Tilemap differences in 2018.4 vs 2019.2 vs 2019.3

Unity Engine
1

I was interested in checking out the Tilemap system provided by Unity and noticed that there were three separate tutorials that seemed to cover the same topics. The key differentiator between the tutorials is the version of Unity being used:

They were all last updated February 24, 2020.

The first targets Unity 2017.2 through 2018.3, the second targets 2019.2, and the third targets 2019.3.

I plan to examine them all to see what the differences are, but I thought I’d ask up front to get some feedback from those that might have previously used tilemaps in one or more versions of Unity.

Are there differences in functionality, performance, or behavior when it comes to using tilemaps in Unity 2018.4 vs 2019.2 or 2019.3?

I currently have an old 2018 project that I was looking to test tilemaps in, and I’m wondering whether I should upgrade the project to 2019 first. If there are significant changes to the system when run under 2018 vs 2019, it probably makes sense to upgrade. I’m really curious about the differences between 2019.2 and 2019.3 and why an entirely separate tutorial would be needed for a point release.

2

I’ve used Tilemaps since Unity 2017. There aren’t significant API changes. There have been many bug fixes and improvements since then. Going through the release notes searching for “Tilemap” would give you the list of these improvements. Are they that significant? I don’t remember a time where things felt broken. It’s been usable the whole time. I suspect the tutorials are pretty similar to one another. I’d upgrade unless there’s a strong reason you can’t for the project, or at least copy it and give it a try.

3

Thanks for the information. I’ve finished reviewing the above tutorials, and for the most part, the only differences are the text formatting and the embedded images (2019.3 UI vs 2019.2 and older). They cover the same material.

As you suggested, I’m going to upgrade the project to 2019.4 LTS.

4

There is a major difference in behavior from Unity 2019.2, especially if your project was created with a Unity Editor before 2019.2. In 2019.2, the 2D Tilemap Editor package was introduced, moving the editing tools from the editor proper to a package. In doing so, the namespaces of classes have been moved to a Tilemap specific namespace and a Tilemap specific assembly was introduced. The Unity Script updater should be able to handle all of these changes when upgrading your project if activated.

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