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.
I have been informed that some users are getting compiler errors when building a game for release. A fix has been submitted already, but as usual it will take a while for it to get approved. If you are affected by this issue drop me a line, the problem can be resolved withing less than a minute. This will tie you over until the update gets approved.
One of the hardest tasks when creating something is actually shipping it, but it's finally time now, version 2.0 has been submitted to the Asset Store for review. After some last-minute changes here and there, fixing typos and re-adjusting screenshots I think we are good to go. I still have to figure out how to set up the Upgrade option in the Asset Store, but it can't be that hard. The submission process officially takes between five to ten working days, so hopefully the new version will be up soon.
I have finished the build system, which also includes the previously discussed documentation dilemma. The problem was the presence of actual JavaScript files which Unity kept confusing for UnityScript files, because Unity keeps referring to UnityScript as JavaScript.
A quick status update, all the examples and the align panel that had been broken by the API change are working now again. As I had mentioned when I outlined the plans for version 2.0, this update will break the API. A major version bump is an opportunity to throw out old cruft, decouple what does not belong together and streamline everything that can be made simpler.
In version 1.x Grid Framework has been distributed over several directories: Plugins, Editor, WebPlayerTemplates and GridFamework. I did this because it seemed logical to split the content by purpose, but some people disagreed with my choice, so for version 2.0 everything will unify everything in one directory.
Breaking the rendering task out of the grid into its own dedicated class is a good first step, but if all we have gained from this is several smaller classes we haven't really gained much. In this entry I will discuss how version 2.0 gives you more control over the rendering process.
There are basically two types of grid in Grid Framework: 3D grids and layered grids. 3D grids use all three dimensions, these are rectangular and spherical grids, while layered grids are 2D grids stacked on top of each other for a third dimension. In this post I will explain how the coordinate systems of layered girds will change in version 2.0.