I’m working on a game concept that will rely heavily on typography, the text for which is dynamically loaded in from a database. I’ve already figured out how to link up to sqlite thanks to this great forum , but can’t find any real answers to my next hurdle: I would like for the text to be truly three dimensional (So it can be rotated, animated etc.). The 3D Text GameObject was my first bet, but it seems to be limited to a two dimensional billboard placed in 3d space. Is there any way to do this except for making individual models for each letter needed (I could see this becoming very expensive fast). Alternatively can something like this be faked with a shader or in some other way? Thanks for any help!
Damn, I was hoping it was just some lack of understanding of the 3d Text object on my part. Thanks for putting it straight though. I’ll have a look at plan B (individual models for each letter) then, and see just how expensive something like that would be. Anyone with suggestions on how to script for something like that? Would a simple switch be the best option?
On another but related note: I’ve noticed that one can set the texture of any mesh to be that of the font. Any way to make a dynamically created texture that will only contain certain characters / words. That could serve as a workaround, albeit with a completely different look, to my idea.
I don’t know about other apps, but in Maya just import your text as vector art and then use the BEVEL to instantly turn your text into a 3D model.
Maya actually comes with this built in. I haven’t used it in years so I can’t explain exactly how it is done in the newer version of Maya but I know I learnt this technique from the included docs so just have a look. Basically, you used a “Insert text” (or something) command from the menu, then enter the text you want (1 letter or a whole sentence) and then hit finish. Once the text was in the view you just select the bevel feature and tweak to your heart’s content and voila… took about 2 minutes per letter with tweaking…
I never used it for games, though, so I can’t comment on polycount, but basically it means you can have 26 models in under an hour… Surely this won’t cost too much?
I’m pretty sure “expensive” was used in the context of how slowly it would run on the computer. In Blender, making 3D letters takes a few minutes at most for the whole alphabet, and you can choose how detailed you want the models to be, and thus how many/few polygons. (Type a-z, extrude/bevel/etc. as desired, then you have to separate all the letters out into objects, which is the only reason why it takes a few minutes instead of a few seconds, and yes I have done this. ) It’s unlikely that you’d be showing more than a few words at once with true 3D text, so I wouldn’t worry about the cost.
A definitive yes there. Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I did know that doing each letter in Maya / Blender etc. was an option (hence the plan B), but I was hoping it could be avoided.
you can use VText. This asset allows you to create 3D text at runtime in Unity. You have full access to bevel, extrude and control the quality of the text meshes. Also it’s possible to bend your text.
KEY FEATURES OF VTEXT:
Dynamic creation of 3D text
Supports TTF and OTF fonts
Intuitive user interface
Size, bevel and depth dynamically adaptable
Editable quality settings for generated meshes
Different material slots for these parameters
Bending of the 3D text (Curve-editor)
Circular bending
Text alignment
Line spacing
Optimized UV layout for Lightmapping
Supports Light Probes
If you need more information look t the website from VText.
, but can’t find any real answers to my next hurdle: I would like for the text to be truly three dimensional (So it can be rotated, animated etc.). The 3D Text GameObject was my first bet, but it seems to be limited to a two dimensional billboard placed in 3d space. Is there any way to do this except for making individual models for each letter needed (I could see this becoming very expensive fast). Alternatively can something like this be faked with a shader or in some other way? Thanks for any help!
