Sprite Manager 2 vs. 2D Toolkit

News & General Discussion
1

http://www.unikronsoftware.com/2dtoolkit/
http://www.anbsoft.com/middleware/sm2/

Which of these two extensions is better? Which is more powerful? Which is easier to use? Does one do things the other can’t? Are memory and lag related issues more prevalent in one than the other?

Sprite Manager 2 – $149
2D Toolkit – $55

2D Toolkit is clearly the cheaper option, but cheaper doesn’t necessarily mean better. I want to know what other people think about each one.

2

Seems to me SM2 was making a killing on a way overpriced minimal feature set for a long time and then recently along came a number of other contenders many of which are more featureful?

3

SM2 isn’t overpriced at all, Bradly is giving you sources. Same goes for EZGUI. So the price is really justified.

4

Okay, but how does SM2 compare to 2D Toolkit?

5

Well,
I don’t own SM2, only EZGUI, can’t exactly tell you but based on 2D toolkit creators, it is faster than SM2. Though i cannot confirm that.

6

i find working with 2D toolkit easier, coding wise. Also our level designers learned quickly how to create all sorts of sprites (animated or not) themself without to much explanation from my end.

7

I am in the Market for a 2D System as well, so how does “Ragespline” + “Ragespline tools” figure into this comparison?

Thanks

8

Given what SM2 does for you, compared to say a language like BlitzMax which is much more capable for 2D and at a lower price, it is hugely over priced. It should be more like $30.

9

I haven’t used the 2D tool kit, but we have SM and EZGUI. I’m not a fan of them. They can get the job done, but its so cumbersome IMO. also, another gripe I have with EZGUI is that when things arnt set up properly, you don’t get error messages or anything else…nothing happens, literally.

10

Same here, 2d toolkit ease of use is a breeze to work with, and i really like how easy you can get to your sprite using collection.
Much less code for the tool as well which also ,ake easier to look in xd…

11

I can’t say how sad I am i did not see this thread first.

I bought both SM2 and EZGUI. I can’t say how ripped off I feel. I’ve emailed the author and demanded a refund.

  1. (grossly) overpriced product,
  2. Looks crap on perspective cameras,
  3. Doesn’t have 1/2 the features of competitors,
  4. even on the demo that comes with it - there are artifacts, and lines and pixels and other crap - it doesnt even render correctly.
  5. Z Clipping doesn’t work correctly in perspective cameras - sprites randomly appear through each other.
  6. perhaps there are ways to work around these problems - but WHY SHOULD I? I paid 150 bucks - it should just work!!!

:confused:

I hope I get my money back - as I now need to go and buy 2d toolkit - I just wish I knew about it before :frowning:

Do yourselves a favour and don’t make the mistake I did: SM2 is NOT worth the money at all.

12

I agree SM2 and EZGUI are horribly overpriced for what they do. I dont know why more people don’t complain.

13

Quick update… I purchased 2d toolkit - anyone in a dilema in future don’t think twice. SM2 is lame and overpriced. 2d toolkit is very good and the performance is great on my iphone :smile:

Graphics quality is excellent too.

14

I love 2D toolkit. I played with both EZGui and SM2. Clearly 2DToolkit is better than either of these two. I highly recommend it for speed and ease to setup.

Peace out!

15

Yep! Agree with others; SM2 is overpriced and featurewise is lacking so much compared to 2D toolkit. imho SM2 should be avoided. When I purchased 2D Toolkit I was shocked at how packed with features it was. Like imaginaryhuman says the money spent on SM2 would have been best spent on BlitzMax or Monkey.

2D Toolkit all the way!

16

I have 2D TK and Ex2D, I like 2D TK a ton, it’s very simple to use and very powerful. Making animated sprites is easy, the text system is good, and it’s a nice solution to create GUI’s with as well.

17

I bought 2D Toolkit, and I can guarantee its very easy to use. Nice product!

Never used EZGUI, but it seemed too complicated for my taste

18

anyone use ex2D? I saw it while poking around for a 2d solution.

19

I’ve been using ex2D for a project over the last week. I’m finding it to be quite great for the price. Building texture atlases was a breeze and it appears to work just fine with orthographic or perspective cameras. No source code available in the cheap version (they are rolling out a more expensive “Pro” version with source code), but otherwise I don’t really have any specific complaints.

20

I just bought SM2 and I feel Like I just been conned not much there for $150 I tried orthello free version and was not bad when It came time to buy one I just went off price and did not do much research which Im killing myself for now . It makes all my images look bad. I’ve built the first version of this game in cocos2d and chipmunk physic’s then changed to unity as Im having issues finding staff who know objective-c and openGL ES . So only ever played with unity so to anyone else I hope you read this before buying 2D tools for unity not that SM2 is bad it’s just being sold for 10x the value it should have compared to what else is for sale . There should be some type of over sight of unity asset store to make sure products are sold at correct price point .