Creating your own font?

Unity Engine
,
1

I’ve downloaded plenty of fonts from online and used them in my previous games, but I’m looking to use/create a font that isn’t just one bland color but also has like an outline. All of my previous games have just a white font but I’d rather have something more appealing.

Anyone know how to go about doing this?

2

There are plenty of fonts that come with outlined versions. If not, you can always double up the font. Placing an identical copy, directly below but off center and using a different colour helps give it pop. Check out my signature.

3

If you want your own font, you can create a font in FontForge (it’s free). Create the glyphs in any vector software (I use Illustrator).

Putting colour on a font in Unity is easier. Set your font to ASCII (may work with other types, but I haven’t tried). Get the SaveFontTexture script from the Unify Wiki and place it in a project folder called Editor. Expand your font in the Project window. Right click on the Font Texture and use the Save Font Texture option that is now available. Now apply colour to the white characters in the resulting png. Use that png in the material on your text.

4

bmGlyph is nice ‎bmGlyph on the Mac App Store

Can use it with stuff like nGUI and EZGUI

5

TrueType fonts can only have one color. You can make bitmap fonts that look however you like, but you can only use those with GUIText objects, not OnGUI code, which only uses TTF.

–Eric

6

Does importing a TTF into Unity and setting it as ASCII turn it into a bitmap font? Or am I doing that by using a saved font texture from that?

7

Depends on which version; in Unity 4 you can click on the font and then choose “create editable copy” in the gear menu. Otherwise you can use the save font texture script on the wiki.

–Eric

8

Very interesting. Thanks.

I’m near the end of a project, so I’m staying on Unity 3 for now. The new font features are the things I’m most looking forward to trying when I move across.