2D Hand Painted Desert Pack Manual & Support

Thank you for downloading the 2D Hand Painted Desert Pack, we hope it will boost your game! We designed this pack to contain everything required to create a visually stunning, immersive, and complete environment.

Supports Unity versions 2020.3 and later.

The following document should provide all you need to know to utilize everything the pack offers. Although we have invested significant efforts to provide you with the highest–quality product possible, in case you find something missing, unclear, or have a suggestion, please contact us – we are here to assist, help, and support!

Quick Navigation

Getting Started

Installing and configuring this asset is a straightforward and intuitive process. After importing the asset into Unity, the on-screen Installer window will guide you through a simple configuration process. The whole process is automated and performed by the Installer window, and it may take a few minutes.

Installation Steps

After configuring the Universal Render Pipeline and importing the asset into Unity, it will show the Installer window to guide you and configure the project on your behalf.
If the Installer window doesn’t show up, you can open it through the 2D Hand Painted/Install menu.

The Installer process has four screens:

1. Intro – Validate that your render pipeline isn’t configured correctly.
   If not configured properly, a message will appear with a link to a configuration manual; configure the render pipeline as described and upon Unity.
2. Config – A few options to customize the installation process. It’s best to leave the options as displayed initially.
3. Install – The performed tasks will be listed and marked when they are complete.
4. Enjoy – That’s it! You can close the window now; everything is ready for you to start using this asset.

Render Pipeline

This asset requires the Universal Render Pipeline with a 2D Renderer.

Requirements

Besides the Universal (2D) Render Pipeline, there are no other requirements.

Using Sprite Shapes Profiles requires installing the 2D Sprite Shapes package.
The Installer window process will install the dependency on your behalf.
You may opt out of installing it.

Demo Scene

The Demo scene showcases the usage of the pack’s Prefabs, Shaders, and Sprite Shapes.
Navigate the scene at Play Mode using the Arrows or W A S D keys; use Left Shift or the Mouse Wheel to boost speed.

Hierarchy

The scene is divided into three main layers GameObjects: Background, Midground, and Foreground; all Prefabs and Sprite Shapes are placed under one of the three layers.

Parallax

To achieve a brilliant Parallax effect, we configured the camera’s projection to Perspective instead of Orthographic.
To prevent Z-fighting (sprites jittering while the camera moves), please configure the 2D Renderer Data asset’s Transparency Sort Mode to Orthographic.

Lights

The demo scene is designed with rich lighting utilizing Unity’s rich 2D light features.

Prefabs

The Prefabs folder contains the main assets to use when working with this package. They are ready to drag and drop into the scene, pre-configured with sprites, materials, scripts, effects, etc.
The prefabs are organized into groups and are laid out for quick reference inside the Spritesheet scene.

Composite prefabs, those containing multiple child objects, have a Sorting Group component to allow changing the sorting for all the child renderers at once.

Some prefabs have variants marked with bracket tags, for example [No Wind] variant for plants.

Sprite Shapes

Unity’s 2D Sprite Shapes are a flexible and powerful world-building tool that features Sprite tiling along a shape’s outline that automatically deforms and swaps Sprites based on the outline’s angle. It’s great for creating organic and unique art for your games.

To add a shape to the scene, drag a Shape Profile from the Shapes folder. After dragging, add a material (and a component when needed) as described below.
Note that some shapes feature multiple variants – be sure to check those out!

Closed Shapes TIP

The closed Shapes Profiles provided by this pack do not define sprites for the corners; therefore, we advise adjusting the shapes’ Spline, using the different Tangent Modes.
The following method will create authentic and organic shapes (for platforms, walls, etc.):

1. When editing a shape, press on Edit Spline.
2. Select a Control Point; three Tangent Modes will appear.
3. Select the middle Continuous Mirrored mode.
4. It’s worth checking out all Tangent Modes to find which provides an organic shape.

Desert Shapes Profiles

The following is a list of Sprite Shape Profiles provided by this pack.
Please note the recommended configuration for each profile:

• Ground Closed
• Desert – Sand
• 6 sprite variants

• Rocks Closed
• Desert
• 1 sprite variant

• Bridge Open
• Desert
• 1 sprite variant

• Ground Path Open
• Desert – Sand
• 6 sprite variants

• Fence Open
• Desert
• 1 sprite variant

• Spine Skeleton Open
• Desert
• 1 sprite variant

• Palm Tree Trubk Open
• Desert
• 1 sprite variant

Effects

The Effects folder inside the Prefabs folder contains effects prefabs that can be placed to enrich the environment.
Some effects provide an intuitive editor allowing configuration and customization.

Materials

We geared this pack with the materials pre-configured for all its various assets’ needs. It’s best to use the provided materials instead of creating new ones from the pack’s shaders.

Fog Coloring

Tint a Sprite (or Sprite Shape) according to its Z position.
Tints the sprite by defining a range where From is the position without tint and To is full tint. There is a different color (and range) for background and foreground to allow more stylistic control.
The provided materials are pre-configured with fog coloring to match the pack’s ambiance.

The pack’s shaders don’t rely on Unity’s built-in fog.

Wind

The pack’s Wind system is composed of a material and a component.
Materials pre-configured with a Wind-supported shader are located inside the materials folder.

While prefabs are pre-configured with appropriate material and component for static sprites that require wind, Sprite Shapes require manually setting a material and a component for wind support.

Only after adding a Wind Options (Sprite) component, the wind animation will start.
For each instance, you can use it to customize the Speed, Noise which adds a wobble movement, and Sway which determines the amount of movement at the side farthest than the origin. The Sway Origin is the side that isn’t moving.

Sprite Shape Wind

Adding wind to a Sprite Shape is a similar process to a normal Sprite. Note that you should use a material with a name containing wind (shape) and the Wind Options (Sprite Shape) component.

The shader efficiently performs the wind animation; the Wind Options component only configure the renderer instance with the desired behavior via a Material Property Block.

Desert Materials

The following materials are provided with the pack, alongside additional materials not listed here, and used some of the effects.

Components

Besides the scripts we created for controlling various parts of this pack, we also provide a handful of MonoBehaviour components to enrich your environments.
Components are located under the 2D Hand Painted section of the Add Component menu.

Structure

After importing the pack, you should have the 2D Hand Painted folder added to your project’s Assets folder. This folder contains assets from all the 2D Hand Painted bundle packs.

For the most, what you are looking for is inside the Prefabs and Sprite Shapes folders.

Common Issues

The following are some issues we encountered more than once. Try looking for a solution before sending us a question – we may have already answered it.