{"id":580,"date":"2017-01-16T14:12:44","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T13:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davikingcode.com\/blog\/?p=580"},"modified":"2017-01-16T14:23:10","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T13:23:10","slug":"unity-sprite-packing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davikingcode.com\/blog\/unity-sprite-packing\/","title":{"rendered":"Unity – sprite packing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Best practices with Unity have always been an hidden gem. Most precisely concerning the Resources<\/em> folder. Hopefully things are changing with Unity’s best practices guide<\/a>! And things are simple concerning the Resources folder: just don’t use it<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Managing 2D Sprites in Unity is simple if you have a static scene: just put every sprite needed on your screen and you’re almost done. Obviously you should package them in Spritesheets. The easy way to do it is via Unity’ Sprite Packer<\/a> tool. But what to do if you need to load Sprites at runtime? How to access a Sprite if it’s not linked directly on a GameObject or a Prefab and without using the Resources folder?<\/p>\n

Create a ScriptableObject<\/a>! They are the best way to store informations within Unity. Here is an Editor Script for generating ScriptableObjects with a list of Sprites for each Packing Tag<\/em> mentioned:<\/p>\n

\r\nusing UnityEngine;\r\n#if UNITY_EDITOR\r\nusing UnityEditor;\r\n#endif\r\nusing System;\r\nusing System.Collections;\r\nusing System.Collections.Generic;\r\nusing System.IO;\r\n\r\n[Serializable]\r\npublic class SpritesData:ScriptableObject {\r\n\r\n\t[SerializeField]\r\n\tpublic Sprite[] sprites;\r\n\r\n\tstatic public string assetDirPath = "RuntimeSprites\/SpritesData\/";\r\n\tstatic public string assetPath = "Assets\/RuntimeSprites\/SpritesData\/{0}.asset";\r\n\r\n\t#if UNITY_EDITOR\r\n\t[MenuItem("Data\/Create Sprites Data")]\r\n\tstatic void CreateSpritesData() {\r\n\t\tstring dirPath = Application.dataPath + "\/" +  assetDirPath;\r\n\r\n\t\tif (!System.IO.Directory.Exists(dirPath))\r\n\t\t\tSystem.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(@dirPath);\r\n\r\n\t\tSpritesData data = ScriptableObject.CreateInstance<SpritesData>();\r\n\r\n\t\tList<Sprite> spritesList = new List<Sprite>();\r\n\r\n\t\tstring[] anims = AssetDatabase.FindAssets("t:Sprite", new string[] {"Assets\/Sprites"});\r\n\r\n\t\tstring currentTag = "";\r\n\r\n\t\tforeach (string anim in anims) {\r\n\r\n\t\t\tstring path = AssetDatabase.GUIDToAssetPath(anim);\r\n\r\n\t\t\tTextureImporter ti = TextureImporter.GetAtPath(path) as TextureImporter;\r\n\r\n\t\t\tif (ti.spritePackingTag != currentTag) {\r\n\r\n\t\t\t\tif (data && currentTag != "") {\r\n\r\n\t\t\t\t\tdata.sprites = spritesList.ToArray();\r\n\t\t\t\t\tAssetDatabase.CreateAsset(data, string.Format(assetPath, currentTag));\r\n\t\t\t\t}\r\n\r\n\t\t\t\tdata = ScriptableObject.CreateInstance<SpritesData>();\r\n\t\t\t\tspritesList = new List<Sprite>();\r\n\r\n\t\t\t\tcurrentTag = ti.spritePackingTag;\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n\r\n\t\t\tSprite sprite = AssetDatabase.LoadAssetAtPath<Sprite>(path);\r\n\r\n\t\t\tspritesList.Add(sprite);\r\n\t\t}\r\n\r\n\t\tdata.sprites = spritesList.ToArray();\r\n\t\tAssetDatabase.CreateAsset(data, string.Format(assetPath, currentTag));\r\n\t}\r\n\t#endif\r\n}\r\n<\/pre>\n
Now that you have all your SpritesData you just have to create a MonoBehaviour<\/em> with a public SpritesData[] spritesDatas;<\/em> property, then you will have access to all your sprites! The good things is while a sprite isn’t displayed on Screen it’s not in memory.<\/p>\n
Cheers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Best practices with Unity have always been an hidden gem. Most precisely concerning the Resources folder. Hopefully things are changing with Unity’s best practices guide! And things are simple concerning the Resources folder: just don’t use it! Managing 2D Sprites in Unity is simple if you have a static scene: just put every sprite needed … Continue reading Unity – sprite packing<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_discordance_state":"","_discordance_checked":true},"categories":[15],"tags":[5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davikingcode.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davikingcode.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davikingcode.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davikingcode.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davikingcode.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/davikingcode.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":598,"href":"https:\/\/davikingcode.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions\/598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davikingcode.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davikingcode.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davikingcode.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}