Grid Framework version 3.0.0 has been approved by the Asset Store. This is a major release, it is not backwards compatible with version 2.x. Upgrading from version 2.x or 1.x is free for existing customers. Here are the highlights of this new major version:
Version 3.0 has been submitted to the Unity Asset Store team. It has been quite a wild ride, but now it looks like we are good to go. Now all that’s left is to sit back, wait for a response and enjoy the calm. See you one the other side :)
I have been very excited to be able to make use of the Unity3D package format for the major version 3 release because it solves a number of problems I had with the previous releases. Unfortunately I have to dial back somewhat because the Asset Store only accepts contents stored inside the Assets directory of a project.
It has taken more time than I had hoped, but Grid Framework version 3.0 is finally almost done. All the code has been written and tested, the logistics have been figured out, and the documentation has been updated. This has been quite and exciting year and it is good to see the goal ahead.
I have decided to move the grid align panel into a separate package as well. There are a number of reasons for removing it from the core package:
The new overhauled Playmaker bindinds will be shipped as a separate package, so this lets me finally implement a great jumping-off point for new users: included samples. The following samples are now included and can be individually added to or removed from your project:
Let’s have a mental exercise: image something shameful you have done, it doesn’t have to be the most shameful thing, just something that you really are not proud of should do. Now imagine putting it in a sealed box where it will be rotting and festering for years. Now imagine having to open that box, slowly lifting the lid as the rancid smell starts creeping out of the box. That is how it felt when I opened up the old Playmaker support.
In my previous post I wrote about how I maintain the optional extra packages to Grid Framework. Since this point is useful for working with Unity in general I think it’s worth elaborating upon the topic in a separate post.
I have completely transitioned Grid Framework to a Unity3D package now and moved Vectrosity support to a separate package. The Vectrosity package will be made available as a public Git repository under the MIT license, that should make it as simple as possible for users to add it to their project. While transitioning to packages has had many advantages there have also been some challenges to overcome and I would like to go over them in this post.
When I released version 1 and version 2 of Grid Framework there was no real way of separating libraries. You had to dump everything into your project in one assembly. Using namespaces prevented name collisions, but you still had things like examples or documentation bloating up your project and there was no way of expressing dependencies. Since then Unity has introduced its own package system, which will solve many of the problems I have had in the past.
I have finished the rendering backend for Vectrosity and updated the included examples to use it. Previous releases already came with an extension method that let you get the list of points to construct a vector line, but the actual construction of the vector line was up to the user.
The big one has landed: mesh-based rendering. This is the main reason for the major version bump and it is fully working now. Mesh-based rendering means that instead of drawing lines using the low-level GL class a mesh is generated which Unity can then render the same way it renders any other mesh. This means that grid lines can now be rendered below sprites instead of always on top of them.
Grid Framework version 3.0 is coming along nicely, I have reached feature parity with the previous major release. This means that the heavy refactoring is mostly done and I can now build upon that foundation. I want to take this opportunity to reflect on what will change.
I intend to release a new major update which will address among other things the grid rendering system. It has been almost five years since the release of version 2.0, and Unity has changed quite a lot in this time. Some of those changes, in particular the introduction of sprites, need to be accounted for in Grid Framework.