In fact, if you are using GIMP or Photoshop, usually the best thing to do is not to export to PNG or any other “flat” format, but to simply keep your image in the original PSD format, with layers intact.
It’d be great to leave the files in original format, but… Do I have to have the image editor installed on the same machine as Unity for that to work (I use both GIMP and Photoshop, but only have a windows version of Photoshop).
It would take about 60 seconds to just try it… I don’t have Photoshop, I’m just using (Mac) Gimp and saving the files as PSD files, and Unity just reads them in. I think most or all of the texture importing is done natively. In fact, Mac OS X itself has no trouble displaying PSD files in the Preview app, so Unity may just be piggybacking off of that.
As far as I know, you don’t have to have photoshop installed on the same computer as Unity, it’s a Unity utility that’s reading the photoshop file.
When looking at the workflow with images from Photoshop you should definitly use a layered file type. I find that you can use two layered formats and keep your workflow ticking over without having to flatten and export - .psd (photoshop) and .tif (layered tiff file).
There is a difference, however.
If you look at how Unity deals with flattening the image and the alpha channel, it seems to set the areas left “blank” or “clear” differently depending on whether it’s a .psd or .tif. The .psd files have the transparent areas set to white, and the .tif files are set to black, then the newly created alpha channel punches them out of this new background. I find that both of these can leave a very faint line of this introduced background color, especially if there is any grade / fade between the opaque image and the transparent part. I use layered .tif files if my BG is primarily dark and .psd if my BG is primarily light to eliminate the apparent line. Experimentation is the best way to choose the working file type.
This seems to be a work around to a slight error in how Unity flattens these files.
)… so I’m falling back to what I think I know… perhaps I’m not exporting/importing properly… thoughts? (oh, the models/textures work beautifully in Unity, deploy to the iPhone…welll… )