2017.1 was released earlier this month and we’re delighted to move the following features out of Experimental Preview into a full-fledged Release:
Sprite Mask
Sprite Atlas
Physics Shape Editor
Manual Simulation of 2D Physics
In other news, 2017.2 is now in beta and contains the Tilemap feature. Please try it out by downloading the beta here: Unity Beta. From this point onwards, please use the beta for all your Tilemap projects.
Looking to the future, the Unity roadmap has been updated to reflect these changes. Take a look at it here: Roadmap
We’d like to draw your attention to some features in development: Character Animation
Redesigned 2D character animation workflow with IK posing support
2D SmartSprite
Procedural creation of 2d levels. Users could define control points that are then tessellated and textured with sprites. The control points can be used to define simple straight edges or curved edges for more organic looking levels.
We’re currently addressing concerns with user experience after receiving feedback.
Stay tuned for an Experimental Preview on features that are still in development!
We really appreciate all the feedback and participation we received from the community during the development of these features. Please keep it coming!
For the upcoming Experimental Previews keep talking to us in the 2D Experimental Preview forum. For features in Beta and/or Release, please submit bug reports in the usual way.
Where does the Grid component sit in regards to release? I can’t find it on the Roadmap. We’ve launched a game on Steam using it without encountering a single issue - I couldn’t be happier with it.
I was wondering if it is still possible to add a Game Object to a tile? because it looks like that option has disappeared in the editor for the 2017.2 beta release.
@Talsidor_1 The Grid component will be released in 2017.2 It is tied along with Tilemap, although it is a Component all on its own.
@ChrisJohnson That functionality was removed. Although it seemed a good workflow, it led to some issues in the backend. The better workflow is to keep the GameObjects separate and paint them with a brush. Like what we do in the RoboDash demo.
Hey guys nice work!
One question tho, why did you remove the option to attach a gameobject to the tile itself in the inspector. That was a really cool feature. I was using it to attach different colliders to different tiles and to add particle effects to some tiles. Now I have to write a script to do that for me. I guess it will be more efficient this way but shhh add that option back please
@Johaness_Reuben
Thanks for your response, I just tested upgrading our project to 2017.2.0b5 but the Grid component in it doesn’t have a hex mode, which is what we use.
Are there plans to add this back into 2017.2 before release? Or if not 2017.2, when can we expect the (extremely stable) hex mode of the Grid component to find it’s way out of experimental?
Is it possible to change the length and width of the grid cells in the Tilemap? For example, I need to create the “Brick Breaker” game. Bricks should be rectangular in this genre. Is it possible to use Tilemap editor for this?
Quick question - I am looking to start a game where I wanted to use the tilemap. Should I just spend time getting used to unity while waiting on 2017.2, or install the open beta? My concern with the latter is I have no clue how easy it is to have 2 versions of unity on my computer, and how easy it is to upgrade a project from the open beta to the stable
In RoboDash, I notice that when I initialize the scene, the floor is lit up. But if I drag the prefabs into an empty scene it remains dark. Where is the lighting being managed for the tilemaps?
@rustum Thanks for the answer. I’ve already tested the beta version of the tilemap with this demo project. It is very good that we can change the aspect ratio of the grid!
Recommendations for a “TileMap from step one” tutorial? The tutorials out there all seem to start with the tlemap done, the sprites done then talk about the usage.
I’d recommend you take a look at the Brick example in our tech demos here: