Texture Packer vs Unity Sprite Packer?

Unity Engine
1

Hi, I’ve been using Texture Packer for many years now developing game in Flash and HTML5 and more recently Unity.

However with Unity now having its own Sprite Packing I was wondering what the advantages of using Texture Packer are.

I can think of a couple of reasons still to use Texture Packer:

  • Generate HD and SD version of the assets with a click of a button.
  • Easy loading of Spritesheet from Resources.

One of the best features of Texture Packer is its ability to export the sprite sheet with a particular compression but I believe unity would overwrite this with its own settings.

Are there any other reasons to use Texture Packer over Unitys own Sprite Packer?

1 Like
2

Some of the reasons are

  1. Easier handling of the sprites - instead of adding tags
  2. Optimizing sprite polygon meshes - see https://www.codeandweb.com/blog/2015/09/21/optimizing-unity-sprite-meshes
  3. The importer is available for free - see Unity Asset Store - The Best Assets for Game Making
  4. Automatic packing of normal maps and material creation for 2d dynamic light effects
1 Like
3

Thanks Andreas. Am I correct in thinking that Unity will overwrite whatever compression settings i export the spritesheet at?

4

AFAIK yes.

I recommend exporting to .png with RGBA8888 format.

For best quality I would recommend setting the image quality to true color and not compress at all. Unity will apply lossy codecs like PVRTC which will make your sprite’s quality suffer.