Planes or GUI Textures?

[KarneeKarnay]

I’m currently designing a 2D game. Need to know whether it is worth while creating it using GUI textures or planes?

For me it’s planes because it’s easier, but I know this can lead to problems down the line, such as changes in the resolution. Any experienced programmer want to give me a tip?

[casimps1]

You definitely don’t want to use Unity’s stock Plane mesh because it’s 10x10m and a total of 200 triangles. GUITextures aren’t all that great either to be honest.

Depending on the exact kind of 2D game you’re doing I’d look into Orthello. It’s a nice 2D package with a pretty full featured free version. While there are some things I don’t like about it, in my opinion, you can’t beat it when it comes to what’s available for free.

If you’re doing something dead simple, like 8-bit NES sprite style, then you might also look at RagePixel. Also free. Not as many features as Orthello, but it also allows you to actually draw sprites in the Unity editor, which is kinda handy. I used it recently for a 48 hour Ludum Dare game dev challenge.

[RichardKain]

Plane’s are do-able, but they also include a bit more overhead than I would normally prefer.

If I were going about it, I would either create a basic mesh in Blender that I could use for simple sprites. (with just two meager polygons) Or I would use Unity’s scripting system to cook up a very basic mesh that would be usable in the editor. (again, with just two polygons) Basic GL drawing script for a simple quad is not that difficult. If you want to create an animated 2D sprite with sprite-sheet style animation, you can pull that off with Unity’s material and shader system. (with the scale and offset properties)

Once you dig into some of Unity’s underlying systems, the whole affair becomes fairly easy. The one big question is whether or not you want full 2D rendering, or just a 2D perspective. (ortho vs. perspective camera)

[KarneeKarnay]

@casimps1

You definitely don’t want to use Unity’s stock Plane mesh because it’s 10x10m and a total of 200 triangles. GUITextures aren’t all that great either to be honest.

Depending on the exact kind of 2D game you’re doing I’d look into Orthello. It’s a nice 2D package with a pretty full featured free version. While there are some things I don’t like about it, in my opinion, you can’t beat it when it comes to what’s available for free.

If you’re doing something dead simple, like 8-bit NES sprite style, then you might also look at RagePixel. Also free. Not as many features as Orthello, but it also allows you to actually draw sprites in the Unity editor, which is kinda handy. I used it recently for a 48 hour Ludum Dare game dev challenge.

Thanks for the advice I’ll check those out.

@RichardKain

Plane’s are do-able, but they also include a bit more overhead than I would normally prefer.

If I were going about it, I would either create a basic mesh in Blender that I could use for simple sprites. (with just two meager polygons) Or I would use Unity’s scripting system to cook up a very basic mesh that would be usable in the editor. (again, with just two polygons) Basic GL drawing script for a simple quad is not that difficult. If you want to create an animated 2D sprite with sprite-sheet style animation, you can pull that off with Unity’s material and shader system. (with the scale and offset properties)

Once you dig into some of Unity’s underlying systems, the whole affair becomes fairly easy. The one big question is whether or not you want full 2D rendering, or just a 2D perspective. (ortho vs. perspective camera)

I’ve used Unity for that sort of thing, but this game is incredibly simple. The idea is kinda like fruit ninja, but the user instead of fruit does it to cigarettes , and instead of slashing they click. As for perspective, It depends. Right now I’m building off a previous project that used a mix of both. I’m going to look through the packages and see what I can do. Thanks for the help guys.