Hex grid drawing - finally!
I have finished the drawing part for hex grids. As I mentioned before, there are many ways to draw hex grids and I want to cover as many of them as possible. Let's count all the possibilities that work now.
Swap variables in Unity
I've decided to go with one HexGrid class and provide enough options. To do this I will need to swap around variables so I can use the same formulae for different cases. I could write the swapping part where it is needed, but then I'd be writing the same thing several times (which is a bad thing to do). Wouldn't it be better if there was some sort of swapping function? Could that function work for any type of variable? Could it work without needing to reassign variables again? Yes to all of that:
The current roadblock
It has been over a week since my last post, so I might as well explain what's going on. As I finished rendering I had tightened up all loose ends that were left, I consider Grid Framework to be complete for rectangular grids. You can perform all the common calculations, debug things and visualize the grid properly, either using simple lines or even Vectrosity. This is just the first step though. Hex grids are very popular for games for various reasons, so it makes perfect sense to do them next, right? Well, here is where the problem starts.
Version 1.1.3 released
You know, sometimes I look at something and wonder "what kind of idiot designed this!?", only this time I was the idiot. Let's say you wanted to render a simple 3x3 grid and you wanted the origin to be in the lower left corner. Well, you simply couldn't do that, not until now:
Version 1.1.2 released
It's up, version 1.1.2 brings Vectrosity support, better documentation and integrates Grid Framework into the menu bar. From now on you will never again have to drag scripts manually from the Plugins folder onto objects when using Grid Framework.
Vectrosity progress
Well, it's pretty much done, you can now get a set of Vector3 points for use with Vectrosity from just one line of code. I played a bit with Vectrosity to make an example scene and this is what it looks like:
Line width for rendering
I just submitted version 1.1.1 (update: has been approved) which lets you set the width of the rendered line in the inspector. Here is an example, obviously it's over the top, but you can set the width to anything you like.
Version 1.1.0 out now - rendering included
Unity just approved version 1.1.0, which includes the new inspector panel and the rendering setup. Now you can see your grid in the finished game, no pro license or any other addon needed.
A new inspector
Well, I wanted to do this sooner or later anyway, so I made a custom editor for the rectangular grid. Before this I was using the default inspector panel:
Grid rendering progress
Take a look at this:
Version 1.0.1
If you tried debugging the functions FindNearestFace() or FindNearestBox() you might have noticed that the cubes drawn didn't have the same rotation as the grid. While it didn't change anything about the returned value (only the centre of the cube mattered), it looked ugly. I've submitted a small update that fixes the rotation:
Grid-based game logic
Another video tutorial, showing how to use grid-based game logic in a puzzle game. This is the tutorial for the lights-out game I mentioned before and which has been included with the package.
Release!
Grid Framework has been approved and is from now available on the Unity Asset Store for 15$