Back again

I just wanted to drop a line saying I'm back to work. As I mentioned previously I was busy with exams, so development ws slowed down and during the last couple of weeks I had to stop completely to concentrate on studies. Now that it's over I can get back to working on the hex grid update. Currently I'm about halfway done, maybe more. I'll keep you updated :) Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who bought Grid Framework so far, you guys have made all this effort worthwhile and you are the ones who allow me to go on with it. Thank you.

example video: Level Design and Text parsing in Unity3D

I made another example video for Grid Framework, this time for the recently introduced text parsing example. Now building new levels is as easy as writing a few lines of plain text and you get perfect clockwork-like precision. This opens up new possibilities for faster development, easier maintenance, easier level editors and support for user-made content. Just take a look at how simle, yet effective it is:

Version 1.1.7 released

Version 1.1.7 has been approved by the Asset Store team. I fixed a small typo that prevented the menu item for adding the GFGridRenderCamera component from working and I added two more examples,  video tutorials will follow soon. I also redid the screenshots because the Asset Store ate my old ones somehow.

The first example shows you how you can use a plain text file and Grid Framework to build levels outside the editor. If you have a game like breakout that's heavily based around grid-based design it would be tedious to design each level via Drag&Drop in the editor. Another disadvantage is that changing the level would mean switching the scene and it would be harder for players to create their own levels as mods. In my example we design the level as a plain text file where each character corresponds to one predefined prefab. Then we need to set up only one scene and the text parser script will, along with the grid, take the text file, read it and then place blocks accordingly. You can even switch levels on the fly without changing the scene.

The second example continues the grid-based movement example by placing obstacles on the grid. One way to avoid them would be to attach colliders to the obstacles and then have the walker perform a line cast in the direction of its movement and see if the line cast hits anything. However, since this is Grid Framework we can do better than that. In this example I create a matrix that stores whether a tile is forbidden or not and then the walker checks if its next target square is alowed or not. There are no colliders or physics used.

Cannot log into my account

I've written two new examples, one that takes a plain text file and parses it to create a breakout-style level based on a grid without changing the scene, the other is a continuation of my grid-based movement exmple where I can place obstacles on the grid and the sphere will not step on those squares (without using any physics like collision and raycasts). Sadly I can't update Grid Framework because I can't log into my account via Package Manager. My account still works, I can log into the forums and my Publisher Administration, so the problem must lie within the editor. I've submitted a bug report, but until then I cannot publish updates. If you are interested in one of those two examples please contact me over the Unity forums and I'll send you the examples, provided that you already own Grid Framework. On a related note, it appears that Grid Framework's product page in the Asset Store doesn't have any screenshots. I did submit screenshots, but they don't appear for me, I don't know if other people can't see them either.