New technical e-book: 2D game art, animation, and lighting for artists (Unity 6.3 LTS edition)

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Hi everyone,

We have just updated and expanded one of our most popular e-books, 2D game art, lighting and animation. Now with more than 170 pages, including updated workflows and new features like Render as 2D featured at Unite Barcelona 25.

2D devs, artists, desktop, web, console or mobile studios will be able to make the most of all the 2D lighting, animation, and graphics possibilities with this great onboarding guide.

>> DOWNLOAD THE UNITY 6.3 LTS EDITION HERE <<

New 2D e-book available now
New 2D e-book available now1920Ă—1080 520 KB

Best practices and techniques for creating with 2D tools in Unity 6.3 LTS

The 2D e-book starts with sections on project setup, design considerations, and art preparation techniques. It then goes on to cover all of the latest features, including explaining techniques for how to use the tools to create a 2D world with the rich detail, visual effects, and polish you require, optimized for any platform.

Here are some of the highlights of this latest edition:

  • 2D project setup: The packages in the 2D template and how to choose the correct URP and 2D Renderer settings
  • 2D art and assets: Working with other DCC tools, choosing your camera perspective
  • Sprite Editor options: Sprite setup in Unity for different purposes
  • Tilemaps: The latest features for using tilemaps, and using them to design environments and levels
  • 2D skeletal animation: Design, import, and rig animations, inverse kinematics, the Sprite Swap features and skins
  • 2D physics: Quick overview of the fundamentals
  • 2D light and shadow techniques: Rich details with normal and mask maps, create shadows with different techniques, day-night lighting cycles, and the Sprite Custom Lit shader for your own lighting model
  • Render 3D elements as 2D: How this works in Unity 6.3 LTS and the correct sorting and masking settings to have both worlds blend together
  • 2D optimization tips: The 2D Light Batching Debugger, the 2D Renderer with the Render Graph, the SRP Batcher, and the new Sprite Atlas Analyzer

1020Ă—574 181 KB

We hope you find this guide useful! If you think something is missing or could be improved - do let us know in this thread, and we could add it to the next edition of the guide.

Also, make sure to visit our website to discover more e-books and other learning content.

11 Likes
2D Game Art, Animation, and Lighting for Artists - free e-book
2D Game Art, Animation, and Lighting for Artists - free e-book
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thanks for letting me know, seems like the games url is down, can you try: Game Development Resources, Case Studies & Articles | Unity

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This is a great update :+1:

The expanded focus on lighting, animation, and optimization in Unity 6.3 LTS looks really useful, especially the parts about tilemaps, 2D skeletal animation, and rendering workflows. It’s also nice to see practical coverage of optimization tools like the SRP Batcher and sprite atlas improvements.

Definitely a solid resource for both beginners and teams working on production-ready 2D projects.

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thanks a lot, glad you found it useful

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this is actually super timed well since im just starting a new 2d platformer project. the “render 3d as 2d” part sounds like exactly what i need for my backgrounds… been trying to fake that for ages and it always looks jank. downloading it rn hope it covers some of the new lighting optimization for mobile too

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awesome, this new workflow is really good