Hi everyone,
We’re excited to share the first version of the new UI Toolkit package, expanding on the existing VisualElement tech stack (formerly UIElements) to include visual authoring workflows and runtime support.
If you’re interested in trying it, read on!
What’s new?
Let’s start with the name. UI Toolkit was formerly known as UIElements . This marks the beginning of the transition to the new name.
UI Toolkit can now be distributed as a package, which makes it more convenient to get access to the latest preview releases. More on that below.
It’s now possible to use UI Toolkit for creating game and application UI.
Finally, the UI Builder, which will remain a separate package, has received a lot of stability and user experience improvements.
What’s the plan?
As of right now, we’re developing UI Toolkit as a package. That means we can develop features faster, and easily give interested users early access.
The plan is for every Unity release to ship with a stable version of the package fully integrated as a core feature. We’ll make a preview version available that you can install seamlessly to access experimental features.
In this first release, for the 2020 release cycle, the built-in UIToolkit includes the VisualElement tech stack, while the preview package includes new runtime UI features.
For more information about how UI Toolkit in core compares to the package, see this page.
This is the first of many versions of the preview package that we’ll be releasing throughout the year. In the upcoming months, we’ll be improving workflows, performance, and documentation, with the goal of shipping a pre-release version for 2020.2 by end of year.
In 2021.1, the UI Toolkit that ships with Unity will be considered production-ready. We’ll continue to make the preview package available to give you early access to features in development.
What will be included?
The version shipping in 2021.1 is aimed at programmers and UI artists collaborating on mobile and desktop games UI. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of the included features:
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Scene Components required to display UI in the Unity player
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Screen space UI
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Menus, HUDs and screen space elements following game objects, such as health bars
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Mobile friendly controls
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Custom UI Themes
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Improved text features and workflow coming from TextMesh Pro
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Signed Distance Field (SDF) text rendering
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Fully support Fonts fallback
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UI texture atlas
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New UI Toolkit dynamic atlas
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Support for the existing Sprite Atlas
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Dedicated tools for authoring and debugging UI
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Compatibility with the Scriptable Render Pipeline (both URP and HDRP)
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Compatibility with the new Input System
What’s coming in the next release?
Here’s what we’re currently working on and should be available to try in the upcoming UI Toolkit 1.0 preview releases:
- First version of text workflow, including some text effects
- Dynamic atlasing parameters exposed
- Live update of doing changes in the UI Builder while in Play mode
- New Input System support and associated use cases
What will ship later?
Here are the features that are still in development and which are planned to be in preview in a future UI Toolkit 1.1 release:
- UI Animation
- Data binding for runtime
- Custom shaders
- 3D lit UI and world space UI
How to get started?
Follow these steps to get started using UI Toolkit:
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Install the latest Unity 2020.1 or 2020.2 version
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2020.1.9f1
or2020.2.0b9
respectively -
Install the com.unity.ui package, this is required to use the UI Toolkit at runtime
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Can be installed via the Package Manager by selecting Add package from git URL and entering
com.unity.ui
in the input field. -
an ongoing issue may force you to re-import your project after adding or upgrading UI Toolkit.
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Install the com.unity.ui.builder package, this is required to use the visual authoring tool
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Can be installed via the Package Manager after enabling Preview packages via Project Settings.
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Consult the documentation to learn how to add UI into your project
Take a look at an example of UI Toolkit integration in a sample project.
How can you help?
In the upcoming months, we’ll be improving UI Toolkit based on your experience using it. We’re counting on you to try it out and share your feedback with us. We’ll post dedicated forum threads to request feedback on specific features or areas but generally, we’re curious to learn more about workflows, performance and bugs you’re running into.
We’re looking forward to hearing from you!
Cheers,