Non-Unity: Creating a single tile animation file from sequence of animation files?

[rsud1]

I’m having fun with Unity iPhone and its ease of use. But have an non-Unity issue that I hope someone has some advice for.

To create billboard animations (explosions, etc) I have several tools like 3D Studio Max, Particle Illusion, etc.

These tools output a sequence of files for each frame of the animation (anim-0001.tga, anim-0002.tga, anim-0003.tga, etc…).

I have read and agree that tiling these into a single file for use on iPhone will be much more efficient for limited iPhone resources.

I am seeking help/advice on tools or methods for converting a sequence of animation files (tga files) into a single tiled animation file (tga file). I am using tga files in order to get transparency. If there is a better file format to use would appreciate advice there as well.

I have already created/copied script code that will properly display the “sub-tiles” within a single file. It works good.

But I had to manually create the single file using the sequence of files in photoshop. I am doing 64x64 pixel tiles into a 256x256 single file for 16 frame animation. Very error prone and arduous.

Any help greatly appreciated!

[beezir]

I haven’t used it myself, but SpriteManager 2 (made specifically for Unity) has had some pretty good reviews. It’s not free, but it appears to make the entire process very easy. I’ve used this Gimp plugin, and I’m betting there are similar plugins for photoshop somewhere out there.

Additionally, you could do something yourself via script with Texture2D.PackTextures, which will take a series of textures you’ve imported and put them into a single material, returning a list of rectangles with the coordinates of each frame.